You're not comparing apples to apples Jay. A tri bike and a road bike are two totally different animals. You put me; a slightly better than average technical rider on trails, on a hardtail mountain bike then a dual suspension bike and I'm gonna be a different rider. You put me on a older 2000ish Klein road bike then an S5 and things aren't going to be all that different, I will be a bit faster on the new bike obviously but I won't really be "better."

x2. People who have a significant upgrade in a Mtb become a different rider. People who have the same upgrade on a road bike or tri bike become slightly faster and that's it.

I'm really surprised at the number of road guys that come over to try xterra or endurance Mtb'ing and never return. I would think if you can put yourself through the physical and mental pain to race hardest it would carry over, bu that isn't the case at all.

I used to race Cat 1 mtb cross country and endurance. About 3 years ago I got into tts because I wanted to do something different and I was tired of crashing. You don't heal as well when you approach 40.
I'm already bored of the tts, most are too short to be worth the drive.
I snagged up a Cannondale Scalpel 29er recently. I realized 3 things.....I lost a lot of my technical skills (but they are coming back), I lost my ''punch'' and the ability to repeat them (gonna train that again on the rigid single speed this winter), and a light, full suspension 29er is waaaay faster than a hard tail here on the East Coast. Anyone want a nice 2012 xl speed concept??? :D

Haha, I did my first mountain bike race last month. I chose to race expert because I'd "get a longer workout in" and because I'm not terrible on the trails.

Holy crap.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/558993765

I'm a "tri guy" who is a MTB'er. I use long-distance 100k/100mi MTB XC races as alternate big training days to be a better long-course athlete (70.3/140.6). It's one helluva training day.

I'll let everyone else fight over "it's not about the bike" or "it's about the bike." I just ride. A lot. MTB is so mentally engaging, you don't dread what would otherwise be mentally difficult trainer rides in the fall/winter/spring. Get a headlamp and go do a night ride on your favorite trail, and extend the riding day. You wanna talk fun ...

Today it's lightly raining - I have no desire to get the roadie out and do an hour of threshold in the cold, gray gloom, fighting cars. Nor can I get excited about the trainer, now that it's the semi-off season. But I will, later, slap on the headlamp and go ride hard on the trails. My bliss.

Wish I could find a 15 mile expert race.

I have done ~1 hr races at an average of 190 bpm

Did a 60 mile race, set my heart rate monitor to go off if I went over 165. Turned that stupid annoying alarm off after 5 minutes of constant beeping. 5.5 hours and I averaged nearly 180.

Mountain biking is friggin' intense, and awesome. I rather enjoy the mental challenge of picking lines the whole way, keeps me from thinking about all the other physical pain.

A bike makes incredible differences in speed in mountain biking. Rode the same loop on a few different bikes at a demo, strava shows me kind in the bottom of the top third normally, jumped on a top end C-dale Scalpel, straight to number 4 on the leader board, after having hammered that loop 4 times on other bikes.

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Pactimo brand ambassador, ask me about promo codes

LOLZ!!
Avg HR 96% of max.
Max HR 103% of max. ;-)

You can't give 110% - but apparently 103% is possible.

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float , hammer , and jog

Haha, not really sure I've ever set my "zones" b/c I never wear a HR strap except on the mountain bike (no power meter). My RPE on a scale of 1-10 was at about a solid 15 through most of the race. Very non triathlon-ish.

I LOVE this thread and glad I found it. EVERYTHING that has been mentioned over the last year and a half on this thread it true, and fun! Trying to get road tri people to think of dirt is like getting a non tri person to not think we are crazy for what we do! :D

No zones, no times, no ave pace, no resting, full body, full mental sharpness... AWESOME

I spectated the Vermont 50 this weekend and supported my wife who was doing the 50mi run.

Makes me want to get on a MTB, those top guys are bike studs for sure. Ted King as there and you would think a TdF rider would place top 3, nope. Did get top 10 though

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"Base training is bull shit" - desertdude

I looked through the VT50 results and many of the same names raced at Freetown when I did it two weeks ago. The scab on my forearm finally fell off yesterday. My sternum still hurts when i sneeze and my shoulder is just starting to feel good again. But I will do it again next year : ) That being said i hope to get out and ride the mtn bike when the weather gets cooler here in Mass but the wife is giving me the stink-eye because of my over the bars experience at the race.

As a sequel to this thread I may sign up for the Jamestown Classic Road Race on Columbus Day. I'd be a CAT 5 in the 50 - 63 AG. Its 19 miles, one time around Jamestown RI but truth be told I'm a bit intimidated by the whole road racing thing and crashing at speed on asphalt is whole lot different than crashing in the woods. So my goals would be dont get dropped and dont fall down.

Totally on the same page!!! Dark and even snow makes an enjoyable and AWESOME time, did I really just work out for 3 hours??? :)

Agreed on the Barn Burner. I have done it twice in years past. That is a serious serious sufferfest. Winning time was just over 6 hrs 30 mins. Crazy fast

I "raced" the vt50 this past weekend, and it was an absolute blast and probably a great intro for anybody who has fitness and wants to try a long mountain bike race. First 30 miles are technically easy, but a ton of climbing (my garmin showed an average of ~200 ft per mile). The terrain gets more technical during miles 30-40, but never anything unmanageable. The single track and real mountain biking is just really difficult to finesse after the legs are drained from 3 hours of climbing.

Anyways, I highly recommend the experience. Kudos to your wife on the 50 mile run.

I thought the same thing when I did my first Xterra (Stoaked). It's a lot harder but I think the pay off is totally worth it. I have a hard time riding/running on the road anymore.

This thread should be linked to MTBR for comic relief. Elvis Runner you get the post of the thread, quoted for posterity.

I didn't race this year. All I did was ride mt bike. I built a killer Milwaukee carbon 29er with full xtr. I have an older Trek fuel 100 full suspension and an older hard tail Specialized S-works M2 I built as a single speed. I can ride each bike fast, but I do ride the trail differently with each bike.

I can say the Fox terra logic shock is a work of art. Beautiful shock!