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another XC question

douglas

Chocolate Milk Doug
May 15, 2002
9,887
6
Shut up and Ride
:help:

Why is it called cross country anyway??

Everytime I tell someone I have a XC race, they think I'm racing hundreds of miles, but all I'm doing is a 4-5 mile loop a couple times!
 

ARmtnBIKER

Chimp
Apr 10, 2002
96
0
The Natural State
I watched a show the other day on Discovery or one of those channels about the evolution of the motor cycle. When it got to the point in history where Moto Cross started it explained how when the sport originally started it was called Motorcycle cross country racing, and then later shortened to Moto Cross because the name was too long to fit onto signs promoting the events. Of course Moto Cross back then was more like Hare Scrambles now, which is closer to XC mtn bike racing. But over the years they started building spectator friendly courses which is how it evolved into what it is now... hmm... kinda like Mtn Biking is doing by going to venue's with 5-10 mile spectator friendly loops, or the ever growing popular short course dirt crits. Anyway they gave an in depth defenition of what cross country was but I can't remember word for word what it was, but it basically said something along the lines as going across fields, jumps, mud and rough terrain. It had nothing to do with distance. That part of the show was pretty cool, gotta big laugh out of some of the guys taking some pretty hard hits. The first motorcycles raced off road were basically street bikes with knobbies, was really funny watching them try to jump, I know some of the guys had to of gotten hurt pretty bad. :D

Here is the definition of cross country according to Webster: 1 : extending or moving across a country <a cross-country concert tour>
2 : proceeding over countryside (as across fields and through woods) and not by roads
3 : of or relating to racing or skiing over the countryside instead of over a track or run
 

Airborne

Chimp
Nov 21, 2002
92
0
Pittsburgh, PA
Originally posted by Heidi
Yep, I'm sick like that. I do reverse shuttles, ride uphill then drive down. :p :rolleyes: :monkey:
what? you DRIVE down? i ride up the hill too, but like to hop down the hill backwards with my bike on my shoulder. sometimes i do it one leg at a time to build strength and balance!;) :D