xc vs all mountain

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flag jonmiller
Posted: Dec 5, 2007 at 13:49 Quote
whats the difference
flag wikiwawa
Posted: Dec 5, 2007 at 14:02 Quote
XC is more tame can be done on hard tails etc, AM bit more extreme but not DH. Gotta have a full suser ideally
flag jonmiller
Posted: Dec 5, 2007 at 14:05 Quote
why does it have to be a fully

the fork im looking at is an all mountain with 130 mm of travel
flag wikiwawa
Posted: Dec 5, 2007 at 14:08 Quote
Well it doesnt have to be but if you look at AM bikes they mostly tend to have full sus. Yeah 130mm sounds about right. I got adjustable ones between 100 (for XC) and 140 for more mountainous stuff. Which fork were you looking at?
flag jonmiller
Posted: Dec 5, 2007 at 14:09 Quote
marzochi all mountain 2
flag silaslecake
Posted: Dec 5, 2007 at 14:11 Quote
All mountain usually has a lot more elevation change. You climb up a lot (up a mountain Big Grin ), and then bomb down it. These bikes are special because they have to be light enough to be pedalled up a hill and strong enough with enough travel so that you can descend fast (not quite DH, but similar). XC is more tame, with less elevation change, usually in flatter areas.
flag trialsracer
O+
Posted: Dec 5, 2007 at 14:59 Quote
I disagree. XC is more tame, but can have the most elevation change out of the whole sport. AM just has some more "extreme" stuff thrown in, and is a lot more 'free'; less of a competition.
flag radam
O+
Posted: Dec 5, 2007 at 21:20 Quote
When I think of XC i think of racing with rolling terrain but nothing tech.

To me trail riding or all mountain as it's now being called is more about being in the back country. Going up and over mountains with technical climbs and descents with a little fire road thrown in here and there.

I think when most people think of all mt. they think of light duty freeride and trail riding being more back country but the lines are starting to blur.

I just want a sub 30 lbs six inch all mt bike that doesn't cost a small fortune.
flag ibisrox
Posted: Dec 6, 2007 at 6:19 Quote
Ya, XC now seems to be really tame. They could do the courses on a cyclecross bike! They paint the roots and rocks for those guys so they can see them!!
AM seems to be more technical, intense terrain. The stuff like the BC Bike race. Trans-rockies is a lot of fireroad type stuff. So Transrockies = XC,
BC Bike Race = AM.
I just call all of it mountain biking! XC,DH,AM,Slopestyle whatever, we're all brothers with different mothers on bikes.
flag mickeydesadist2
Posted: Dec 13, 2007 at 19:39 Quote
I ride a Cannondale Prophet and my buddy rides a Kona Kula. His XC is faster on uphills an long flatlands where my AM excels at the roller coaster type singletracks.
flag ns-bitch
Posted: Dec 13, 2007 at 19:46 Quote
jonmiller wrote:
marzochi all mountain 2

u can use that fork for whatever you want. I DJ, street, and park and i use a marzocchi allmountain 2 and it works fine.
flag trialsracer
O+
Posted: Feb 7, 2008 at 14:26 Quote
Xc is not tame, at least in Florida. Check out some Santos or Razorback pics. The XC you guys talk about is the stuff I can't ride (unless I have to race for a series); too boring. There is a trail here called San Felasco, and I would love to get a cross bike and train there. Otherwise, XC is fast, with no stunts. If you can't ride it on a four inch bike, I guess it isn't XC (I mean the bike can't take it, not you can't take the feel of the bike).
flag Ganyay81
Posted: Feb 7, 2008 at 21:58 Quote
I my opinion, the difference in bikes for XC and AM is that XC bike are usually as-light-as-you-can-get-without-using-toothpicks with the frames going from fully ridgid, hardtail, to max. 4" of travel. Any more travel than that and the bike starts to get too heavy, and pedaling is less efficient. You also need to be able to work with the bike to get over the bigger stuff. AM bikes are beefier, and have up to 6" of travel, I believe. They're heavier, but that's because they're built to do jumps and large drops that XC bikes aren't meant to take. (i.e. 6' + drops. Do that on a XC, and you're asking for snapped seat stays).

XC bikes would be Subaru Imprezas, and AM would be Hummers, if you were to compare them to cars.

In terms of the riding, XC racing isn't always buttery-smooth fireroads and such. You have crazy singletrack, rock gardens, rivers, you name it. Jumps are usually rare, because they's not what XC is. The original mtbs of XC, jumps didn't even exist, and what we have now are just the product of that.

AM is closer to freeriding than XC, IMO. Sure, you're not doing crazy 100' gaps, and you maybe riding around XC trails to find hot spots, but you're likely do be rolling down huge boulders, doing some jumps and dropping off cliffs that you'd never want to do on an XC bike.

Also, you don't race AM.

The reason why you may have found some XC races boring, if you've ever done any, is that you may have joined an endurance race. If you're going 100 miles then yeah, you don't want to be riding some sick, bone-breaking technical terrain. I don't think you'd be able to ride down a sick hill 50 times, non-stop and be able to keep it up. You'd want smoother, easier terrain, 'cause after being on a bike for 9 hours, those rocks would probably kill you.

If it was just a short, 2-hour race, then there are fireroad, or double-track sections in it, otherwise the people racing would never be able to pass each other, but it's not all butter-smooth, cyclo-cross, might-as-well-be-riding-on-the-road type riding. Also, there are switchbacks, and rocks close together that you wouldn't be able to take aswell on an AM bike (mind you, you could probably roll over the rocks on a AM bike).

Just my 2 cents.
flag traildigger15
Posted: Feb 9, 2008 at 13:06 Quote
XC tends to be more about light, ridged frames that don't hold you back uphill. All-mountain gives you the lightweight, strong frames of XC, but with begginer to medium freeriding ablities.
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