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| Highestgoverning body | UCI |
|---|---|
| Nicknames | MTB racing |
| Characteristics | |
| Contact | No, although bodies do touch |
| Team members | Individuals |
| Mixed-sex | Yes, separate competitions |
| Type | Cycle sport |
| Equipment | Mountain bike,downhill bike |
| Venue | Off-road |
| Presence | |
| Country or region | Worldwide |
| Olympic | Yes, men's and women's since the1996 Olympics |
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Mountain bike racing (shortenedMTB orATB racing) is the competitivecycle sport discipline ofmountain biking held on off-road terrain. TheUnion Cycliste Internationale (UCI) recognised the discipline relatively late in 1990, when it sanctioned the world championships inDurango,Colorado. The firstUCI Mountain Bike World Cup series took place in 1988. Its nine-race circuit covered two continents—Europe and North America—and was sponsored byGrundig.Cross-country racing was the only World Cup sport at this time. In 1993, a six-event downhill World Cup was introduced. In 1996, cross-country mountain biking events were added to theOlympic Games. In 2006, cross-country mountain biking events became part of the World Deaf Cycling Championships for the first time in San Francisco, USA.[1]
In theUnited States, there are three USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Calendars: Endurance, Gravity and Ultra-Endurance. USA Cycling runs the USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships. There are mountain bike racing types that are not recognized by theUCI, such asmountain bike orienteering that is governed by theIOF.
Mountain bike racing is as old as the first appearance of themountain bike itself, when the originators, calling themselvesklunkers, descended with their heavily modified beach cruiser bikes as predecessors of modern mountain bikes from numerous mountains in California against a rudimentary time measurement. The famous Repack racing down-hill against the time near Fairfax, Marin County, CA took place in 1976.
The oldest organised cross-country (XC) racing-like event, however, is believed to take place fromCrested Butte toAspen in Colorado in 1978. It took 10 years before theUCI recognised racing on mountain bikes as a regular cycling discipline in 1990. In the meantime, the phenomenon of mountain bike racing spread across the U.S.A. under the umbrella ofNORBA.
The most plausible, although still speculative reason, was an early resemblance of the racing courses for mountain bikes with the cyclo-cross discipline, with a major difference: the mountain bike racing track was significantly longer (a cyclo-cross course has 2.5–3.5 km versus 4+ km for a XC track) and free of artificial obstacles. With the rapid advancement of mountain bike gear, namely stronger brakes and suspension, the mountain bike racing could take place on even more technical tracks making it more dissimilar to the cyclo-cross discipline.
Mountain bike racing became an Olympic discipline in 1996 and a cross-country type mountain biking race has been held ever since its debut at the summer Olympic games in Atlanta. Given the enormous variation of terrain a mountain bike can navigate, a division took place as a cause of riders' specialisation.
Today, Mountain Biking consists of a range of event types and categories. There are six disciplines[2] described by theUnion Cycliste Internationale - the sports governing body. These can loosely be grouped into eitherEndurance orGravity based disciplines.
| Name | UCI Abbreviation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-country Olympic | XCO | Commonly referred to as or "XC" colloquially, racing is held on a varied terrain circuit, it is normally around 6–8 kilometers (km) and is always a massed-start race. Cross-country races are held over undulating circuits (with technical descents, forest roads, rocky paths and obstacles), with a total time that varies from 1 h 20 minutes to 1 h 40 minutes depending on the category and course. |
| Cross-country Marathon | XCM | Marathon (XCM) is perhaps the toughest form of mountain biking because riders often have to cover more than 80 km in one race on mountainous terrain. The distances usually vary from 60 km to 100 km. Races often exceed 100 km, but are then termed Ultra-Marathons. Recently UCI has inaugurated the Marathon World Cup. Basically it equals point-to-point (PP) discipline and that means that riders have a mass start from point "A" and they finish at point "B". |
| Cross-country Eliminator | XCE | The Cross-country eliminator event must be between 500m and 1000m. It’s is a fast-moving, dynamic, action-packed format in which four riders race in heats on technical tracks featuring obstacles such as jumps and bridges. Competitions begin with a qualifying heat that takes the form of an individual timed lap of the circuit, as a result of which the fastest 32 men and 16 women qualify for the main competition. The fastest two riders in each heat thereafter qualify for the next round, with the format continuing until only four riders remain to contest the final. |
| Name | UCI Abbreviation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Downhill | DHI | Commonly referred to as or "DH" colloquially, is a race against the clock in which the rider negotiates a succession of fast and technical passages. The participant must demonstrate courage as well as sharp technical and piloting skills in order to affront tree roots, banked sections, bumps, jumps and other natural obstacles along the way. DH races are held in steep, downhill terrain, resulting in higher speed than in cross-country racing. The terrain is also significantly rougher than in cross-country racing. Speeds reach around 80km/h in the men’s races and 70km/h for women. |
| Four cross | 4X | Also known as 'mountain cross' or 'bikercross', it was largely inspired by BMX racing. This event pits four riders on the same course from starting gates to finish. There can only be one winner per event, so the races can quickly eliminate riders making the progression faster for a day's events. This is the reason it was chosen as the race-format to replace Dual-Slalom by the UCI at World Cup events. 4X also replaced Dual in the UCI World Cup series in 2002. There is a difference between 4X and mountain cross. In 4X, riders are each given a run down the course which is timed and the top 50% of the field then progress to the elimination rounds. In mountain cross, riders are given three heats against three other riders, and points are allocated for your position in each heat. Again, the top 50% progress to the elimination rounds. 4X was the format raced in world cup however mountain cross is the preferred format for amateur races.[3] |
| Enduro | END | Enduro in its most basic definition is a type of mountain bike racing where the downhills are timed, and the uphills are not.[4][5] Riders are timed in stages that are primarily downhill, with neutral "transfer" stages in between. The transfer stages usually must be completed within a time-limit, but are not part of the accumulated time. The winner is the rider who accumulates the lowest combined time from the timed downhill sections. Enduros typically take place over one or two days, but week-long competitions also exist. A typical one-day enduro consists of 3 to 5 timed stages which take place on technically demanding, generally descending terrain, often with sections ofsingletrack. In recent years,E-Bike racing has expanded with the addition of an END-E category. |
While often associated with mountain biking,Bike trials is governed separately despite the close association with mountain biking.
Since 2024 UCI started organizingUCI Snow Bike World Championships for mountain bike racing on analpine skiing course.[6]
There are many non-UCI sanctioned disciplines. Some of these are listed below. These may include events which are the precursor to modern formats (such as the evolution of Super-D into Enduro), or events which have fallen from vouge for whatever reason (such as Dual Slalom), or non-time based events (such as Freeride).
The main events in mountain bike racing are thecross-country event at theSummer Olympics and theWorld Championships andWorld Cup organized every year by the UCI at various venues around the World.
There are also other notable events in some countries, likeCrankworx, a week-long event inWhistler, British Columbia,Canada;MTB Himalaya inIndia;Chupacabras, a race inJuárez,Mexico; The NedbankTour de Tuli inSouth Africa,Zimbabwe andBotswana,Cape Epic inSouth Africa;Sea Otter Classic in theUnited States;Mountain Mayhem in theUnited Kingdom;La Ruta de los Conquistadores inCosta Rica andRed Bull Rampage Tour inVirgin, UT.
TheInternational Triathlon Union conducts an annualCross Triathlon Championship race annually. Additionally, theXTERRA Triathlon is a private off-road series and concluding with a championship each year in Maui.
Electric bicycle races include EDR-E (formerlyEnduro World Series's EWS-E),Union Cycliste Internationale's E-Mountain Bike Cross-country World Cup andFédération Internationale de Motocyclisme's E-Xbike World Cup.
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