pontyman wrote:
Thank you all for the responses. As I started this thread I felt obliged to give the final outcome.
Rules update- The 26in was an omission- someone was kind enough to have them fix and update so rules were straightened out.
Xterra is relaxed- Consistent with other observations- this is Xterrra racign, far more relaxed than the road stuff, noone was checking wheel sizes- they did check and fix any missing barend plugs but that is safety.
The race: I raced my 2009 26in bike and it worked just great- there was one long deep sandy canyon section which the 29ers smoked me on- the 29in wheel is superior in deep sand (and or at least the riders were better than I in deep sand). Otherwise I posted a decent time for my age group.
One final note, if any of you are thinking of racing Xterra then get out and try it. After many years of racing IM and 70.3s of various organizations around the world Xterra is by far the most relaxed and fun group I have come across.
I've raced mountain bikes for many many years before doing triathlons. Mountain bike scene is much more relaxed. You can certainly pick out the roadies at a mountain bike race. They look like they have something stuck up their ass. Triathlon group is a little more uptight than mountain bikers but not at the level of roadies (my experience). The annoying thing about mountain bikers now is their infatuation with IPA beer. It's like roadies and their coffee.
My issue with Xterra's, and I do love them, are the complete lack of mountain bike handling skills by other riders. Given my experience at MTBing, I have excellent handling skills. However, not the fastest swimmer so I would get stuck behind some of the worse mountain bikers ever. My God there were bodies every where. And they didn't know how to shift on climbs so they would fall over.
Also, these riders don't understand passing on single track. They are use to open roads where passing just happens. Last Xterra I did two riders in particular wouldn't let me pass. Every once in a while this happens in a mountain bike race. The solution is your elbow, thus I used my elbow. He didn't take it too well. So I thought to myself that maybe this isn't the best group to do MTB racing moves on, so the next racer I needed to pass, I just cut the corner.
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