07 June 2017

XC race series is upon us

Wednesday 7th June 2017 is the first round of the XC race series in town. This is a 6 race series put on by the Arctic Bike Club MTB division.

As mentioned in previous blogs I have been "training" with a group of really quick riders and steadily seeing my speed increase which is nice. Although I haven't been out with them for the last couple of weeks due to scheduling conflicts, I think (hope), I will have enough carry through from the earlier training to perform better than last season.

Speaking of which. Today I did a little testing and I am still unsure of  the choice ahead of me.
My dilema is do I ride my trusty 5" travel 29er bike which is a little overkill for most of the XC races in all honesty but a lot of fun. Or do I ride my rigid fat bike with the 27.5+ wheels where I will get pretty beaten up by the end of the course especially through the rooty sections.

Using the wonderful Strava I was able to compare my times through a couple of rooty sections of the course. We did one hotter lap on Saturday when we had got to know the course and this was the times I was comparing to.

Both bikes came out around the same time for all the sections I compared to. Unfortunately I couldn't do a full lap test as one section of the course is one way on odd vs even days.

Oh well, I guess I will sleep on it and make a decision tomorrow.