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Why are all NORBA DH courses rough & World Cup courses fast & smooth ?

klunky

Turbo Monkey
Oct 17, 2003
1,078
6
Scotland
There is one issue people have not mentioned with Fort William which may also reflect other WC course.

3 Weeks before any World Cup Event happens in fort William they close the course and fix it up for the race. this invloves removing large rocks that have appeard and filling in some braking bumps as well as clearing out gravely bits from the berms at the top of the course and other smoothing out features.

I have never had the pleasure of riding the course when it is like this but I can assure you after the World cup and the Scottish champs and the National Champs races and every other day Joe Public have had there chance to blast the course its rough as hell.
 

BMXman

I wish I was Canadian
Sep 8, 2001
13,827
0
Victoria, BC
Maybe a better question is....How many of you have actaully raced a World Cup course and a NORBA Nat? How can you possibly tell from a video??....D
 

nh dude

Monkey
May 30, 2003
571
16
Vt
pterodactyl said:
I race at Plattekill, considered by many to be one of the most tech/ difficult places to ride, and the "wide open" NORBA Mt Snow course beats my ass.
It's wide open for most of it and down the ski slope but the ski slope is sketchy because of the grass and it's littered with boulders. It feels like a jackhammer at speed, but you watch Hannah and the Yeti guys and they just fly over the stuff like it was never there.
word
i hate holes in the grass followed by water bars my right hand *almost* slipped off the bar this year. Those wc people go so fast it doesn't matter what under thier wheels
 

Mani_UT

Monkey
Nov 25, 2001
644
0
SLC, UT
How many of you have actaully raced a World Cup course and a NORBA Nat
Well Durango was a NORBA AND a WC :D
And that course was FUN!
Personnaly I like the hand cut nature like style of Norba.. May be it's because I'd rather plow into a tree at 20mph instead of 40 :)
 

bigdrop05

Monkey
Mar 26, 2005
427
0
MT. Snow has it goin on . I was there in 99 to only watch due to injury & saw every part of the course. I like that one,looks plenty fast.

Actually i like the slow & technical trails more now .Ragdolling at 50-60 mph would be absolutely NO fun .
 

profro

Turbo Monkey
Feb 25, 2002
5,617
314
Walden Ridge
Mani_UT said:
Well Durango was a NORBA AND a WC :D
And that course was FUN!
Personnaly I like the hand cut nature like style of Norba.. May be it's because I'd rather plow into a tree at 20mph instead of 40 :)
Hey Mani, I heard you upgraded. Get ready to be served. :nopity: :dead:
 

JRogers

talks too much
Mar 19, 2002
3,785
1
Claremont, CA
bigdrop05 said:
MT. Snow has it goin on . I was there in 99 to only watch due to injury & saw every part of the course. I like that one,looks plenty fast.

Actually i like the slow & technical trails more now .Ragdolling at 50-60 mph would be absolutely NO fun .
I generally like faster courses but Mt. Snow scares the crap out of me. Can't see the ground or think far enough ahead. You take a bad line there at warp 9, you could be in for a world of hurt.
 
JRogers said:
I generally like faster courses but Mt. Snow scares the crap out of me. Can't see the ground or think far enough ahead. You take a bad line there at warp 9, you could be in for a world of hurt.
I took a digger in a very wide open fast section and went down hard...like landing on cement.

I'm not going there again. Besides the single track, I didn't like the course: 4-5 minute course with the Yard Sale at the end. You've held onto a jackhammer for 4 minutes then go into a very steep chute with jagged boulders and a clean line about 6" wide. If you make a mistake, you are hurt. Injuries that I saw this year there: broken neck, wrist, pelvis, leg, collarbones, ribs, lacerated liver...anyway read HCORs rant in Decline...it is right on.

I'd like to try St Anne, probably 8 hrs from here...skip the Nats and go to Bootleg Canyon in Feb and ride some more at Blue in Ontario...maybe race some Ontario Cup races.
 

Ian F

Turbo Monkey
Sep 8, 2001
1,016
0
Philadelphia area
I read this thread and all I can think about is magazine articles from 1996 when everyone complained that Norba courses were lame fireroads and the European courses were so much more technical... :rolleyes:
 

Mani_UT

Monkey
Nov 25, 2001
644
0
SLC, UT
profro said:
We'll see in Feb. at Bootleg Canyon. Lets meet at the canyon gap. :blah: !!!!!!
Are you coming??? Sweeet! It's gonna be fun. New organizer really pump about racing = good hope that the event is going to be awesome!
 

Scurry

Monkey
May 9, 2003
276
0
Boston
nh dude said:
word
i hate holes in the grass followed by water bars my right hand *almost* slipped off the bar this year. Those wc people go so fast it doesn't matter what under thier wheels
Last year I had a scarry experience, at one of the tenney races I hit a waterbar at full speed, my right (dominent) hand slipped off towards the front and I landed on my chest on the bars, At first I was like oh ****, then I realized I hadnt fallen yet and put my hand back on. That was probly one of my scariest riding experiences ever, I was really moving then. I have never liked water bars at all, mount snow spy optics series there was a really scary one near the top, luckily they fixed it for the sport and lower classes for the Nats. But I went off if following a friend whom also almost dies, landed sideways on my pedal and hit a rock, that was probly my second scariest moment. I hate water bars.
 

MOTODH

Turbo Monkey
Mar 28, 2005
1,167
0
CT
WheelieMan said:
I can't comment on World Cup course difficulty having only ridden one in my life, but I have noticed that World Cup courses seem to have too many man made features like bridges, huge berms, etc... I prefer riding courses that reflect the geography of the area. For example, Angel Fire has a really sweet lava field (bowling ball sized rocks) in one of it's courses, but for some reason they left it out for the World Cup. But they added a giant wooden ramp/drop over a steep section that in my opinion completely ruined the flow of the course.

From the footage I have seen of Willingen last year, the course looked like it was entirely man made/shaped with jumps all over the place. Call me old-school but I think jumps belong mostly on 4x courses. A jump here and there is alright for DH but I feel there is such thing as too many. DH jumps should not be groomed and constructed out of the middle of nowhere, they should be formed around the natural terrain.

So I do like the direction that Norba takes with course design. Keep them natural and torn up!

amen, totally agree:thumb:
 

profro

Turbo Monkey
Feb 25, 2002
5,617
314
Walden Ridge
Mani_UT said:
Are you coming??? Sweeet! It's gonna be fun. New organizer really pump about racing = good hope that the event is going to be awesome!
Me and Ryan Bloch will be there for sure. Ryan has got some semi-pro podiums at nationals, so he'll be fast. Geritt Beytagh will probably be there too and I'm trying to convince Chris Herndon to show up as well. It should be a great time. Plus we'll have plenty of muscle there to un-stuck your car this time. :p
 

BPeterson

Chimp
Feb 23, 2006
2
0
I posted this reply to another thread but I think it will answer your question about why the WC courses tend to be fast and smooth...

Hi everyone,
I was the WC Organizer in Angel Fire for 2005 and I'll fill you all in on some answers to these questions.

First, the UCI is fighting for sponsorship just like all the other sporting events out there and they didn't get what they were hoping to get for 2006. That meant they had to cut their series short. Unfortunately, the US draws fewer crowds than other countries and it is expensive for all the teams to travel here. Those two points, plus the political climate between all the different groups trying to get the World Cup series re-vamped pretty much closed the door on another US World Cup in 2006. Angel Fire (as well as other US venues) did bid on a 2006 WC and will probably bid on 2007 too so chances are good it will come back around eventually.

As far as courses go, the DH was much more tame than we wanted it to be. This was due to UCI regulations about course length. The UCI has a maximum time limit for their WC DH courses, and their recommended time limit is actually much shorter (3 min). If you have ridden in Angel Fire, you know that most of the technical stuff is higher up un the mountain. We wanted to keep that as part of the course, but UCI regulations also said we had to end the course near the base of the ski area. The only option was to connect the technical areas with fast, open sections to get the riders to the finish within the allotted timeframe. As it was, the top men finished at around four and a half minutes, which was still much longer than UCI wanted. If Angel Fire gets the WC again, the DH will definitely be something I want to work on to up the excitement factor.
 

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
I think if you saw Ste Anne - you would not think that WC courses are smooth. Even the fast sections are FAR from it.

As for length, the UCI guidelines I have says between 3-5 minutes. Ste Anne was back from the top last year at almost 4:30 something for the men.
 

stiksandstones

Turbo Monkey
May 21, 2002
5,078
25
Orange, Ca
Here is the reason...I did not even read the thread-so sue me.

Back in the day the NCS series was famous for smooth tracks-but there was great racing. Then a bunch of cool, bad ass tough guys whined that the DH tracks needed to be more 'world cup', so some genius thought putting a lame rock garden, or slippery rock face would be extreme, cool and 'world-cup'. Ever since then DH racing has tanked.

It should go back to great race 'tracks', but course designers, promoters can not figure it out.
 

ride_fast

Monkey
Jul 10, 2005
325
0
boulder, co
its funny because if you watched the oln coverage of the angel fire world cup Greg Minnarr is like talking about how smoth and easy our courses are here in america and how they dont even compare to the rougness and tecnicality of the European world cups.
 

Zutroy

Turbo Monkey
Dec 9, 2004
2,443
0
Ventura,CA
ride_fast said:
its funny because if you watched the oln coverage of the angel fire world cup Greg Minnarr is like talking about how smoth and easy our courses are here in america and how they dont even compare to the rougness and tecnicality of the European world cups.

Yeah, but then you hear him talking about how bad his arms pump at Idaho......I think it just comes down to they are different and hard in differenet ways....it seems to be that way in Moto and even in auto race tracks.
 

dhbuilder

jingoistic xenophobe
Aug 10, 2005
3,040
0
stiksandstones said:
Here is the reason...I did not even read the thread-so sue me.

Back in the day the NCS series was famous for smooth tracks-but there was great racing. Then a bunch of cool, bad ass tough guys whined that the DH tracks needed to be more 'world cup', so some genius thought putting a lame rock garden, or slippery rock face would be extreme, cool and 'world-cup'. Ever since then DH racing has tanked.

It should go back to great race 'tracks', but course designers, promoters can not figure it out.
can't quite agree on that one sticks.

while i do agree that "back in the day"(the tomac and furtado era) the d.h. racing was great.

nowadays the bikes are much better. able to deliver more performance than most of us can take advantage of.

and even at my age, skill levels are ever increasing.

the stuff we rip over nowadays would have sent a terror induced chill up my spine just ten years ago.

although i do think more variety of terrain in both x-c and d.h. would be cool. the 1990 worlds x-c course in durango to me is what x-c racing is all about, not this dirt sidewalk skinny tire crap we see nowadays.

and courses more like the kamakazee are too few and far between.
 

ride_fast

Monkey
Jul 10, 2005
325
0
boulder, co
Zutroy said:
Yeah, but then you hear him talking about how bad his arms pump at Idaho......I think it just comes down to they are different and hard in differenet ways....it seems to be that way in Moto and even in auto race tracks.
oh for shure. plus, any course is challenging when you racing on it because even if its easy to ride, you still have to ride it the fastest to win and you have to ride it better than every one else. that makes it hard i guess.
 

stiksandstones

Turbo Monkey
May 21, 2002
5,078
25
Orange, Ca
dhbuilder said:
can't quite agree on that one sticks.

while i do agree that "back in the day"(the tomac and furtado era) the d.h. racing was great.

nowadays the bikes are much better. able to deliver more performance than most of us can take advantage of.

and even at my age, skill levels are ever increasing.

the stuff we rip over nowadays would have sent a terror induced chill up my spine just ten years ago.

although i do think more variety of terrain in both x-c and d.h. would be cool. the 1990 worlds x-c course in durango to me is what x-c racing is all about, not this dirt sidewalk skinny tire crap we see nowadays.

and courses more like the kamakazee are too few and far between.
We agree to disagree, no worries. But I am just not a fan of the rock garden type stuff for a race course that seemed to become the norm...but people like that crap and there was a 500 page thread on it. But at the risk of having some jackoff tell me I am some know it all, I was in meetings years ago with NORBA, promoters, some riders and there was a move to make the courses 'gnarlier'....I did not like the move then. I think it all kind of stemmed from a track like Nevegal italy, that was super wicked rocky, USA riders would get SMOKED, come home and complain that we do not have any preparation for the euro courses...that type of thinking made promoters change the tracks a bit. But this thinking also had to do with NORBA ditching slalom for 4x, we all know how that is going ("we need to do 4x racing here, to better prepare our USA riders for Intl. competition.....even though our americans were kicking ass even then and we didnt even have a 4x series).

It is not some blanket statement, it just kinda trickled down and changed the courses quite a bit. Also older races like the michigan nationals which I thought were really cool were laughed at by a lot of people, bikes got gnarlier, so tracks like that changed. I also remember a long ass squaw valley American Championship course and DHmania and it was long with a lot of fireroad-riders were toasted at the end but all smiles. Like I said somewhere else in the DH forum, technicality is what you make it, if a track is a fire road, there will always be someone pedaling harder than you, taking a turn faster, etc...someone will walk away a winner.
 

dhbuilder

jingoistic xenophobe
Aug 10, 2005
3,040
0
thanks for the inside info.

the stuff i build for the guys and myself around here, is naturally steep and very very rocky.

so if we want to ride.....