Steve Tilford

MTB Nationals

July 17, 2011 by Steve Tilford 4 comments 16 views

I saw the results from the US MTB Nationals yesterday. Todd won again for back to back wins. I was interested in seeing Ned finished 14th, about 12 minutes back. I’m not sure why the race was only 1:44 for the winner. I haven’t been in the MTB scene enough to know if they’ve just made the races shorter or they missed the mark. It seems like 12 minutes in 1:45 is a lot. Todd must be going pretty fast. I guess there was a Fat Tire Criterium on Friday night, with a $7500 prize list. If the race would have been a week later and I would have known about the criterium, I probably would have made my way over to Idaho to race. I was considering doing either the Leadville 50 or Breckenridge 100 this weekend, but that didn’t work out. I definitely want to get in a few MTB races soon. But, not anywhere near the midwest, it is 100,000 degrees in Kansas right now.

Here’s Ned’s bike from Sea Otter. It’s a low-end aluminum Specialized frame, close to the same he rode last year to the Single Speed National TItle. I’m not sure if Ned just has to buy his own frames, and is a cheap skate, or that Specialized is pushing low end bikes for elite MTB racing.

[

Comments (4)

andy v

2011-07-17 10:48:32

http://www.honeystinger.com/steamboatstinger.html since you’re in colorado

james

2011-07-17 18:44:54

1 hour 30 - 1 hour 45 is the new UCI target length for XCO races to make them more appealing to potential spectators.

Tim

2011-07-17 19:10:06

There’s definitely been a trend at the pro/elite level to shorten the races and put them onto almost manufactured race courses– more like extended CX races. It’s happening to an even more extreme degree at the World Cups.

Deserve’s Got Nothing To Do With It « Service Course Velo

2011-07-19 01:22:37

[…] Do you know why? Because the Pros ride the same bikes as you and I. They just happen to be really nice ones. Sometimes, the bikes the pros are on aren’t even as nice as the ones you and I can buy off the shelf. Teams have budgets and often that means they all get alloy bars and stems instead of carbon ones that cost three times as much. Cassettes are sometimes Ultegra or SRAM Force level. Shoot, if you are a Campy fan, there’s only one team in Europe on Super Record. Most of them “make do” with Record. Even Ned Overend, one of the greatest mountain bikers ever and at 54 years old is a racer who can still finish 12th in the national championships, doesn’t race a super nice bike. His frame is the same one that comes on a mid-level Speciali…. […]