Mountain Biking - Are these reasonable race results??

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Zeggelaar
08-31-05, 04:35 AM
I would post this in the racing section but nobody seems to view it much. I have been riding seriously for only a year and so far this year I have competed in 4 good sized (300-1600 participants) XC races in South Korea. I'm asking this question because I have nobody around to compare myself with. My results in my category (Senior 2 - 25-30 yrs.) have been 22nd/122 , 17th/146, 1st/11, 14th/42. Are these reasonable results compared with first time racers in North America? I haven't had the chance to race in North America yet.

By the way. If you ever get a chance to come here it's a great place for riding. 70% of the country is covered with hills and low mountains (up to 6000 ft) all of which have some sort of trail due to hikers or military. Watch out for old land mines though. Bad for your tires.


Quadzone.com
08-31-05, 06:03 AM
How long do these races last??

For instance if there's a 10 mile race whats a good time to finish it in??

I know absolutely nothing about racing Mountain bikes and have searched the racing section and it doesn't explain what a race consists of very good.

Someone please lay it out in english for me. Thanks

LowCel
08-31-05, 06:06 AM
Looks like great results for a first year racer to me. My goal this year was generally to finish in the top 25%. With that said though the only person I judge myself against is myself. As long as I feel like I am improving I consider it to be a victory.


Zeggelaar
08-31-05, 09:33 PM
Typical races here can be widely varied. The first was a 5.5km (2 laps) loop on a ski hill with only up or down hills mixed with single track.

The next two races I did were only on fire roads (42 km and 12 km - mud)

The most recent was an awesome 8 km loop (3 laps) with 50% of quite technical single track and the rest gravel and sand track.

apclassic9
09-01-05, 09:19 AM
Typical MTB race would be a 10K course for beginners, 20K for sport riders, and 30k for expert riders. Course time will depend upon the terrain and the weather.

One way to determine how "good" your results are is to compare your time and distance to the winning expert class time and distance - how far off, after adjusting for the time/distance ratio, was your time per lap... a far mor reasonable approach - especially for your ego - would be to do these same comparisons for the sport class winners. If your ratios are up these with the Expert class times, then work on your distance and move up a class.