Video: Christina Goes Full XC To Try And Win A “Race”

Jun 9, 2021
by Pinkbike Originals  


Christina brings a gun to a knife fight when she tackles her local XC "race" on her enduro bike. Can she set the fastest time? Or will she need to unleash her secret weapon?





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114 Comments
  • 127 1
 Race somebody who doesn't know they are being raced and then feel good about winning, sounds like my cycle to work.
  • 60 0
 so true. Anytime I'm on pavement with my XC bikes, any road biker is competition
  • 24 0
 Cat 6 til I die!
  • 20 1
 It’s the best Kind of race really
  • 4 0
 It's weird, every time I'm on pavement with a bike, my competitive nature triples compared to riding trails. And I've never raced road or XC, it's just a strange phenomenon.
  • 14 0
 The amount of times iv finished a long, exhausting day labouring but then an ebike has overtaken me going up the short punchy hill on the way home.. needless to say i always take them on the long downhill afterwood and die trying to hold them off on the flat
  • 8 0
 @mammal: My pathetic satisfaction in beating the delivery guys. even though they've done 6hrs strapped to a bag of pizzas.
  • 6 0
 Still counts, probably should name that ride on Strava as: S**K IT CHLOE.
  • 84 0
 @christinachappetta I call rematch! At least let me lay down a race time... you can keep the little bike and I'll race an enduro? Consider it a challenge Wink
  • 35 0
 Let's make this happen.
  • 15 1
 @brianpark: Great idea
and Mike Levy has to race it on the Grim Donut
  • 1 0
 Chloe should go do a race pace lap (and likely get the fastest time).
Then these two racers should do a head to head battle on course at the same time (someone should broadcast it) to settle the score.
  • 39 1
 The content that @christinachappetta has been putting out is fantastic. @pinkbike made a great decisions to add her and @tombrad to the content creation team. Keep it up, I get excited every time a see a post with one of your names!
  • 24 0
 Cheers bud! We have a lot of fun doing this stuff so it’s great to get the feedback Smile even if it doesn’t make me hurt for few days after…
  • 27 0
 I will take all the credit until they mess up, then it's 100% their fault thank you very much.
  • 6 0
 @christinachappetta: "that fudge thing was probably not the best move" has got the be the most relatable "I'm a serious athlete doing a less serious thing" thing I've ever heard.
  • 80 54
 when it comes to MTBing, being the fastest uphill will never feel as rewarding as being the fastest downhill.
  • 119 51
 Counterpoint: It takes a lot more work to be the fastest uphill, and is therefore more rewarding.
  • 101 11
 @cgreaseman: also, clearing a super techy, stupidly steep climb never gets old. It's definitely up there with nailing a descent in terms of joy.
  • 73 27
 @cgreaseman: tell me you aren't fast downhill without telling me you aren't fast downhill.....
  • 44 3
 If I get over the top first I have a good better chance of beating you to the bottom too.
  • 10 15
flag zstover (Jun 9, 2021 at 7:33) (Below Threshold)
 @cgreaseman: get out.
  • 16 42
flag kymtb0420 (Jun 9, 2021 at 7:36) (Below Threshold)
 @cgreaseman: It takes a lot more work to get good at downhill...plus you have that pesky injury risk that a lot of uphillers don't like to accept...therefore--downhill is more rewarding.
  • 14 0
 @cgreaseman: although I definitely wouldn't agree that one's harder than the other, being fast on the descents is loads of work and the risks are obviously higher as well.
  • 47 3
 @conoat: Being fast on a techy climb is about more than just fitness. Chances are good if you can rip up tech climbs, you've got the skills to rip on the downs as well, as well as having the legs and lungs to blow the doors off "pure descenders" who slow down once gravity stops pulling as hard.
  • 19 1
 @cgreaseman: I want to be fast uphill and downhill. I put in a fair amount of work to get there for an average Joe. Based on my ultra-scientific Strava leaderboard results....it's more difficult to be the fastest DOWNHILL.
  • 1 1
 AMEN..!
  • 6 11
flag betsie (Jun 9, 2021 at 8:39) (Below Threshold)
 @Paluzas: Going downhill is easy. Up something technical is on another level for sure.
  • 21 3
 “My teacher says being fastest uphill doesn’t matter.”

“That’s just something fat people say.”
  • 2 5
 @Lemmyschild: leave your mom out of this...
  • 18 0
 I really like going up and down; my personal MTB center is really in that all rounder space where my favorite rides have tough climbs, scary downs; fast parts, slow parts, etc. Straight up old school XC, weight weenie stuff on basically groomed trails... fun, definitely not my favorite. Big mountain DH days... fun, but I miss the challenges of the climbs.

Climbing is easy to point to as more demanding from a fitness perspective, but it definitely takes skill to manage a techy climb fast. Descending is easy to point out as a skill biased part of the ride... but anyone that's actually hustled down a mountain knows it is brutal on the body and wears you out. Definitely need fitness.

The big difference, and where your KOMs show up going down, my opinion and where I start to fall short of the faster guys... the willingness/bravery to go with the skills to kit the nastiest stuff at warp speed. Staying off the breaks, pushing ugly corners, etc - that's where going down breaks with going up - up doesn't have nearly the pucker factor.
  • 1 1
 @cgreaseman: depends on the up and down. Even a long climb up to 11 or 12 thousand feet above sea level isn’t that hard if it’s mellow 2 track or a fire road (if you’re fit).

Plenty of descents are accessed by a long but mellow grind but are really, really hard.
  • 8 0
 You could only believe shit like that if you've never won a race.
  • 43 0
 Pick a direction and be a dick about it.

Seriously guys?
  • 3 0
 @Stoaks: Conoat stirring the polarized proverbial once again. Getting drug to Jolly Old by his wife didn't change the way he gets his jollies one jot. Now can we view the race again with tires and displicine-specific outerwear swapped, and an emphasis on second person camera positions. For science
  • 2 8
flag Balgaroth (Jun 9, 2021 at 12:21) (Below Threshold)
 @cgreaseman: going fast uphill is a lot of work but mostly based on fitness which can be done following a training plan meticulously. Going fast downhill requires fitness level almost as much as XC, much more skills than XC but this can be trained, and the ability to consistently overcome fear to break through the next speed plateau. So the dedication and effort is not comparable, mostly anyone can follow a regimented training plan with a bit of motivation.
  • 1 3
 @cgreaseman: now that is a heavy shovel on the fan. As a person who is struggling with being stuck in the same result percentage in enduro race, I would definitely disagree with that. You need a ton of training and dedication to be fast on the way down: you have to be strong to push hard out of the corners, have the endurance to be able to choose your line in splits of a second after 3 minutes of ongoing effort (while your brain is screaming for more oxygen), have the skills sharpened on pumptrack/flow trails to be able to pump through the terrain, know where to put your weight in flat corners. Gosh, the amount of dedication you need to put to be fast downhill on 5 stages after 1300 vertical meters is comparable to what you need to do to get into hobby MMA fighting.
On the other hand if you want to be fast on uphills you just do your interval program and lift in the winter.
XC is not (only) about the uphills. It's about the mental game and endurance, technique. And to prove my point, do you know a lot of races where the only thing you need to do is to pedal uphill on a straight road?
  • 6 0
 @eugen-fried: to be fast on the uphill you “just do your interval and lift in the winter”?

I think this greatly discounts the mental effort it takes to blow you lungs out on those intervals to the point that you’re a competitive uphill rider.

Nobody is denying that training DH is hard, or that downhill riding exhausts you. However, I find it mentally much easier to push myself hard and train downhill than I do to crush climbs.

The two aren’t really equivalent and it’s hard to compare them, but saying that some simple workouts will make you crush all the uphills is just wrong.
  • 6 1
 I raced High Cascade 100 - great race, why anyone wants to MTB 100 miles is still a question I can't answer. On a sustained downhill I passed a huge number of riders, after the downhill there was a gravel climb. I got passed by all those riders on the uphill - they all complimented me on my descending skill, lots of them were really excited to talk to me about about how fun it was to see me descend as they easily pedaled past me on a gravel uphill... sigh.
  • 8 0
 @jeredbogli: I've been there, would always be overtaking everyone on the descents, but get immediately overtaken when the climbing starts! Ultimately in these types of races, you save seconds by being fast on the descents, but you save minutes by being fast on the climbs!
  • 2 1
 @ceecee: Everybody need a hobby, I suppose.
  • 1 0
 Both important good and hard. Anyone on here arguing foe one or the other sucks at the other.
  • 2 0
 @Stoaks: good call.
  • 1 0
 @jeredbogli: and if you want to win you have to do both equally well.
  • 3 3
 @TypicalCanadian: blowing your lungs out is uncomfortable and if you fail you simply won't be as fit. Failing in DH means you will most likely impact your physical integrity at varying levels from scratch to spinal cord injury. Being able to overcome this mental limit is much harder full stop and there is no magic juice to help either. Pretty much all sports related to running, road, xc, cyclo, rowing and so on imply overcoming the muscle burning discomfort. Few sports have potential life threatening aspects to it, like MX, Dh, MMA, bmx, skate and so on. Not surprisingly much more people get involved in the first category, much less in the second, but those you see doing the buzz isn't some ultra trail runner that have been running 24h+ on 10,000m of elevation (even though at that point the impact on physical integrity is debatable but not in the spectacular way of adrenaline sports).
  • 3 2
 @Balgaroth: gonna disagree with you since you’re clearly confused about what I said. Riding DH fast as you can is fun for most of us. Crushing yourself on climbs really isn’t. I was talking about the mental fortitude involved in pushing yourself physically,
not about a fear of getting seriously hurt (which you’re being rather over dramatic about).

We ride fast down big lines because it’s fun... not the same as crushing huge uphills.
  • 2 2
 @TypicalCanadian: all the people that like cardio or strength sports (me included) enjoy and find fun in the pain of pushing yourself. Basically all reward, very little risk. Downhill or most adrenaline sports imply taking some risks to fall and hurt yourself, at least if you want to progress and be half decent and the further your progress the higher the risk. I feel fine on 2/3m wide doubles or 5m tables but now if I want to keep progressing I should try similar obstacles but 2m longer. This implies going faster which will hurt more if I fail to commit or make a mistake. If I go for a run that is 10% longer than what I am comfortable running or go 10% faster than last time worse case scenario I walk back home with sore legs and lungs and will be fine the next day. I personally find it much easier to improve my fitness than to get faster/better at DH, despite DH being my favorite sport no discussion.
  • 2 2
 @TypicalCanadian: and not sure I am being over dramatic, over the last year in my riding group we had one broken pelvis, one broken ankle, many sprains, and we are all vetted riders that have being doing DH and enduro for years. Not sure you would see such quantity and level of injury in a 10 people group of XC riders or trail runners, even the most competitive ones. But I must be over dramatic indeed.
  • 1 0
 @deez-nucks: It is true I suck at going uphill FAST. Really good at going uphill slow.
  • 15 0
 I love Christina's in-ride commentary. I say this stuff to myself all the time, good to know I am not the only one. Christina is a way better rider than I am, but a really like how relatable she is!
  • 8 0
 Thank you! I do actually coach myself up and down trails still hahah definitely not alone there!
  • 6 0
 Yup. I love reading the pro XC articles too, but their level of toughness is generally just a head scratcher. Courtney jumping into an ice bath like it's nothing, Pidcock riding after less than a week with a smashed collarbone, Pendrel racing World Cup 3 months after giving birth... They're definitely made of different stuff.
  • 15 0
 Does anyone know the soft water bladder/bottle used at 5 min? Been trying to find something similar to stash in my fanny pack, err I mean enduro lumbar storage container.
  • 8 0
 Pretty sure it's a platypus water bottle
  • 1 0
 Hydrapak (also Salomon) make soft flasks in a couple of different sizes.
  • 13 3
 I wish someday, someone would invent some way to just search for information like that... Until then I guess we just have to ask people if they know the answer.


Smile Smile Smile
  • 3 0
 @stiingya: yahoo. Com
  • 1 0
 you mean ass packer.
  • 2 0
 @stiingya: Google reverse image search attempts to do that, but falls short unless you get a really good snapshot. Trying just now with a screenshot of the bladder from 5:01 yielded a bunch of blue dresses and people in graduation gowns, lol
  • 1 1
 LOL, um Woosh
  • 13 0
 XC with 170/160 mint
  • 9 0
 Used to be called 'Loonie Race' way back and you'd get beer and burger after. Some days it was a Enduro race, sometimes it was a hill climb, sometimes it was a DH, and all on v-brakes.
  • 1 0
 Well, Covid has put a damper to that. Fortunately our local supporters and businesses are still offering prizes to participants in our virtual toonies, and many are providing coupons for food and beer at local establishments! As we get into July, we hope to go full real-time and bring back the BBQ's and mixed race formats. We're so close to being allowed again.
  • 12 0
 The Sparkle Pony Top Fuel to the rescue!
  • 6 0
 I'm always impressed at Christina's natural presenting ability. It's like she's been doing it for years and years. Fantastic addition to the PB team!
  • 3 1
 Beating Chloe's time whether she knew she was being raced or not is no mean feat, she doesnt do pottering.

I did that toonie loop (in the middle of a larger ride in 22.14 on a trail hardtail so a minute off Christina's time sounds OK to me!
  • 1 0
 Great to watch some XC. I like the back-to-back comparison of your rides. Would be fun to have a contest with PBers who have a smart trainer and are willing to ride the course as well and post times. Sure some will cheat but just getting them to ride is a plus. Good article. Most riders are over-biked and you are riding that whippet well.
  • 1 0
 also I wouldn't mind riding those trails, they look like fun, even on the up. Almost makes me want to go out for a few weeks to clear roots, rocks, trees and soggy loam from the "XC-trails" here. That firm dirt...yummy!

Great video - looking forward to more!
  • 4 0
 enjoyed the vid, lung buster
  • 2 0
 Just watching someone eat an energy gel turns my stomach, and I don't think I've had one since 1994. Much prefer a Snickers bar now, and no associated flatulence.
  • 2 0
 I'd still take my trail bike over an XC everyday of the week. A few minutes longer? Worth it for the descents!

Now, what is that contraption on the right wrist?!
  • 2 0
 Oh gawd - that course profile ends higher than it begins!! Like the old Cheakamus challenge. Bringing back double bonk memories.
  • 2 0
 I miss westside trails so much, loved to ride High Society to Tree birds and AC/DC
  • 1 0
 Does anyone know what wrist brace Christina is wearing in this video? As someone who is dealing with major wrist issues right now, any info would be helpful.
  • 1 0
 Looks like the Mobius X8.
  • 1 0
 @CASCAN: looks like you're right, thanks bud! Such an interesting product!
  • 1 0
 When did 120mm become an XC bike? My perception of XC bike has long been no more than 100mm maybe 110mm. 120mm just seems like a short travel Trail bike to me.
  • 1 0
 It’s “Downcountry”, which seems to be becoming a more popular subcategory of bike for more demanding terrain, I think.
  • 1 0
 @MB3: There you go. So she didn't bring an XC bike to improve her time in the XC race, she brought a DC bike and the DC bike did better than the EN bike...so if she actually brought an XC bike what might happen?
  • 1 0
 Those are old school XC bikes. 120/120 will be the new norm in a couple of years. Look at new Spark RC.
  • 1 0
 @mrkkbb: I sill remember when 50mm suspension was considered cutting edge. Team Ritchey didn’t even have that… they won races with Softride / Allsop suspension stems.
  • 1 0
 @SuperHighBeam: not sure if the Trek Supercaliber would have done better than the Top Fuel on that trail. Maybe, but I’ve heard that more and more people are opting to run Downcountry bikes at the BC Bike Race, which has a stage in Squamish. I’m sure even Jolanda Neff might choose a DC bike if the trail was punishing enough.
  • 1 0
 @MB3: Perhaps, but this was for a toonie XC race and Christina was competing against an XC racer that was presumably on an XC bike. The second bike she rode was not an XC bike, so she established a better comparative performance but not a true comparative performance. Yes a DC bike may be more appropriate for that trail, but if we're benchmarking an XC race against XC pros than an XC bike should be used. If XC pros aren't riding XC bikes anymore and now riding XC/DC/TR depending on the trail conditions that's something else altogether.
  • 1 0
 Nerd question-what length steerer on the Slash? I'd love to run a OneUp steerer tube tool, but my steerer is a little short per their sizing (stock Lyrik on a Reign).
  • 1 0
 Excellent video Christina and top ov the class for beating both your times but you do notice the difference in bikes keep up the great work
  • 2 0
 Enjoyable. Welcome to the cult of suffering.
  • 1 0
 Nice to know Christina and I make the same sounds on a leg burning climb...
  • 1 0
 That feeling at 0:05s- we've all been there, some of us more often than others!
  • 2 0
 How about a how-to set up virtual races on Trailforks for badges, etc?
  • 1 0
 yeah would love to do this on a smaller scale with the crew...don't care about a TF badge...Slowest person buys!!
  • 2 0
 ~~ Canadian Kush Coughs ~~
  • 2 0
 I love the superhero style suit up into the XC gear haha! Rad!
  • 1 0
 This how I feel every time I'm suiting up in garage before heading out. Is that not normal? lol
  • 2 0
 Can't wait for the followup video now - XC bike for the enduro "race".
  • 1 0
 Upload climb to strava for FREE Beer
Got it
Thanks #Christinachappetta
Lookin good as always
  • 2 0
 Nice! Now repeat 3 more times for a full XCO experience.
  • 1 0
 Just goes to show that you can suffer uphill no matter what bike you ride.
  • 1 0
 Christina, what clear lens glasses are those?
  • 1 1
 That's a lot of cables and housing! 6?! 2 brakes, shifter, dropper, rear and fork lock-out?
  • 1 0
 What was the mileage / ft of climbing on the lap?
  • 1 0
 Christina really only videos I watch anymore on pinkbike.
  • 1 0
 "More. Very. Steep. Punchie. Owie!"

-Christina quote of the year. 3
  • 1 0
 They have XC trails in Squamish??
  • 1 0
 I will watch any video Christina does... Wink

We all need more of this
  • 1 0
 you never go full xc
  • 1 0
 you go girl!
  • 1 0
 im going full xc today
  • 3 3
 Secret weapon (e-bike)
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