The Future of XC? XMB Challenge, Aspremont
The Future of XC?
 | We want to go back to how it was 20 years ago, when mountain biking was in the mountains. - Thierry Issandou, Co-Founder, XMB Challenge |
If you were asked which part of the world has most influenced how people race mountain bikes, where would you say? It's hard to make arguments for either California, or British Columbia. Yet the one part of the world that has time and again shaped the way we race is the South-East of France. It's where mountain biking first came to Europe, where the first races on the continet were held. Today the Roc D'Azur just outside Nice is the biggest race in the world, in terms of competitors. In the 1990s riders like Nico Vouilloz, Anne-Caroline Chausson and Francois Gachet re-defined what was possible in World Cup downhill. They were succeeded by legends like Fabien Barel and Cedric Gracia. It is where a grassroots race format based on untimed liaisons and timed descents grew until it eventually surfaced in the mainstream consciousness as enduro. Now a couple of riders from the region are taking a looking at cross-country racing and trying to put the mountains back into that style of mountain biking.
The XMB Challenge was started in 2012 by Thierry Issandou and William Pianigiani. Thierry explains that, "The idea is that we want to go back to how it was 20 years ago, when mountain biking was in the mountains. The racing evolved to XC, where it is, let's say... more flat. With the XMB concept we want to go back to races in the mountains which are very difficult for both climbing and descending. To put on this kind of race you ride a loop, not like in XC where you do 4,5 or 6 laps. By coming back in the mountains, we want to come back to more interesting trails. We take existing tracks and try to make a race that is between 25 and 30km, where the top riders need 2 hours or 2 and a quarter hours to finish this race. Maybe the last riders need 3 or 4 hours." Walking up and down the start line there is every type of bike and riding clothing you can imagine; from lightweight race hardtails, to 160mm enduro race bikes; from full XC lycra, through to the full faces helmets and body armour. It's a style of riding we like to refer to as, "mountain biking."
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 The small, sleepy town of Aspremont, 8km above Nice played host to the first round of the 2014 XMB Challenge. |
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| Much like the enduro races that originated in this region, the course for the XMB challenge is kept secret until the morning of the race, so there is no practice. Also like the French style of enduro racing, there were fresh sections cut into the mountains, so even the local riders couldn't know every section. |
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| Because it's a relatively short race in the middle of the day, sign-in was at a comfortable time in the late morning, with racing starting at 12.30. On that start list were names you might recognise if you follow enduro racing, names like (left to right on bottom pic) Morganne Jonnier, Yoann Barelli and Florian Nicolai. |
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| Riders leave the start together, as the first part of the stage is an untimed liaison to make sure the riders are timed for as few road sections as is possible. Brice Thouret (centre) has done a few of the races, "This is my third or fourth time, and I really like XMB because it's real mountain biking. It's really the essence of riding a bike in the mountains - very technical, very hard, walking with the bike on your shoulders..." |
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| I should have got this kids name. There's something of a tradition of young riders from this area with talent growing up to be world-beating riders - just ask Nico Vouilloz, Fabien Barel or Loic Bruni... |
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| From the depart there was a short road transfer to this trailhead and just over that crest somewhere is the real start line for the race, the point where riders are put on the clock. Part of the reason for having untimed liaisons in the races is so that although there is a fairly brutal amount of climbing to be done, you cover more vertical metres going down than you do going up. |
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| After the first climb and descent Thomas Lapeyrie had built himself a reasonable lead over the rest of the field. |
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| Florian Nicolai came out of the first climb and descent a little off the lead, but still in touch. In the end he closed out a solid seventh place today - great training in the build-up to the season. |
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| If the singletrack descents are half as much fun as they looked like from behind the camera, then it's no surprise that more than a few riders came past with huge grins plastered on their faces. It was a mix of steep, fresh tracks, flowing traverses and high-speed, rocky mule tracks. |
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| There are no "flow" trails here, just real singletrack based on the ancient trails that surround the town. |
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| If you didn't carry tubes with you, a flat at the top meant a long walk home. |
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| On the second half of the first section, Maxime Folco reeled in Lapeyrie and edged ahead of him on the road as they headed for the second part of the loop on the other side of town. |
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| In total, riders faced 28km of racing (with 3km untimed liaison) today, with 1,400m of climbing and descending to tackle. |
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| A family were picnicing on a meadow at the top of the big fireroad climb to the second part of the loop. Two of the kids found this steel drum and were pounding out rhythmns on it to encourage the passing riders. |
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| Thierry makes no bones about the fact that they include sections in the race that they know are going to be unridable, as that is part of the nature of real riding in the mountains, "You have to be completely complete! You have to be very good at climbing, and sometimes it's not possible to climb on the bike, so you have to carry it, so you need to be good at walking with your bike on your shoulders." Even as good a technical rider as Yoann Barelli found himself with bike in hand. |
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| After he reeled in Lapeyrie, Folco broke him and pulled out a commanding lead to open the defense of his 2013 title with another win. |
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| You wouldn't guess how tough the race was if you were watching Yoann Barelli, he was still playing around on the bike as he dropped into the final descent on his way to fifth overall. |
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| The final descent back into the town, which you can just see on the crest in the upper left of the photo. Below is the end of the Vars valley that stretches from Nice on the coast, right the way up into the big mountains of the Maritime Alps. |
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| How tough is the race? Tough enough to leave riders clawing at their toes trying to loosen the hamstrings. As Thierry says, you have to be a "complete" mountain biker to race this series. |
www.xmbchallenge.fr
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They have XC, XM, EN and EX lines. Stand for cross-country, cross-mountain, enduro and extreme (I guess). And that for years already!
I wonder how many race promoters have put on XC events with multiple laps simply because marshaling a 30+km, single-lap course would be so challenging.
And for the record not all XC races are flat dirt crits.
http://www.marccerdan.com/allride.html
we just wanted to do by ourselves what we felt we were able to do in our bikes at that time and no one offered... If some day future of mtbiking or xc will be similiar we ll say alehluya!
The kids name in the photo are :
Baptiste TRUNTSCHKA
Corentin BORLA
problem is broadcast of course. This makes it impossible to film, get on the net or sell to TV. But still, it would be nice.
what i am suprised is this as been pretty much the same format for what we call Raids in Quebec (and most probably everywhere) they have been this type of racing for a long time.
Raids like Bras-Du-Nord, Vélo-Mag and Jean D'avignon are very popular. While most participate in the long marathon (even some are sanctionne in XC marathon UCI) versions, there are always some shorter version of the course you can register in. That's pretty much it!
look these races up on the web, i have been racing them for years and everytime it awesome,.....tough as hell, but awesome.
cheers,
Maybe we could just purge out all the trendy stuck up bastards that wear a brand as a badge of honor and get back to fun and progression. They can go ride road bikes where they belong. New Audi/BMW, $10k bike, and the belief that they are better than anyone they haven't met.
We don't even have the eccentric bike nuts showing up much anymore. Where's that coffee?
However, most "Enduro" races have untimed climbs then time the descents. The original use of the term "Enduro" in the UK meant riding up and down everything in a big loop out in the hills but now "Enduro" tends to mean a series of short DH runs with a casual amble in between starting gates that don't count for anything so long as you start on time.
Bit stupid to generalise everyone in the UK as closed minded but the reality is that "Enduro" tends to mean Endurance XC in the UK and the more recent version of "Enduro" globally (with origins around France much previously) is called "Gravity-Enduro" in the UK. Just trying to point out similarities between the meaning of "Enduro" in different places around the world and the XMB concept.
We could argue about what the word "enduro" means in the UK but nevertheless a 28km ride in the hills is hardly a ground breaking event concept. Call it Enduro-Lite or Marathon-Core... whatever
Oh, and to write off other branches of MTB such as the more endurance orientated as "just dull slogs" shows a closed minded attitude to a whole discipline a lot of people thoroughly enjoy. It's a completely different challenge to try and ride 100 miles offroad to getting all gnar for 28km. Both types of events already exist and are popular with lots of different people. Nothing new going on!
Enduro called itself the way we are all riding... Now XCMB doing the same, what's next ?
Wat?