Originally Posted by
FrozenK
No, it is because people have been complaining about the ridiculously manicured courses on XC racing for over a decade. It got bad enough that people WON short track races on a road bike -not a cyclocross bike, a road bike with road tires. UCI then responded by banning drop bars for MTB racing but eventually race promoters started designing courses that involved actual mountainbiking again.
As for Grant Petersen, he makes his money by peddling overpriced and often outdated (if not flat out obsolete) stuff to people who care more a out image than performance. I would pay about as much attention to him as I do to Mountainbike Action (that has been heralding the demise of the hardtail for almost two decades now)
Hey now, Grant is alright and produces some great bikes...I've owned three of them over the years and still have two. What he doesn't make is a modern singletrack shredder because I think what Riv thinks is dirt riding is more about fire trail/wide rolling dirt path than singletrack.
But, from what I've seen, XC courses do seem to be on the smooth side....ideal for a hardtail.