Is the new Crans-Montana World Cup track too hard?
What are the limits of cross country
There’s an all-new World Cup cross country track in Europe this weekend. Exciting stuff, as a new venue always has a way of shaking up the established order, both for this race and potentially the overall points race. Crans Montana is actually the third new World Cup course for the cross country riders this year. Two new venues in Brazil delivered thrilling racing to kick the season off.
But the Crans Montana course looks, well, divisive. It looks like course organizers are maybe trying a little too hard to show off for the cameras. The features are visually stunning. It looks like a ton of effort went into preparing this course for race day. But they don’t necessarily look safe. Even in the context of World Cup racing being more challenging and more technical than it ever has before, some of the new features look just a little off.
Don’t get me wrong, I love more technical tracks. And, having watched some of what these young racers can do on XC race bikes, I am confident a good percentage of them would be comfortable riding all these features.
I'm not sure what the point of building an intricate rock berm is, if you're going to leave a giant gaping hole in the middle of it
That's a deep hole.
Don't worry, the run-in is super chill. Just an A/B line separated by a ridge of rock doing its best Stegosaurus impression
Racing, though, is not the same as riding. Hitting a wood-to-wood gap over a creek is one thing in practice. Or a log-skinny to drop. Or ending that drop with a landing made entirely of chunks of wood, albiet intricately tiled wood. It is an entirely different thing to do that on the last lap of a race effort. Or among the first lap crowds. Or, you know, if it rains.
What’s the risk? Well, as we saw in the Tokyo Olympics, it not only whether you can ride a feautre. It’s also trying to predict what people will around you will do. When Pauline Ferrand-Prevot jammed on the brakes in front of Neff, it sent the Swiss rider flying off line and off a massive drop instead of onto a ramp. It nearly ended Neff’s race. Somehow, the Swiss racer saved that and continued to race. Ferrand-Prevot crashed a later and dropped back in the race.
Speaking of the Olympics, those are just a few weeks away again. Tom Pidcock is already facing some mix of criticism and aprehensive awe for his decision to race this weekend’s World Cup just a week before his Tour de France – Olympic XCO double-header starts. If he, or any other of the Olympic-bound athletes crashes, it could end their four-year campaign to race in Paris. That is literal years worth of training down the drain, just so a A/B line would look cooler separated by a ridge-line of rocks instead of course tape? Doesn’t seem worth it, for racers or for fans that might miss out on seeing their stars race in the Olympics.
There’s always risk in racing. And there’s always risk in the more technical aspects of mountain bike racing. But there’s good risk and bad risk. Bad risk adds danger without any reward.
Check out more of the course below, both in the UCI preview and Pivot Cycles-OTE’s track walk. We’ll be watching and cheering on our Canadian riders all weekend. And doing our prayers to the rain gods to stay away from Crans-Montana until Monday. Oof.
