Are your XC races comprised mostly of road racers?
I just finished the Test of Endurance race, a 50 miler with about 7500 feet of climbing in Oregon's coast range. Great race, but I just need to vent a little bit...Now I'm all fine with road racing, actually have been getting into it myself this year. I just started to get really annoyed today that most of the riders out there are really strong on the fireroads, but when it gets to singletrack they have no clue how to ride. It's been raining here a bit the last few days, so the singletrack was nice and muddy. Also the race organizer built some pretty good technical trails just for the race. Every time I entered the singletrack sections I was held up buy the roadies riding their brakes with one foot out for support the whole time. At the feed station and after the race I overheard several of the riders complaining about how nasty and technical the singletracks were. Isn't this supposed to be a mountain bike race? To me it was like the CAT5 road races I started with, where no one knew how to hold their line and it makes it dangerous for everyone. I guess it was good for me, as it slowed those guys down, but I also lost a lot of time being held up behind them since there were so few places to pass. Again, I don't have any problem that guys who are mainly road racers want to come race in the forest, but it would be nice if they actually went out for a mountain bike ride once in a while to get used to it. Is this the case in the rest of the country, or just happening here?