Noob’s Guide to MTB Racing #10: The Start

It may seem odd that “The Start” is coming in at the last of the 10 segments of this guide. But the truth is, the majority of your performance will depend on what you do in the hours, days, even months before you are at the start line. As for the race itself, your final results in an XC event will largely depend on how well you get through the first 5 minutes.

XC Race Starts: Typically, XC races have a simple staged start that should be familiar to people who have raced or watched other cycling or running events. Some races have a disorganized mass start, the earlier you get to the start line, the better your starting position will be. In WORS races, the top ranking racers getting ‘called up’ to the first row or two at the start line. The rest of us schmucks have to line up after them. I recommend lining up 15 minutes early.

Endurance Races often use a Le Man’s Start: Bikes are staged someplace and you have to run to them, get on, and get going. These runs are typically 50-100 yards, but some can be up to a half-mile (I'm looking at you Marji Gesick). So you should probably practice running a bit… especially in your cycling shoes. Generally speaking the starts of endurance races are not as intense as XC races since no one wants to blow-up in the first 10 minutes of a 3, 6 or 12-hour race.

Line up on the far left or far right side of the group. This is true if you’re in the front row, its even more true if you're several rows back. Being on the outside of the group means you can move around other rides and move forward more easily. It also means that there is only one person on one side of you, rather than a person on either side. That reduce the chance that someone is going to fumble and get in your way by 50%, and leaves you a way out if someone does. A strong rider could move from up from 10 rows back if they have the outside line.

Left side or Right side?: Depends on the course coming up. As you pre-ride, identify where the choke points will be as the race course changes from a wide open area, to double-track to singletrack. Figure out which side will give you the best line through these. Usually its the outside line in a corner.

Go as hard as you can off the line. XC Races are made or broken in the first few minutes. Once you get into the singletrack, your position is all but locked-in already. Through most of the race, it can be a very slow process working your way forward in the field. Meanwhile, while you’re stuck behind a slower rider, the lead riders have a more open trail ahead of them and they are putting time on you quickly. So use the pre-race nerves and adrenaline to get as far up in the field as you can right off the line.

…But don’t over-do it: The adrenaline and endorphins will allow you to go exceptionally hard, harder than you can actually physically maintain. Understand this, use it, but rein it in a bit because it can be really hard to recover if you go too far past the red line. Use your pre-race time to check out the course and figure out at what point you can let off the gas (first descent or once you enter the single-track) and pace yourself to make it that far at full force. You can only maintain 110% for a minute or two, use that time wisely.

Work your way through the traffic jam: There are often a lot of traffic jams in mass start races with large fields. Even good riders can goof a minor obstacle and back everyone behind them up. Or sometimes the group hasn’t had enough time to string out, and everyone tries to squeeze into singletrack simultaneously. In short, it can be a trainwreck. You want to get ahead of the traffic, or at least as much of it as you can. If you can’t do that. Try to stay calm, level-headed and think through the most efficient way through the traffic.

Noob’s Guide to MTB Racing #9: Pre-Race

Train Hard, Rest Harder: You got to take it easy for several days if you’re going to preform your best on race day. If you’re young and in your prime, that might just be two easy days before the race. If you’re more along the lines of middle-aged, you should probably taper a bit longer. This includes on-the-bike, and off-the-bike activities.

Carbo-Loading: We used to think carbo-loading was just eating a massive amount of spaghetti the night before the race. This is, in fact, a bad idea since it can lead to a gut full of food on race-day morning. Carbo loading, done properly, is a multi-day diet shift to maximize the glycogen stores in your muscles, so they are there when you need them for the race. I won’t claim to be an expert in the latest research on the subject, so I suggest you google it. Don’t try anything new, stick to foods you’re familiar with and that you know you digest well.

Don’t Over-Eat: A huge meal the night before the race is bad, a big meal the day of the race is worse. Eating too much for breakfast has taken me out of contention in more races than every other factor put together (I have a sensitive tummy). I now have a strict protocol: I finish eating two bagels and one banana, no less than 3 hours before the race. Stick to food your familiar with.

Hydrate or Die: Much like carbo-loading, you can increase the water you have stored in your body by pre-hydrating. Again, last think you want to do is drink a water-cooler-ful the night before or morning of the race. Do drink a bit extra. Eat a little bit extra salty food too. Be sure you’re peeing fairly regularly, light yellow or clear.

Do nothing new on race day. Whether that be what you're eating or your suspension settings, race day is not the time to try out that awesome new thing that is sure to make you faster. The more likely result is creating an unanticipated problem. Stick to what you know.

Develop a pre-race routine: Everyone’s routine will be a bit different. Think through some key things you want to do before the race. Make a list if it makes you feel more organized and calmer. For me its register, stretch, warm-up… and a pre-race poop should be in there somewhere too.

Get there Early: Get to the races with plenty of time to encompass that pre-race routine, some socializing and the inevitable littlet hings that come up. I like to have a solid two hours.

Pre-ride the Course: Pro’s pre-ride the entire course, sometimes multiple times, often walking the tricky sections so they can go over it more clearly in their minds. You, on the other hand, have a day job. That said, even a minimal amount of pre-riding will go a long way towards a great race. I’d recommend checking out at least the first 1/4 mile of the course. This will allow you to get a good start without any surprises, and that means you’ll have the best chance at a strong finish.

Warm Up: The race start is going to be intense. Make sure you’re well warmed up. A minimum of 10 minutes of riding, maybe 20 for some folks. You should get your heart rate up for a bit

Calming the Nerves: Pre-race jitters happen to every one at every level of racing, from their first race to the world-cup circuit. Its normal. You’re OK. In fact, being nervious just shows you care and if you don’t care, why are you doing it at all. Getting back to my point, do what clams you. For me, its stretching* and having plenty of time.

* I know the kids these days are saying “cold” stretching before an event is no good. Works for me.

Noob’s Guide to MTB Racing #7: Nutrition and Hydration for Endurance Races

Fueling can absolutely make or break your day. If you run out of fuel and bonk, it can be hard to recover to keep riding for hours more. If you eat too much, or the wrong thing between laps or at an aid station, bloating and tummy aches can slow you down to a snails pace until you get through it. It’s no exaggeration to say that fueling is the second most important aspect of endurance racing behind good training and fitness. Bad food choices have taken me out of more endurance races than exhaustion, injury, crashes, mechanicals and weather, combined.

Plan to consume 200-350 calories per hour: Everybody’s body is different, but this calorie range should cover most people. The fitter you are and the deeper your glycogen reserves are, the less you will need, and your base metabolism will be a factor too. You will have to do a few long rides and races and record what you eat to figure out where you are in this range.

Create a Fueling Plan: Multiply the average number of calories you expect to consume per hour by the number of hours you will be on the bike to figure out your total calories for the day. Then look at the nutritional labels of the food items and drinks you plan to consume during the race and start adding them together until you have enough calories to get you through the event. I use a spreadsheet to calculate this. And it would be wise to record what you actually consumed after the race for future reference.

Use Sports Drink as Your Primary Fuel Source: Its easier to digest calories in liquid form. Its easiest to get liquid in your mouth from a hydration pack. As stated in Part #4, but certainly worth repeating: most sports drinks will foul your hydration bladder quickly, and you will need to clean it after each event. I find that Tailwind Endurance Fuel has a light flavor that is refreshing and its easy to clean out of hydration packs with nothing more than a rinse. They claim that its “All you need, all day. Really.” I find I can still tolerate it as a refreshing drink at 200, or no more than 250 calories per liter (they make it simple in that its 100 calories per scoop), and then I need some solid food every hour or two as well.

Keep Fueling Consistently: This is easier said than done. It’s pretty easy to get distracted by race conditions, technical trail sections or interacting with other riders, and forget to eat or drink. But these dips and calorie consumption can add up over time and you risk bonking or are forced you to eat a bit extra to compensate, and risk indigestion.

It’s hard to consume too many electrolytes while racing: It’s easy to get dehydrated while racing. It can also be easy to do the opposite and drink too much, but I personally find that getting more salt in my body is always a good think while endurance racing. That might mean salty snacks like goldfish or salted nuts (which are also a refreshing change from the sweetness of my sports drink) but it usually also means that I’m taking an electrolyte tablet eery hour or two, on top of all that.

Noob’s Guide to MTB Racing #6: Nutrition and Hydration for XC Races

What to Eat Before The Race: I’ll get more into this in Part #9: Pre-Race, to follow. For the moment note that, because of the intensity of the start of a mountain bike race, its important not to over-eat before the race. My rule of thumb is to eat a satisfying but not large breakfast finishing no less than 3 hours before the race.

Plan to drink 1 liter per hour. If its hot and you’re sweating a lot or if you’re pushing yourself harder, you will need to drink more. Some people just naturally need more water than others. Honestly, a liter is too much for most folks in most cases, but until you start to get a feel for how your body reacts to different race-day conditions, its better to have a little too much than not enough.

Drink Early, Drink Often: Again, at race pace you will need more water than you thirst might indicate, and your mind will be on many other things, so you need to remind yourself to drink regularly, right from the first few minutes of the race.

Use a Hydration Pack: Its difficult to get a bottle off the bike frequency and safely during a XC race. So use a hydration pack instead, carry only as much water as you need. With that said, on a less technical course with a lot of double-track or road, a water bottle will be lighter.

Electrolyte are really important to keeping your brain and nervous system firing correctly. For shorter events, you probably have enough reserves in your body to make it to the end, but if you’re racing more than an hour, topping up can help keep you sharp to the finish. I like electrolyte tables since they are easy to ingest independent of calorie intake but a secure place to keep them while racing takes some forethought. Some people like products that can be dissolved in your water like Nuun tablets.

Have a little fuel on-hand: Depending on your fitness level and how well you ate before the race, you may be able to make it through the whole race without eating. Then again, you might not, and bonking in the last few miles of a race can make for a rough finish. Eating while racing is difficult. An energy gel pack is just enough calories for 15-30 minutes of racing and for most folks is relatively easy to digest. Pro tip: Rather than carrying them in your jersey pocket, instead tape one or two to your bike by the rip-off tab, someplace like the top tube or stem. These can then just be ripped off with one hand and squeezed into the mouth as needed. Don’t litter.

An energy bar, granola bar, or energy chew with the package already opened will be fairly easy to eat with one hand while riding, if you’re not into gels.

How to know when to eat?: If you find yourself feeling GREAT, its probably time to eat. I usually have a surge of energy and good feelings right before I bonk. If you start feeling even a little bit tired or hungry eat immediately, do not wait until it gets worse.

Sports Drinks have water, calories and electrolytes, so why not just drink those? First off, most sports drinks will provide the nutrients for bacteria and fungi to start growing in your hydration pack. If you use sports drink in a hydration pack, you will need to carefully wash ever nook and cranny of the bladder, hose and bite valve after every use, which is a PIA. Second, sports drink is often ‘syrupy’ and not as thirst quenching as water. Third, sometimes you want a mix of water, calories, and electrolytes that is different than what is formulated in your sports drink.

One combo that might work is a hydration pack with just 1 L in it, and a small bottle of sports drink mixed at a higher than standard concentration. On of our sponsors, Scratch Labs’ drink would be ideal for this. You can drink from the bottle on the open stretches of the course when its safe to take a hand off the bars for a few seconds, to get your calories and electrolytes. It’s a little heavier than the gel pack, but you might find it easier to digest and handle.

Another option is to use sports drink diluted to about 50% of the recommended mix rate (or if you’re buying it in liquid form, mixed 1:1 with water. You’ll still need to clean out your bladder, but the trickle of calories and electrolytes you get in this mix should be enough to get you through an XC length event.

You’ll just have to try things out to see what works for you. But never eating or drinking something new on race day.

Noob’s Guide to MTB Racing #5: Cornering

You probably suck at corning. Sorry to be blunt, but even if you already race, I have to tell you, most Cat 3,4,5 cross racers are pretty terrible at cornering. I’ve literally passed half-a-dozen people in a single corner in a CX race. I’m sure they all passed me right back on the next climb on long straight-away, but the point is, they lost a lot of time because they didn’t know how to get through a corner effectively. Multiply that by every corner in the race, and multiply that by every lap. Mountain bike races have a lot more corners than a cross race, and most of them are more technically challenging. Aside from getting fitter and stronger, learning to corner faster and harder is probably the best way you can make up more time in races.

Use the whole trail: Let’s start with the basics. A single track trail might be 8” wide, it might be 2’ wide. There’s no rule you need to ride right down the middle of it. Before we get to cornering proper, you have to think of the trail, not as a single line, but as a broad swath of route options. Imagine a gently bending section of trail. Now imagine yourself riding the straightest line possible through these gentle bends. There are a lot of factors that might effect the fastest line down a particular section of trail, but the straightest line between two points is always the shortest, and its a good place to start. Now, let’s apply this concept to corners proper.

Wide-tight-wide: You want to use the whole corner so you ride the straightest, and therefore fastest line through it. That means starting wide, entering on the outside of the corner, cut tight to the very inside corner, and exit wide to the outside again.

Put your outside foot down: You’ll be leaning towards the inside of the turn so keep that inside foot/pedal up and out of the way. You should actually be pushing down through the outside foot to increase the load on the tires, and thus traction (more on this below).

Loading your tires: Pushing your bike down into the corner will give you more grip in the corners. You’re driving the bike through the trail with your downward thrust. Your outside pedal should be down and you should be pushing down through it. Typically, I load the front tire a little bit more than the rear, pushing through the corner with the front tire. You should be putting force down on the rear tires too, but the difference is that if the front tire slides out, you are going down. If your rear tire slides out, you can usually recover.

PRACTICE!: Feel out how hard you can corner. Get a baseline feel for how hard you can corner at various speeds. Find someplace that’s just packed dirt, maybe a construction site, maybe a firmed-up baseball field, a packed-gravel lot if you have to, whatever. If you can’t find a big area of dirt, lawn will suffice. The dynamics and break-away points will be different than on dirt, but what you’re trying to determine is the feel of your body and the bike before breaking traction. Now, just practice making turns. Go a bit faster and/or tighter each time, lean your bike over harder each time, incrementally, until your tires start to let loose and you skid or go down. You may want to do this without clipping in. A good tire will give you some warning before it lets loose, but its not uncommon for a tire to just let go in the corner unexpectedly. See how you, your bike and your tires handle corners so you have a feel for how hard you can push it on the trail. Now, that you know the limit, keep it going a few more times, keeping yourself just inside the breaking point for traction.

PRACTICE!: You’ve got to be smooth before you can be fast. Start out practicing cornering at a slow speed, a speed at which you can easily handle the speed and can think through what you’re doing as you’re doing it. Get the technique down, get the line down. You should feel smooth and steady. Then once you think you have it, start pushing yourself to go through the corners progressively faster. Good technique is more important than absolute speed at this point.

Now that you have a plan, find yourself a short section of trail with several corners that you can easily repeat and ‘session’ over and over. You’re going to want to ride each corner 5-10 times each in this outing. Now, here is what you’ll be practicing:

Do your breaking before the corner: The contact patch of your tires only have so much grip. That grip can be used for braking or corning, or some combination there of. If you’re using some of that traction for braking, you’re not using all of it for corning as fast as possible. Decelerate to the right speed before you hit the corner. Then hold your conviction, keep your fingers off the brakes, and rail it. 

If you must brake mid-corner, use your rear brake only. The rear tire might skid around if you over do it, but this is easier to recover from. In certain conditions a skilled rider can even use a rear wheel skid to adjust their angle on the trail and exit the corner faster.

Look through the corner to the exit: Seeing as far as you can through will help you understand how to set-up for it. Look for the line that will give you the fastest exit. Look for any anomalies that might cause you to alter this line a bit. You can’t always see all-the-way through a corner, but look as far as you can. Keep your eyes on the point you need your bike to go. Push your body and drive your handlebars to get there. 

Bermed Corners: Once you learn to handle them, a berm allows you take a corner fast. You can lean into the turn and the centrifugal force you generate becomes downforce pushing your tires into the berm, giving you better traction. So how do you make the most of it? You still want to maintain as much momentum as possible. In this case you’re going to use your momentum to build elevation up the side of the berm, and then set up your exit for the berm so that you turn that elevation back into momentum. The faster you are going the higher you should go up the side, but if you go too high you will bleed off too much speed, and of course, you are riding a longer distance and taking more time covering that distance. You should feel like you’re forcing the bike to stay down a bit more than it naturally wants to. You should reach your highest elevation on the berm at the midpoint of the turn or slightly before you reach the midpoint. Its smoother and easier to have a steady arch through the turn, but squaring the turn a bit earlier gives you a little better control and speed for your exit.

Finding berms on flat corners: Modern trails are built, to shed water off the side rather than letting it run down the length of the trail. As trails are used more, they tend to cut in, developing a shallow rut from erosion and soil compaction. As a result of this design and wear on a trail, trails will often form mini-berms in flat corners. Try to uses these little edges when you can find them to push against, hold more traction and maintain more speed through the corner.

Sometimes a berm is a distraction: Sometimes poorly made berms, are not the best line through a corner. Same goes for those wear-created mini-berms, after all, most people don’t take the best line through the corner. Don’t force yourself to use a berm if it doesn’t seem like the best line.

Pass on the inside on corners. Now that you’re smooth and fast in the corners, use this to your advantage. If you’re looking to pass the rider in front of you, watch for an opportunity when they will hit a corner wide. You will need to anticipate this, accelerate before the corner, set-up wide, come through the corner inside of them, and get by them in time to exit wide.

Noob’s Guide to MTB Racing #4: Going Fast Uphill and Downhill

Bike races are won in the climbs. For the most part, your climbing performance will depend on your strength, aerobic fitness and power to weight ratio. But there is some technique you can apply to make the best use of your abilities.

Build speed leading up to the base of a climb: The more momentum you have at the start of a climb, the further up the climb it can carry you. If you’re going from a descent directly into a climb carry as much speed through from the downhill to the uphill.  If you’re going from a flat into a climb, start your effort early to build some speed going into it. Either way your momentum will carry you further up the climb with less effort.

Stay seated for most of the climb: You are more efficient sitting down. You can produce more power standing, but at the expense of using significantly more energy, and requiring more oxygen. Keep your butt in the saddle and stand if necessary, just at the tail-end of the climb to get yourself over the top.

It’s OK to stand for short climbs: Putting a bit more effort into short climbs is worth it if it allows you to maintain momentum.

Keep up the effort you are putting into climbing over the top of a climb and down the back side. This allows you to get yourself back up to speed and cover ground faster. Climbing is hard, usually you will feel like letting off the gas as soon as you’re at the top, but then you’re stuck at the top putzing along slowly, and losing time. Pace yourself so as to keep the effort going for just a few more seconds. Build up your speed on the flat or descent that follows, then you can take it down a notch. This is a good way to pass people who blow-up on the climbs too.

For steep climbs, move your body weight forward. Doing so will keep the front wheel down, maintain traction and put you in a powerful pedaling position. For the steepest climbs, you’ll want to bend your elbows, move your chest down towards your bars and your butt forward and plant your taint on the tip of the saddle. It’s not comfortable, but your legs and lungs will hurt so much, you’ll hardly notice.

For steep or technical descents, you’ll want to get your body weight back and down. Your butt should be hanging behind and below the saddle, your inner/upper thighs should be in contact with the saddle for control, and you should be hovering about an inch above it. Keep your cranks parallel to the ground, keep your knees and elbows bent and ready to react. Keep your weight off the front wheel.

Don’t be afraid of speed: Speed alone is not dangerous. In fact, speed can make traveling over that rough section you find intimidating smoother and easier. Carry as much speed as you can into the next section.

PRACTICE!: Try pacing yourself up and over climbs on your trail rides. Find the steepest climbs you can and challenge yourself to get up them, and then to get up them fast. And you don’t need to be out on the trail to practice a lot of these techniques. You can work on a lot of this on the road bike, or find a local park with rolling terrain.

Noob’s Guide to MTB Racing #3: To Tool Kit, or Not to Tool Kit

Individual achievement, self-improvement and self-reliance are foundational values of mountain biking. Following this ideology, mountain bike races are completely self-supported. Outside help is not allowed. No pit repairs, no spare wheels, no hand-ups. So if something goes wrong with your bike, its on-you to get it going again.

No Tools, No Problem? You can save some weight and have fewer loose bits to worry about if you leave the tool kit behind for the race. The obvious downside is that you won’t be able to fix your bike if something goes wrong. For races with shorter laps you have a better chance of being able to hoof it back to your car to commence a fix. This decision depends on your level of confidence in your equipment or your mechanical ability, but really, it comes down to how you judge the risk of a mechanical mishap taking you out of the race and how important finishing is to you. Your call.

A flat tire is the most common problem, even with modern tubeless systems. A spare tube will fix this in short-order. So, the most bare-bones (and seemingly most common) tool kit combination includes a spare tube and a CO2 cartridge and inflator. Some folk simply duct tape these to the bike, on the seatpost or elsewhere, other people keep it all together in a plastic bag or tool wrap (recommended). Personally, I find that a plug kit like the expensive, but fast and effective Dynaplug Racer will almost-always patch a hole that is too big for sealant. So I might recommend something like this plus a CO2 as a great minimalist kit.

The second most likely thing to disable a bike is a broken chain. So leveling-up your tool kit means bringing a multitool that includes a chain tool. The Allen wrenches and other bits can also be useful if a handlebar or saddle get out-of-whack as the result of a crash. Before you buy a multi-tool, make sure the bits it has matches all of the bolts and screws on your bike. If you’re ‘in it to finish’, a tube, a way to inflate it, and a multitool with a chain tool and other bits will almost certainly have what you need to get you there.

Don’t worry about what you can’t prevent. A lot of other things can break especially as the result of a crash: derailleur hangers get bent, cleats get torn out of shoes, rotors get bent, spokes break, etc. For a lot of these problems, you and your bike won’t be performing optimally, but you can usually ride it out. Sometimes, random mechanicals that you would never expect take you out of the race. Usually those things will at least make for a good story.

For an endurance event, especially a point-to-point race, you’ll probably want some spare parts and repair supplies to fix these unexpected issues. Here is what I carry for long events and ‘epic’ rides:

- multi-tool with chain tool (a chain tool can also be used as a valve core remover)

- pump and CO2 inflator with one cartridge

- tire lever

- spare tube

- spare valve core (the whole presta valve is not needed, usually its some part of the core that fails)

- spare derailleur hanger (these are fragile and without them your bike can be crippled)

- spare cleat bolt (might be useful somewhere other than your shoe)

- spare tire plugs

- two band aids (apply at first sign of nipple chafing)

- shammy cream (apply at first sign of tant chafing)

- safety pins

- ibuprofen (aka Vitamin I)

- bit-o’ toilet paper (has literally saved my butt on a few occasions)

- 3-4 cable ties

- 2-3' of duct tape (wrapped around pump).