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I realised that I don't know what people mean by certain things.
So, I know downhill. (I see that on the tv)
I get the idea of trail centres.
What about Cross country?
Has that a definition? Or are there a lot of opinions as to what that means?
Good question. I used to think I liked cross country, but then I realised I didn't actually know what it was. The MTB world moved on far more quickly than I could keep up.
Downhill is for downhillers, cross country is for cross **** 😉
Cross country
I would regard XC as a bike with 100mm forks a long seat post and a rider wearing Lycra aboard said bike. They are the guys most likely to religiously check the weight of every component and stress over the strength to weight ratio conundrum on every new cross country wheelset that gets released. Oh and XC is more about climbing and speed, so kind of the roadies of the dirt world.
XC is crap, XC is crap, nothing to see here
But yea, as a race format, it's mostly about pedaling hard until you taste blood one way or another for an hour or two. Or like Enduro, but with an "up" stage as well, and no transition times.
This will tell you everything you need to know...
How To Be a Mountain Biker...
You have 3 race disciplines, to do any at a high level takes a lot of skill.
XC and DH are the most specific of bikes, enduro fills a lot of gaps in between.
But outside of that heaps of bikes that go up and downhill well, are fun to ride and do a bit of everything,
As for the riding that 'most people do' that's quite difficult to pin down too. Some people do what we used to do in the old days, which is following bridleways through the hills/woods. This can be technical or not, depending where you live. But over the last 10-15 years people have been making home-made trails through the parts of the woods unused by walkers etc. Some of these are technical and difficult, like DH courses, some are just nice flowy singletrack. Again, depends where you are. A typical ride for you might be on these trails, it might be on the traditional bridleways, it might be both. You could seek to cover miles out in the hills, you could seek technical fun, or even both.
So your choice of bike reflects your priorities more than anything. If you like the technical bits you choose a bike that is best at those (slack angles, more travel etc) and put up with it being worse on the other bits. And vice versa. The bike themselves aren't really labelled with categories much any more (apart from the race formats) because they are all on a sliding scale really.
Mountain biking;
a ride with your mates,
that slog up the eternal hill
dragging clay out of your wheels to make them turn on a winters day
A summers day under blue sky’s creating dust trails
Bouncing off rocks so big your giggling like a loon by the bottom
a ride under a cold and unforgiving star scape with frost under wheel and smoke on the water
Beer at the pub with your mates
Feeling like the last man on Earth looking out upon the landscape
I class xc as anything a relative beginner could get round, ie gt black is imo xc..the challenge is doing it fast.
I could get round something like gt black after about 6 months of riding, however doubt i could get down the trails used in most enduro events without falling off after 5 years of biking, unless I absolutely minced my way down. Certainly couldn't ride them at speed.
XC can be anything from bridleway pootling to XCO racing and everything in between.
This sums up the racing quite nicely.. busting a gut up the climbs followed by managing the descents while your heart-rate maxes out.