A week on from AROC Sport announcing that neither their Capital Punishment race, or the Wombat 100, Convict 100, Kowalski Classic or Highland Fling would be part of the Real Insurance XCM Series, mountain bike racers and teams in Australia have been asking a lot of questions. Unfortunately, despite contact with various sources, there is little that can be confirmed about the future besides stressing that all these races will still run – they just won’t contribute to an overall point score and prize pool.
By combining well established and respected races into a series, Australian Cross Country mountain biking was experiencing an exciting amount of growth and popularity. It drew the attention of elite racers, out of industry sponsorship, and a variety of media coverage. A few racers I spoke to were quite vocal – including current XCM National Champion Andy Blair (Swell-Specialized).
“The Real Insurance XCM series has probably been the biggest success story in domestic mountain biking over the past 10 years. Cyclenation succeeded in stringing together some established stand-alone events of a very popular discipline to create a series of races that has inspired riders of all levels as well as attracting corporate sponsorship and TV coverage.It seemed like momentum was building in the continuous cycle where the investment of series sponsors allows for good prize money, the prize money attracts the best riders, which attracts even more riders that want to test themselves against the elite and be part of something big. All these riders now provide even more of a spectacle and exciting racing, that makes for compelling TV, more people in the general public want to get involved and those racing are stoked to see a glimpse of themselves and their mates on TV, the events themselves become more successful, popular and attractive to event sponsors, more riders receive support from industry sponsors, the level of domestic racing improves as well as the numbers, and the whole sport becomes more attractive to outside sponsors and so on. These wheels move slowly and unfortunately when they stop it is hard to get them moving again”.
The startline of the 2012 Capital Punishment XCM race. Photo: CycleNation
This growth is worth noting as it was attracting more riders to the sport – which is something Anthony Shippard noted, “The weakness of National XCO organisation meant that it was a great way of actually getting all the racers together, regularly, for a real race. This brought about many benefits that are being overlooked in the fall-out. The first is Television coverage. This will certainly be less as a result of the announcement. TV brings more people to the sport – at both ends. It’ll certainly bring first-timers in as they will be able to see how many ‘regular’ looking folk race MTBs. At the top end, we know for a fact that it attracted top road racers to also have a pop (Camo Peterson at Husky, Chris Jory at The Fling). I for one loved the fact that the sport was clearly growing, that there was a real feeling of being part of something exciting, and it was drawing in new people to the events.”
Jenny Fay won both the 2011 and 2012 Series, coming from a rich experience of XCO, Road and Time Trial racing. “The XCM Series turned marathon racing in Australia into the fastest growing discipline of the sport I have experienced since I started racing here back in 2009. Nobody back in Ireland knew I had picked up a bike again until my success in the XCM Series and Cyclenation’s broadcast of the event online had everyone tweeting and tagging on social media. The off-road commission in Ireland have taken an interest to my success, as the series has exposed them to the potential of a rider representing their country in this discipline of the sport in UCI sanctioned XCM events.”
The reactions aren’t the same across the board though and Liv/Giant racer Jodie Willett still looked at each event on it’s own merits. “Contesting a series is a big drain on resources, especially as a Queenslander when none of the races (Ed: except the Championships in 2013) are in our state. I prefer to pick the courses which suit me, either in terms of layout, or being in an attractive and logistically easy format and area (ie. close to major town centres, start and finish in the same area, organisers provide neutral feeds and/or transport for your bottles to feed zones).”
However Willett admits that a series does help events in locations away from our mass of population in the South East. “I was excited to see races such as the Dwellingup 100 included as it is an enticer for people from the eastern states to support a great race that they may not otherwise consider due to its distance from the MTB hubs of New South Wales and Victoria.”
The XCM National Championships will still draw a great crowd – but will we see such deep fields in other XCM events?
And so the question remains – are people actually racing less now? Imogen Smith (Queensland resident) was quite upfront about how the lack of a series has changed her plans. “The motivation to travel to all or most of these races definitely diminished. Now that there’s no perceived need to participate in them all, I’ll probably save some cash and do fewer, maybe in place of a stage race. It’s a lot of travel and organisation to get to these races, but the fact that it was a series gave you something to strive for and a great motivation to string as many of them as possible together. This somewhat alters my racing focus for the year away from XCM and more towards lap-based enduros or stage races, which I think can be better value for money and logistically at least as difficult, if not easier to manage. I’ll still do a few XCMs, but will look at smaller, local races and one or two of the big ones, instead of interstate races that were in the series.”
With less focus on XCM, Cyclocross may experience more growth over winter. Photo: Adam MacLeod
With a new team primarily set up around XCM Series domination, Andy Blair is also re-thinking his approach for the year – and looking at what benefits he can reap from less XCM events that hold such an important pull. “In the short term I will honour all my existing commitments to races and my goal of defending the XCM national title remains unchanged. At some point I will sit down with my team mates (Jenny Fay and Shaun Lewis) to work out what calendar we are doing. One positive will be that without an automatic commitment to 7 marathons I might have a few free weekends to do some other things. Cyclocross and Enduro (Super-D) are taking off here in Australia and they are two disciplines I love racing but have previously not had time to devote much energy to. CA held the inaugural National CX series in 2012 and I managed to get to the first round which was awesome. The Flow Rollorcoaster series of Enduro DH races also looks really fun.
2010 National Marathon Champion Ben Mather weighed in, saying that before hand “I was planning on going to every round, costing me around a grand for each event. I will only pick a couple now. The major one being National Champs.” Living in Tasmania, Mather saw the value of the series and the quality racing and exposure on offer – and that justified his expenses to compete in all rounds – even though his costs were quite high.
Jodie Willet confirms that as a Queenslander, the Series hasn’t changed her plans, “As a rider it has not changed my plans but as someone in the business of mountain-biking it does appear that a co-operation between races could have enhanced the promotion and entry numbers or each race, as well as benefiting the sport of MTB in general”.
Via twitter, Australian XCM and XCO Champion Peta Mullens confirmed that she would race the Wombat 100 and the Highland Fling – but made no promise of the other races.
Similarly, Jarrod Hughes weighed in via Facebook, stating that he was scaling back his XCM plans, as were others. “I planned to do the entire series and was pretty excited. Most likely I’ll only do 2-3 marathons now, my focus has shifted more towards road racing now. Lots of friends are doing the same, even road guys were getting keen for XCM racing! A big blow for the discipline when the momentum was high.”
Road PRO’s Chris Jory and Justin Morris were drawn to XCM for the exposure and quality of racing. Photo: Richie Tyler
Anthony Shippard has a few young riders that he coaches and guides through their racing development, and the growth in XCM racing was perfect for this. Now, not so much. “It changes racing plans a fair bit. I speak from an athlete and a coach perspective. As an athlete, I know that winning one of the series races would be a very tough ask. However, consistently hitting top 5 performances to result in a top 3 or 4 overall – that was a reasonable goal. As such, a season would be structured to attend all races, with few ‘peaks’ of form, but just incredible fitness and resolve. The series meant that races had to have equal importance. Now, there is no need to go to races interstate (the cost was borne for the series points), and really you can train through less important races with a view to hitting absolute ‘peak’ for just one or two races a year. You also know that some races will now be weaker – with less interstate travellers – so they arent as appealing. If I was in Victoria, the logisitics involved with travelling for The Convict (for example) would have been hard to stomach, but bearable, for the series – with that gone, I cant see many Victorians, or Tasmanians making the trip.”
All this is not to say that XCM racing will now die. Far from it. But the sport seemed ready to explode into an amazing season with the Elite women’s offering increased depth. Jenny Fay won every round of the 2012 XCM Series, and was pushed all the way to the line at the Highland Fling. Australia has stunning women’s XCO and XCM talent, seen in the recent Kona Odyssey and National XCO Championships. Our own Subaru-MarathonMTB.com Elite women Naomi Hansen and Nienke Oostra are changing their target events, and as Shippard mentioned, it is unlikely for Victorians to travel as far. There is a huge depth of talent in Victoria for men’s and women’s cross country mountain biking. Fay has stated that her plan will remain quite similar to previous years though. “My racing plan will more or less contest the same races as last year, but now that I am not chasing a series or points, I have the ability to choose the more prestigious XCM events in Australia that I want to defend and that will be of equal benefit to my sponsors. I can also choose more local races that still have their advantages in respect of exposure and tough racing, but will require less travel and more recovery as a result, which in turn will help my focus on big training weeks towards peak races.”
A spent but successful Jenny Fay at the finish line. Photo: Richie Tyler
Still, Fay admits that the changes have been able to let her change her focus according the races – “I was afraid of missing some races in the series here if I travelled back to Ireland to contest the Irish National XCM Championships, but now I can go over there for a bit longer and think about a World XCM Series on the UCI Calendar, which will give me a bit of perspective on where I need to be in preparation towards my ultimate racing goal, the World Marathon Champs in 2014.
Australia is a big country, and anything that is going to constitute a ‘National’ Series will always be difficult to deliver on due to the distances participants would need to travel. But 2011 and especially 2012 showed that Elite athletes from interstate would travel – and that many other dedicated racers form along the performance bell curve would also build the travel and extra expense into their racing budget for the year. With races in Victoria, New South Wales, the ACT, Far North Queensland and Western Australia planned for 2013 – it seems we have lost a genuine National XCM Series right before it started.
What must not be forgotten is that these races aren’t disappearing – but the ability to help the sport and athletes develop through greater event promotion and exposure has been diminished. Time will tell if this results in a lower turnout beyond the top 20 finishers – but it shouldn’t prove to.
This is far from the last word – and please feel free to comment below with your thoughts on XCM racing in Australia, and where you think it needs to go.