This isn’t a bike WTH but I don’t know where else it fits.
Always get my ass kicked at the Fool’s Gold 60 mile MTB race in September. It’s like 2 hours of gravel roads and 3-4 hours of back country singletrack. I’ve always ridden my dropbar hardtail and finish totally wrecked. This year I’ve spent the Summer doing a big training block and am as fit as I’ve ever been.
Of course, now it’s going to rain so no singletrack, but not to worry the race reverts to a fun gravel course and my bike already has fenders.
However, there is a new rule today that everyone has to ride flat bars. This is especially irritating as the rain route is the Southern Cross gravel course ridden backwards - Southern Cross started as an Ultra Cross race where there weren’t any bike regs, so why does everyone have to be on flat bars for Fool’s Gold? The weather has preempted this into Not A MTB Race.
The most recent use of the gravel route due to rain was in 2022 where 3rd and 4th (of 5-person podium) were on gravel bikes. Maybe somebody complained? Or mad about current trends? If this ends up as a flat-bar only event in the future that would be so sad.
It feels egregious, since I’ve been coming to the event since 2017 there have probably been less than 15 people who’ve ridden drop-bar MTBs. Ban gravel or CX sure, but drop bar MTB is nonsensical.
Ironically, I got rid of my regular MTB because every race I wanted to do the first 4 months of the year was rained out.
And I know I’m preaching to the choir, but I hope someone in the comments is posting pics of Tomac and Phelan and asking if they are doing “real” mountain biking or not.
“Should look like a mtn bike” is so bullshit tho. Any attempt to get around the flat bar things will get met with “well, it still doesn’t look like a mtn bike”.
The flat bar thing was new this week. I’m going to go like normal and if the organizer wants to take my number I’ll just ride the course on my own for time.
No, but if I had more of an outgoing personality I’d tape this old pair of flat bars to my drops and troll everyone at the start line.
