2021 UCI XC World Cup and World Championships (Spoilers) - including Marathon World Championships

Speaking of droppers, a post problem seemed to really affect Fluckiger too. I think he would have been able to hang with Nino and Koretzky, but you never know.

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Why do you think her husband is a bad coach for her?

It’s pretty surprising how many dropper problems you see in these races. Be interesting to go back and track what brands are the ones failing.

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I believe you have to run the exact same bike for the short track that you want to run in the XCO. You can only swap rubber. So if she wanted the dropper on Sunday, her hand was forced.

Then you see what happened to Mathias Flückiger in the XCO. He was the likely winner before his dropper decided to call it a day. These companies really need to sort this stuff out.

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I wonder if it’s because they are running the lightweight ones?

IME those are the ones that tend to fail.

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I bet they are extremely lightweight versions.

MVDP doesn’t dominate so much on courses with extreme amounts of climbing. I reckon he’ll blow everyone away next weekend.

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Pidcock’s charge through the field was pretty incredible when you consider who he was catching and passing from WAY BACK on the start line. And post-race he said he had a flat, which accounts for that weird spot where he seemed to suddenly lose some time and MVDP caught up.

Good racing both days though. Excited for next weekend!

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Any xc racers here who do cx too? Curious on how starts, wattwise, compare. Seem a bit more crucial in xc because passing becomes way more tough.

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Are any of you guys doing the pinkbike fantasy league? Saw there is a private TrainerRoad league but it would be fun to do along with this thread.

Really difficult with the price cap forces you to look deeper in the field of riders.

I believe he snapped his cable for the dropper. It would t surprise me if some of them are trying to use the lightest dropper post and therefore not the most robust. A decent dropper rarely fails these days.

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Wonder if they’re also using lightweight cables. Droppers in 2021 are very reliable especially when properly maintained. So they must have been cutting weight corners for droppers to fail so dramatically. Which would make sense on such a climbing course.

I remember watching her YouTube channel back then, and thinking that this claim was way overblown, may have forgotten since then. That season she was sick for most of March, and some riders are not able to overcome being sick during a key part of the build. She also commented at the end of that season, that she had to travel without her husband, and was pretty lonely in Europe during all that time. With all that said, I agree that her husband is not a great coach for her, you have to be able to separate the two.

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I was absolutely blown away by the numbers from Albstadt. I usually consider a 1Mile:100ft ratio pretty good climbing and most races I enter are in the 100-150ft per mile ratio. Albstadt’s numbers were like 250 feet per mile (16 miles, 3600 feet) for XCO. And 13-ish mph

That makes my knees buckle.

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I set up my team for this weekend, but forgot about it before last weekend. So i am at zero points ATM.
Anyone know the password for the private TR league?

Wow, what a great race in the men’s. Very impressive ride from Pidcock. Controlled race from Cooper, I think he’ll be well placed to improve with more racing at that level.

I really wanted Nino to get that win, but hats off to Koretzky for sticking with him on the attack and having the go juice at the end!

Very excited for Novr Mesto next weekend. A track that really suits MvDP and Cooper. Pidcock will be in the XCC and starting a lot closer to the front. I suspect Albstadt is a course that doesn’t suit bigger guys it seems. Perfect for a pocket rocket like Pidcock. Next week will be a great test.

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Honest question, why are people following Pidcock so closely these days?

He’s a massive rising talent. The Brits are a large cycling market and Pidcock is the shining star already.

I do think he’s going to be a feature of the World Cup circuit if he wants to be. I’m not sure if he intends to race XCO beyond Tokyo or not though.

I’m more interested in the Kiwi’s, but Pidcock just rode through over 100 of the best mountain bikers in the world, and beat Anton to the line.

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It also sounded like England don’t have a spot qualified for Tokyo yet either, so that’s something to pay attention to.

In the last 6 months, he won a CX Superprestige event, out-sprinted WvA at Brabantse Pijl, and went from the back row to the lead group of a XCO World Cup race. That’s pretty cool/compelling.

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I’m a huge Nino fan and want to see him break the wins record. I think having seen him race last weekend, his fitness is where it needs to be to win. Is it as good as year past? Who knows, but it is at least enough. I think he needs to let the young guns make the effort though. It seems like he feels the need to chase down every single attack and then try to initiate every single selection towards the end. Koretzky rode a brilliant race - he didn’t really have to anything other than stay third or fourth wheel, let Nino ride the front, and out sprint the old guy with some fresh legs.

As much as I love Nino specifically because of his aggressive style, I would sort of like to see him let somebody else do the work and tow him to the sprint with fresh legs for once. Do less, Nino, do less.

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