North West Mountainbikers - Gravity Enduro

A dozen riders from around the North West region and beyond to join in a morning of shuttles at Mt Borah, near Manilla, 50km north of Tamworth.

Attending were a number of junior riders from our local club Tamworth Mountanbikers, these kids have spent some of this year attending SuperFlow and other Enduro style events from the mid-north coast to Newcastle, and beyond.

It was our first visit to these trails and geared up with protection from 661, we felt this could be a good technical challenge. The Borah trails are strewn with jutting rocks and with the current dry weather a super loose top surface.

Photo: Ben Marsh

The Borah trails also have a number of drops, gaps and tabletops, all with B-lines. Rolling these trails can be slow and laborious, racing these trails, a technical nightmare of choices.

We managed to roll through the three trails North West Mountainbikers had put on offer. There were a plenty of sections that you could spend hours perfecting, but we were keen to put some timed runs together, to compare with the other riders.

Photo: Ben Marsh

After a “race” run on each trail, we felt there was still room for improvement, we headed back up to Stage 1 and 2. We put together smoother runs for both stages and reduced our times by 10 seconds on each stage.

Not resting on our laurels we rode back up to the top to get Stage 1 just a little better. Almost at the end of the run we lost some speed in a double drop biting the dirt on completion of the drops. Pushing our bike past the gate, bars bent and with dusty knees, we had managed to drop the race time by another 3 seconds.

Photo: The Broken Spoke Tamworth

In the wash-up we placed 2nd on Stage 1, 3rd on Stage 2 and 3rd on Stage 3 for a win by 8 seconds.

Full results here.

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Rocky Trail Grand Prix Championship - Awaba

A smaller crew had turned up at Awaba for the Grand Prix Championship for 2019. It was warm already on arrival with a forecast that only promised further heat and wind. 

We gathered with our JetBlack Racing Team mates, many of which had just completed a reccy lap, sweat already dripping from their brows. Some light banter as both teams and solos considered their strategies.

On our own short reccy we found the trail was dry and loose in sections. With Jason English naming the game for the day being smooth in and out of corners, it wasn’t long before we headed down the firetrail for a race start.

All photos by: OuterImage

On our first lap we were joined by team mate Kevlar, who was on his final run of large rides for the year. With Kev barking orders we wound our way around the increasingly diverse trail Awaba now has on offer.

Passing Kev, we kept an eye on the riders a couple of hundred meters in front of us, maintaining a nice pace over the first few laps. With the inclusion of Camelback Climb there was plenty of sweet long descents to have fun on.

Hitting the midway mark it was getting crazy warm and we could feel our body not responding well to the early heat. But it wasn't just us starting to suffer, we tagged onto, then passed Mobius rider Chris who admitted being cooked. Chis went on to slide 10mins behind over the course of the remaining laps.

All the front running teams and solos had seemed to slip away again for this event, leaving what seemed like a huge gap of space to makeup. Thankfully with less riders on trail this did leave plenty of open trail and very little passing over the course.

Two laps from the end our support crew must have been reading our mind as they handed us an extra bottle of water and a cooling towel. The towel, a permanent part of our riding kit, soaked with water brought some relief from the punishing conditions.

On our final lap we were joined by team mate Dave, who was riding in a team of three for the 7hrs. Having Dave behind us kept our mind focused on riding and not worrying so much about the dry heat sapping all our energy.

We crossed the line with 15mins remaining on the racing clock and very little left in the tank. We waited and were relieved when our competitors chose to call it a day too. This gave us our best result for the Rocky Trail year with a 1st in Category and 5th overall. Thanks to all my JetBlack Racing team mates for their support again!

It has been a solid week of racing with the NSW Police and Emergency Games XCO [1st] and GE [3rd] (a 1200km road-trip) and the Grand Prix Championship (a 560km road-trip).

Full results can be found here.

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NSW Police & Emergency Services Games - XC

When one of my riding colleagues mentioned they wanted to compete at the Games, I was keen to join. These Games had been on and off the radar a few times due to clashes with other events but we had never managed to participate. This years event included a Cross Country (XC) race and a day of Gravity Enduro, first up was the XC.

This was our first time at Green Valleys MTB park and this was another attraction to this particular event. GV had a good name amongst the gravity crowd for its range of trails, features and shuttle back to the top. 

But first the XC event, and there were no shuttles, just pure climbing followed by a descent. We were joined by about 20 others for a one hour plus a lap format of race.

We jumped up onto the front row of the small crowd to get our best start into the singletrack. The race organisers had included a short grassy loop to filter the riders before we headed up the hill.

Our colleague got the jump on the start and we pulled into second wheel to push along the grassy section. It was pretty immediate to notice that our bunch of riders weren’t all pinners as we lead a strung out line onto the course.

We held second wheel for the majority of the climb. It was a fairly graded effort, a number of spots which pinched up and had you grabbing a couple of extra gears. The climb wound its way up a +50m vert hill and the graded efforts were connected by a series of switchbacks.

Nearing the top and before the descent we rode around to the front before the bike started to point down. The descent was fairly natural to start with, a series of dusty and blown-out corners from the The Block Party a week prior. We then skipped onto a more open section, jump a series of doubles and roll down to transition.

We almost took the extra grassy loop for a second time but got called back and they pointed us up the hill again. While climbing the switchbacks we could see my colleague had dropped back a little way and just behind him were a number of other riders.

Over the course of the next laps, only about 8-9minutes a lap, we caught a number of riders and passing through transition there was some joviality about slowing down for those behind us. 

Some of the on-course obstacles included a Butcher bird who took to buzzing the left side of your helmet if you rode alone. The bird was consistent and tapped your helmet over a number of trail sections.

Rolling through transition just before the hour mark we only had one rider left to lap, our colleague that lead us out at the start. He was a quarter of the way up the climb already so we spun up the hill after him. As we crested the hill there must have only been 10 or 20 seconds between us, we pushed the bike down the hill for a last time.

This hard push resulted in us overcooking a corner and coming down in the dust before we had left the forested descent. Back on the bike we rolled through the remaining course to finish our first Games event.

Thanks to the Games and the small team of event organisers for hosting. It was great to ride Green Valley too. We'll be sharing the images from this event on our Instagram and Facebook page when they become available.

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RTE SuperFlow Taree - Round 5

The Taree Tease

An all but to brief visit to Taree for the fifth round of the SuperFlow Series. We made an exception and included it into our weekend of adventures, two hours out of our way, on what would have been a four hour journey. Given our time restrictions, this would see us time dependant on trail. Getting all our race runs, and improvements done, all in three hours.

Taree has to be one of the only east coast trails we haven't ridden. No XC, endurance or gravity EVER! Not sure really why we haven't raced at Taree but all we knew was that it was over due. Sadly we only were able to see the trails of the SuperFlow course this time, but with that as a sample... this place rocks!

We were treated to well sculpted flowing trails, in the loose dry and fast way. A variety of switchbacks, berms and gaps were laid out for what was at times a choose-your-own-adventure between the thick dusty braking ruts. As the day progressed, there was evidence corners were being over-cooked aplenty.

While not overly steep the Taree SuperFlow trails still offered up plenty of technical challenges and one "pedally" section to really balance out the competition. Looks like we'll have to book in a few more visits to Taree and have a look at ALL the other trails on offer. Our next big event is in a few weeks time... See you there!

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Inverell MTB Copeton 6hr

Tamworth local at Pairs team rider Ann bombs through one of the many rocky sections. All photos by: CrummyMTB

We'd never heard of Copeton but when it came up on the list as one of our "local" events we were keen to get along and have a look. Copeton 6hr has been a long standing event for the Inverell mountain bike community for close to ten years and for good reason. The location is on the edge of the great Copeton Dam and the event hub this year was based out of the Reflections Holiday Park. The park is a solid two hour drive north of Tamworth and included a section of dirt road.

Riding this week in the annual Ride for the Chopper and getting some kms under the belt.

We joined a number of TAMMTB, NEMTB and Inverell riders, who had sorted themselves across a variety of teams and solo categories. A quick reccy before any official business and we found a number of short but rocky descents and plenty of wide hard-packed trail, sprinkled with patches of sand. The rock and hard-pack were particularly grippy, with no surprises about the short sections of sand.

The trails and granite rocks of Copeton.

The race got underway with quick start by some of the teams, we followed but just not too enthusiastically, finding a Inverell team riding spinning along at a reasonable pace. Tamworth endurance rider Mick Sherwood wound his way onto our wheel and we settled into a nice train. While the teams swapped riders a pleasant wave and a call of our race number was all that was needed from solo riders. Back out on the trail Mick had joined us again and we were discussing and trialing a few line choices. Not that line choices were bad either way, a couple of sections could have you off the bike if you weren't careful or they could have you putting in more effort for little reward. We had worked through a couple of laps that most B-lines may only cost a few seconds.

Inverell hosted and had a number of riders in attendance.

Mick was still following us onto our fourth lap, we were sitting pretty high in the overall standing with just a few teams in front and a few swapping lap times similar. It just took an error on a fence crossing to bring us to a crashing halt, catching the bottom of our pedal in some of the wire. On inspection nothing was broken, a cork in the thigh from the headset but when we looked at our bike we were missing a pivot linkage bolt. This missing bolt brought our ride to an end and Mick had to complete the remaining in his usual solo style as we made our way back to transition to call it a day.

Mick went on to take the solo win, only a number of minutes down on some of the fast teams. We were stoked to have had a solid couple of laps out on the Copeton trail, then getting to hang about the transition area and out on the trail watching the race unfold. We look forward to the next opportunity to ride this unique location, thanks to our TAMMTB friends for all their support!

Great support by the regions clubs TAMMTB, NEMTB and Inverell.

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RTE Superflow Ourimbah - Round 4

An early morning start to head from CrummyMTB HQ to Ourimbah, our second week in a row. The morning skys on the west side of the Great Dividing Range were clear and blue, as we rolled south east and over the Divide it became misty and cloudy. The result of the last few days of rain the east coast of NSW had received.

At Ourimbah we were briefed by Rocky Trail, met up with our JetBlack MTB Racing team mates and caught up with a number of friends and fellow competitors who had made their own trek for a day of SuperFlow. Rolling out onto the trail for a quick reccy, it was clear that we were going to be under-gunned on our XC rig from last week.

While traction was low, we made a race runs of each trail to set our minimum times in the wet and slippery conditions. With sunshine and a clear day predicted, the trails could only get faster as more water ran-off and mud packed-down. It was time for lunch and we refuelled, cleaned and lubed our chain, and wiped the mud splatter from our glasses.

With a check of the Rocky Trail live timing I could see that our early runs had placed us in the top 5. There was only a handful of seconds between third and fourth, something achievable with good knowledge of the trail and smooth flowing lines to keep momentum. We headed back up the hill to lay down our fast runs in the changing conditions, and if possible pinch some seconds.

Race runs done and a check of the live timing had us sitting in 3rd by just a few seconds. Time to hit the hill, again, and make sure we would hold a top three.

We pushed hard and found the limits of our Mitas XC tyres and the limit trees move, these mistakes cost us time, but even still we clawed back a second. Refocusing at the top on something between our limit and our safe runs, a smooth but fast run, we blasted back down to the bottom and found those seconds.

It was getting late in the afternoon and there was just an enough time for a couple more runs. I knew my competitors might be out doing the same, trying to improve their times to pip us for a top three place. We hit the most aggressive trail as our last run, we had given our utmost on the on the other trails and this trail was where we had lost most time. 

Sprinting off the gate we u-turned into the single-track and let gravity take over. Looking ahead and floating over the obstacles we wound our way to the bottom in our best attempt to roll with as most momentum as possible through every section. 

At the bottom we found we had gained another couple of seconds on our previous runs and were done for the day. We had held onto third and in doing so, had some great riding in the conditions. It was great to make this round of SuperFlow and had some great laughs in the process.

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Rocky Trail GP Ourimbah - Round 5

All photos by OuterImage Collective

It was a short series again for us this year. Last years series saw us only get to two rounds and again this year, for different reasons, we unfortunately only got to two rounds of the series. 

In the last ten years of RTE GP Series our consistency has shone through with sufficient results, and only a small amount of individual wins, to place on the podium for the series.

Check out our 2009 GP races here. 2010 GP races, 2011 GP races, 2012 GP races, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and our previous 2019 round here.

The RTE show was in their home town at Ourimbah, the massive Shimano arch and the Red Bull tent were up and providing the hub for this final round of the Grand Prix series.

JetBlack Mountainbike Racing Team were out in force for this round too, and for good reason. A year of excellent individual and team results throughout the rounds was going to cumulate today, hopefully.

It was a packed start and we had underestimated how many riders were in attendance. We wound up with a fairly lazy start lap but well warmed up.

The course was a pretty standard Ourimbah XC offering. A couple of new sections to link it all together and some newly updated features to keep the trail a little more sustainable. Conditions were very dry and sandy, roots and rocks were harshly exposed in some sections more than the last time we race here.

After a couple of laps we caught up with some of the leading 7hr solos Garry James, then further on Mark Astley. Mark and the next 7hr solo rider ahead of us, Mick Sherwood, are focusing on the upcoming 24hr endurance events and were smashing along at their "all-day" pace.

Unfortunately our next lap saw us get a smashing of our own when we joined another rider in at moment of "what just happened?". Seems we both collected a stump with our foot which sent us into the bush, off the trail and off the bike. Thanks to the lady with the Tathra MTB Rider jersey for looking after us both, hopefully the other rider got his glasses back and you enjoyed the rest of your ride.

Brushing the dirt off our jersey, checking our head, neck and collarbone. Not injured we took a couple of breaths before heading off down the trail and back on our bike. There seemed like a huge gap time to pull back, lap after lap we attempted the smoothest run and it seemed like we were not getting back amongst the riders prior to the incident.

Thankfully we had a number of team mates in support, much like the JetBlack MTB Racing junior team chasing us and the pairs and teams of three. This kept us motivated and pumped for the next lap.

Climbing out of the gully for the last time we were very happy to have left everything out on the trail.   There were so many fun sections and we had managed to dial in some fast lines across the trail. Checking on the results we managed a respectable 5th place amongst one of the most competitive categories. We are excited to return to Ourimbah next week for SuperFlow!

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Jacks Ridge XXX

Photo: Forestry Corporation NSW

We don't get to Jacks Ridge often enough. Growing up on the Mid North Coast of NSW the Macksville/Nambucca area is pretty familiar even some twenty years later and we always find it a bonus when we can get back to the area for a ride. Previous visits have included social rides with the NVCC crew (Youtube) and some night racing with the Dusk till Dawn (2015).

This time we returned to Jacks Ridge with team mates Nathan (from Port Macquarie) and Browny (from Sydney), who where teaming up to race pairs for this event.  The Nambucca Cycling crew had a great little hub going with a BBQ, coffee van and a loose horse creating the atmosphere. Riders from across NSW had come to ride these delightful trails, crews included those from Taree and Armidale.

Photo: Forestry Corporation NSW

Browny lead off the start line but had to submit his hole-shot onto the single track after attempting to turn down the incorrect trail. Both Browny and Nathan had a good race and never looked back, gradually extending their time gap from us. 

Our race was steady off the start as we got comfortable with the trail conditions and new tyres from Mitas. Once we were warmed up we spotted our main competitor for the day, not the speedy Mick Harris who was already way up the trail but local roady Greg who dabbles in the dirt art. We put in a consistent effort to bridge the gap to Greg on the second lap and stuck with him for the remainder.

We swapped turns in leading around the lap with Greg a number of times taking up the bulk of the race. Greg would show his strength on the climbs but we would catch him quickly the more narrow and tight the trail got, this seemingly balanced out by the time we returned to transition for the next lap.

Photo: Forestry Corporation NSW

In a moment of distraction Greg made an error and got a taste of the dirt leaving me to inflict a solo lap on my unprepared legs. A lap later Greg came screaming past on the tail of a Taree teams rider but on the remaining portion of the lap we clawed our way back onto his wheel. We headed out on our final lap and there didn't seem like there was much in the tank, Greg still lead but we were pausing longer to pass riders and there didn't seem like the earlier spring out of corners to get back on-pace.

On the returning trails to transition Greg motioned he wouldn't contest this final lap and we passed him, putting 100% into the final sections to take second place in the 5hr.

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NIXCS Series Tamworth Round Finale

Hardy souls gather for NIXCS Tamworth. Photo: Ben Marsh

We woke to a pretty brisk morning for the final 2019 round of the NIXCS series. Multiple cold fronts had crossed the region delivery proper cold and windy weather. CrummyMTB HQ was a flurry of action to fit a quick visit to our local ice covered regions before getting back to Tamworth for the midday start of the race.

A number of committed enthusiasts trekked from Inverell, Armidale and the surrounding areas to take part. TAMMTB had set a fast and flowing course with only a hill and a half in the loop.

Photo: Ben Marsh

With a number of juniors recently peaking for the National Schools event, it was a cracking start and their pace was well maintained through the race. Nick Chisholm lead from the start followed closely by U15s shredder Eddie Willis, the rest of us, eating their dust and fighting for our place over the first couple of laps.

Photo: Ben Marsh

 It was a pleasant ride, when you were riding out of, or with the wind, the rest of the time we found our body, even after warming up, was in a state of shock. We had a good ride with the returning Brad Newman, who managed the sub-zero temperatures in just a jersey and knicks (Brett Bellchambers style).

Photo: Ben Marsh

Thanks to TAMMTB for putting on the event. You can check out our other NIXCS race this year here.

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SuperFlow at Jollynose - Championships

With the success of our return to SuperFlow last month and our body holding up to the riggers of riding we were looking forward to returning to Jollynose for another SuperFlow session with Rocky Trail Entertainment. This return to Jollynose, after last years fortunate adventure, was only our second time to the area and there was much talk of the trail changes and updates.

SuperFlow is like Downhill racing but pitched on more Cross-Country trails than crazy Downhill trails. That isn't to say there is nothing a little insane, there are often a number of technical features, possibly and A and B lines for you to choose from. And when your whipped into a peddling frenzy from the Enduro crowd cheers, fat-tyres and fluro, you can feel like a Downhill adrenaline junkie.

We had a number of JetBlack MTB Racing team mate in attendance, some regulars and some new to SuperFlow this season. It was great to get out and ride with our team mates now that we don't see them as regularly. What is also pretty special about SuperFlow is the new friends you create along the way, either through a bit of a heckle or some competitive spiritedness, or just a regular chin wag.

Unbeknownst to us we even had some Tamworth locals in the mix. A "Hi Crummy" was all that was needed to affirm that behind the full-face helmet, was someone I did know mid way through the day. 

The trails started at the same places as last year and were generally the same through the top halves. Lower down one trail had been shortened to remove some pedalling, another had been updated with a series of obstacles including a serious flow section of gaps. The third and final trail was a fairly straight forward XC thrash.

We did a series of warm-up mini runs on our first trail till timing started. It was good to test out the hardtail since it has been over 4 months since we had ridden it. We had our Mitas XC tyres on and needed to have that reminder of how far to push both them and the bike. It was also a test for our shoulder as we are still coming back from the clavicle break in March.

We completed three timed runs of our first trail improving the first run by 17 seconds and the second run by another half a second, for a sub three minute run for Fox. We then went and visited Stans, said to be the most challenging trail for the day, and they weren't wrong! Our first run was very much a sighting run and an eye opener, especially as we got down to the gap flow section. Yeah, we were out of our depth. It was almost a four minute run, some twenty seconds off our closest competitor. 

We had joined one of our team mates for the next run, Lazer, and we gave them a ten second head start. We caught them at the pinch of the short pedal climb and tried to scoot away but was caught back up by the line for a 3:50.5. Our team mate had to complete another trail so we parted ways and returned to the dreaded Stans.

After psyching ourselves up and a few deep breathes we took Stans on again, trying to find the most out of the trail to keep it smooth and flowing. Unfortunately we still rolled a few of the largest gaps and couldn't connect all the sections together but managed to drop a massive twenty seconds through finding our smoothness on trail, a time much closer to our competitor at 3:34.4.

Another run was needed on the fast Laser course, just to see if we could better our time. We attempted to chase down an e-bike but didn't improve our time with a 00.1 of a second slower. Close enough to our 3:50.5 previous run.

It was pretty close with only four or so seconds between our closest competitor and after some pretty fast runs we were about cooked. We called it a day, joining our team mates and other competitors for post ride beverages and food.

We ended up coming second in the category after our closest competitor went and dropped nine seconds on his first run of the day. All and all a great day out with Rocky Trail Entertainment and the Jollynose Crew!

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SuperFlow at Awaba - Round 3

We were excited to take another step in our on-bike return to racing. After six hours of racing two weeks ago at Glenrock and Armidale, it seemed our shoulder was holding up ok. Thankfully most of the issues were with our lack of cycling endurance, our legs were very tired. On the upside all the BodyBalance and standing-strength work we had been doing over the last few months were paying dividends and keeping us in the game.

The SuperFlow event at Awaba was the next event on the calendar and after all the fun we had last year, was not one to be missed. SuperFlow is like Downhill racing but pitched on Cross-Country trails. That isn't to say there is nothing crazy, there can be a number of technical features, and A and B lines. When your whipped into a peddling frenzy of air-horns, fat-tyres and fluro, you feel like a Downhill adrenaline junkie.

We were joined by Tamworth local Nathan for this massive day which would include the four hour trip down the New England Highway. As much riding as we could pack into the day's events. And finally the four hour trip back up the New England, keeping our eyes peeled for any kangaroos in the twilight.

Rocky Trail selected a great series of trails for us to ride this round, knocking off some of the flat and pedally bits and dropping in some more vertical challenges. From sweeping open dust-bowl corners to tight loamy switchback there was plenty to keep everyone on their toes. It was pretty cool to bounce in and out of the top five times for most of the day as everyone dialled in the lines. In the end after numerous fire trail climb repeats, a go at riding the bike SS and some rear brake issues, we were happy to say we had left our best efforts out on the trail.

We placed 7th in Veterans with a 7:39sec, and
Nathan placed 7th in U19s with a 8:04.

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Mitas X-Road CX Tyres

We have been rolling around on Mitas mountain bike tyres over the last couple of years. Their Scylla XC tyre has been the choice of many XC racers, we found the fast square blocks providing predicable performance and a low rolling resistance. The Scylla fitted neatly our need for a marathon/XC tyre. When we wanted something with a little more grip for our front tyre with Gravity Enduro in mind, we stepped up to the Mitas’s Kratos. The Kratos is a surprisingly fast rolling tyre but with wide aggressive knobs for plenty of grip, the Kratos have track us through the wildest trails thrown at us.

Mitas Kratos

This brings us to our latest review and not necessarily a change of pace either, the Mitas X-Road. You might think it blasphemy mentioning anything road related, but the X-Road is part of Mitas’s CX range. It comes with similar features of their top mountain bike treads; Tubeless Supra 127tpi casing and CRX race compound rubber.

Our first introduction to Tubeless CX tyres

We have been using CX tyres for a number of years both for CX racing and our on-road riding. CX tyres give us a super light but grippy tyre, one that spins up quickly on just about all surfaces. Given a few extra pumps of air, the CX tyres improved our average speed through lowered our rolling resistance and their light-weight was noticed on the climbs, particularly over our previous choices of commuting/training tyre (PRs in Strava, woohoo!).

Endless dirt roads over summer

With a current trend to include more dirt-based adventure rides, and a physical move to a more a hostile riding environment we were more than excited to wrap the Mitas X-Road around our wheels. Planned rides included plenty of dirt roads and fire-trails, some trail exploring of our new location, bunch rides with the roadies and maybe even a race.

Close-up of the almost familiar tread patten

The X-Road tyre tread reminds us of a fairly traditional XC mountain bike tyre pattern. The center blocks are small and closely spaced, providing a fast tread for road and dirt conditions. As your roll over to the edge the tread opens up and gets slightly more bold, this gives grip for cornering and loose situations no matter dry or wet. The tyres are suitably light too; we weighed them in at 350g, for their 33C casing. With a standard splash of sealant the tyres quickly inflated and held firm. The wheels were then placed on our test rig, a steel framed hard-tail mountain bike.

70kms offroad for Buffalo Gelato 

Out on the road the X-Road sat pretty comfortably between a smooth tread and a light XC tyre, giving off just a slight hum as the closely spaced tread rolled across the bitumen. While the tyres are stamped for pressures up to 85psi, we only nudged them to 60psi due to the mountain bike rims they were shoeing. We found that 60psi gave us the suppleness needed for the rough country roads we were testing on, but still kept us fast enough for a bunch.

The dirt roads and fire-trails is where the X-Road excels, the tread pattern offered plenty of grip and rolled effortlessly over the mixture of terrain. For these multi-hour adventures we dropped the pressure down a tad and found the tyres responded well, we were thinking less about being careful where we were riding and were able to enjoy the ride more. We then set about with some all-out exploration, finding running trails and sheep tracks, with plenty of rocks and cacti. It was a blast to bomb downhill on a narrow trail into the unknown, finding the our limits amongst the loose shale. Exploring our new backyard, lookouts, tracks and scenery. To be fair we did hike-a-bike back out of a few sections, but that was more about the gearing choice than anything else.

Local XC race on the X-Roads, guess who won Elites?

It has been summer and CX racing isn’t in full swing, so instead we took our X-Road tyres to a XC race. The local clubby event was only 45 minutes long and the trails included some rough rock-garden features. Even still, the club called it their “Fast and Furious” loop, smooth is fast yeah? Tyres were set at 40 and 45psi , front and rear respectively. These were tough testing conditions, a dry and dusty trail that mixed hard-pack, sandy dust, loose-over-hard and rocks. When pushed the tyres provided predictable drift especially as it moved to sandy conditions. They were also durable enough to allow for multiple close calls between the rocks and rims, with some “yes-I-did-feel-that” moments. We did have to slow down a little to pick our way more neatly through the rock-garden, but with such light tyres we accelerated out of corners faster and held a higher speed on the straights. In our experience the X-Road would be highly suitable for any Australian CX course.

Toowoomba MTB Club trails

Finally we toured some of the Northern NSW and South East QLD mountain bike trails. Sometimes doing a roadie bunch ride, then rolling straight into some mountain biking after. We did find the limits of the X-Road amongst the rocks and Black Diamond trails, however, aggressive XC trails aren’t what the X-Road are built for. The X-Road are neatly placed as a CX tyre, and rightly so. We did love the super-light tubeless features, we fear not catheads and cactus of our new hostile riding environment. And there’s still a bucket load of tread remaining, attesting to their quality and durability after 4 months of solid summer riding. We are looking forward to more adventures in the coming months on our X-Roads.