gdharries

I rode for them in the late 90s, KHS Canada specifically. Great bikes and they’ve been so supportive of grassroots and amateur racing. Here’s a photo of my KHS Alite 4000 from that era https://www.pinkbike.com/photo/22405420/

It’s hard for me to process that a CAD $7,000 bike is now considered a reasonable “back down to earth” (PB’s words, not mine) budget from which to plan a build. What a crazy little world we live in.

@krka73: Yes, good suggestion.

@sollie: I’ve found that XXL sized XC bikes are few and far between. Most brands it seems only make XC bikes up to an XL. There are more XXL options in Trail. Maybe “racers” are all considered to be short and lightweight, and have no problem with low stack heights 🤣

Maybe more of a trail bike, but what about the aluminum version of the Norco Fluid? That comes in a XXL and is properly sized.

In 2023, Cycling Association of Yukon (one of several local volunteer cycling organizations) hosted the Canadian Cross-Country Marathon MTB Championships and out of that came a lot of new awareness for our incredible mountain bike trail systems and regions. Some of the outcomes included an awesome video from Cycling Canada called "Together on the Trail: Mountain Biking in the Land of the Midnight Sun" and one from Stan's titled "Stan's Presents | Fast & Slow". Everyone should watch those! You can get to both videos from https://yukoncycling.com/index.php/news/article/results-and-photos-from-2023-canadian-xcm-mtb-championships-and-yukon-bike-fest Oh, and we also won Cycling Canada's Event of the Year in 2023. A pretty proud moment and achievement! Happy to see that the Yukon keeps getting recognized for the amazing place that it is.

Such an important event for XC mountain biking in Canada and especially Northern Ontario, and here on Pinkbike, it gets two whole comments. Two! There's so many grassroots, yet big community-oriented XC mountain bike events that happen, and while some get a tiny bit of news coverage on cycling websites like Pinkbike, Velonews or Radavist overall it's minimal. If you're not on social media, you'd have no idea they exist but they each draw hundreds or sometimes many hundreds of participants. Events like what proceeded this national championships with the Shuniah Forty Miner, but also Durango Derby, Marji Gesick, Golden Rush, Whistler Back 40, Crowsnest Pass 100, True Grit, Revy 50 and so many more. Is there a grassroots mountain biking news website for these types of events or what's the deal?

Gotta love some old school Mike Ness and the Social D crew!

@devinkalt: I can only assume there's a lot of pressure on him to perform, both by himself and from others, and in ways that very few professional cyclists would understand. He's a generational athlete. I would just give him some time, he'll figure it out.

He has way more than just road cycling fitness. The guy is a monster at CX. I think it has more to do with the different pack dynamics of XC mountain bike racing, not the actual terrain or "lack of dirt" on his resume. He has more than enough of the latter from his many years of CX.