When I first started mountain bike racing, my experience consisted of solo road rides and group mountain bike rides. Eating while road riding was easy, and on the group mountain bike rides, we always stopped to regroup, making it easy to get a bite to eat.

But… you can’t stop riding during a race! You need to get plenty of food and water, all while navigating treacherous terrain!

It’s tough, but not impossible. Here are some tips on how to do it:

1. Know the course.

You need to know the type of terrain you’ll be dealing with in order to make the right food choices.

If the course includes many dirt roads or smooth doubletrack sections, it will be possible to consume energy bars. If the course is technical singletrack, you might have to limit yourself to liquid calories.

Knowing what you’re in for will help you decide what to carry with you.

2. Open your energy bars before the race starts.

If the course offers easier, open sections, you can probably eat an energy bar while riding. But you don’t want to have to tear open the wrapper while riding. That’s annoying and completely unnecessary.

Before you line up at the start line, always tear open the wrapper and peel it back at least half way. Then re-wrap the bar and place it in your jersey pocket.

During the ride, you simply peel back the wrapper, rather than tear at it and then peel it back.

3. Tough terrain calls for energy gels.

If you’ll be on singletrack most of the time, and you only have very short sections of smooth terrain, you’ll want to skip the energy bars in favor of gel.

Gel is easier to eat because you just squeeze the packet into your mouth and swallow. Bam, it’s down. I like to either carry GU gel packets under my shorts (easy to grab,) or carry a gel flask. With the gel flask, you don’t have to worry about tearing open the gel packets.

Even easier are the newer energy gel bites, like GU Chomps and Clif Shot Bloks. These can be carried unwrapped in your jersey pocket, which makes for a very easy-to-grab snack.

4. Extreme terrain calls for liquid calories.

While I do like to carry some gel with me during races, I have been moving towards getting my calories via my water bottles. This is great for the really rough courses because you don’t have to deal with any wrappers or reaching into your jersey pocket.

You can do this with a high-calorie drink like Hammer Perpetuem. Fill your water bottle with Perpetuem and you can get 200 calories per hour that way.

(Skilled riders can stick with water bottles, but usually a hydration pack is easier for drinking, especially on singletrack. I stick with my Specialized bottles since they’re easier to clean out than a hydration pack.)

5. You can make a mess!

When you’re already covered in mud and gunk from the course, don’t worry about smearing a little gel on your face. You’re going to finish dirty, so gel, sports drink, drool, etc. will just blend right in.

The key is to get some nutrients into your mouth, not to stay clean.

Just remember, don’t litter! Dropping gel packets on the course can get you disqualified (and could ruin the race’s future, depending on who owns the land,) so make sure all wrappers end up back in your jersey pocket. Yes, even the little tops to gel packets.

Now practice these tips on your next ride and you’ll be ready to eat and drink without hesitation during your next mountain bike race!

Have you ever been too scared to eat and drink during a road bike race?

For my first years as a cyclist, I almost always rode alone or with one other person. Eating and drinking were easy, and I could always stop and relax to peel open an energy bar if necessary.

But once I started doing fast group rides where I was rotating through a paceline, there were days I definitely didn’t eat and drink enough. It just seemed too weird to grab my bottle or pull something out of my jersey pocket in a big group.

Not only is it hard to eat while also concentrating on the riders around you, you never know when a competitor could attack, forcing you to either drop your food or get dropped!

Here are some rules to follow, based on tips I picked up over the years:

1. Choose an easy-to-eat bar or gel.

I like Powerbars because I can take small bites and chew them quickly. They also slide down easily. Not so with bars that resemble real food (think dry, grainy bars such as Powerbar Harvest.)

Energy gel is another option, especially when carried in a flask. That is very quick to go down. I do recommend the flask, as dealing with a gel packet (tearing and then squeezing) can be cumbersome.

2. Your energy bars should be open before the ride starts.

Always rip open the wrapper and peel it back at least half way. Then re-wrap the bar and place it in your jersey pocket. This saves lots of time.

During the ride, you simply peel back the wrapper, rather than tear at it and then peel it back.

Another great idea is using energy gel bites like Clif Shot Bloks and PowerBar gel blasts. You can simply dump them into your jersey pocket and grab one at a time. They’re pretty dry, so they don’t need wrapped, and that saves a lot of time.

3. Eat a little at a time.

When you do eat your energy bar, take small bites. You will most likely be traveling at a fast pace, and your already heavy breathing will be even heavier if you have a huge chunk of energy bar blocking half your airway.

Just have a big enough bite that it still fits on one side of your mouth, between tongue and cheek.

The aforementioned energy gel bites work great for this as well, since they’re bite-sized.

4. Eat at the back of the pack.

The best time to eat and drink is when you’re at the back of the pack. You can relax a little bit since you don’t have riders on your back wheel.

You can also make use of the draft created by everyone in front. You can pedal with less effort, so you can devote more attention to eating.

Still pay attention to the leaders, though, in case they attack.

5. Eat when the pace eases.

At a stoplight, when the pack is settled down and calm. Or if there’s a tailwind. (If you’re in the back, you get the most benefit from the tailwind.) The easier the pace, the better, so you can devote more effort to chewing.

I like to eat at the top of a hill if there are no attacks. (Rarely are there attacks on the descent, so if everyone is together at the crest of the hill, it’s probably safe to grab a bite.) Then chew on the descent.

I usually don’t begin eating during the descents because I need both hands on the bar! This is especially true when you’re not familiar with the course.

6. There is no such thing as table manners.

When you’re riding with a pack of stinky guys blowing snot rockets, you don’t have to worry about being polite. Chew with your mouth open, swallow food whole, drip water on your jersey, grunt, etc.

The only “rule” that comes into play here is, don’t litter! Make sure you get your gel packets and energy bar wrappers back in your jersey pocket.

Practice these tips on your next solo ride, and put them into play during your next race. Eat enough food and you’ll finish strong!

If you’re hitting the mud in an XC mountain bike race, it’s bound to be tons of fun… but the mud can also slow you down and knock you out of the race if you’re not prepared.

Here are five tips to keep running smoothly in the mud:

1. Block the mud.

The first option that comes to mind is installing fenders on your bike, which will block mud from coating your entire body.

Unfortunately, fenders add weight to the bike, so you need to use them sparingly. To save weight for an XC race, just use a little front fender to keep mud off your face (and out of your eyes.) Typically, pro XC racers stick with a small downtube fender, if they use fenders at all.

Mud on your back is not really an issue (so you can skip the rear fender,) but you do need to be able to see…

2. Non-stick yourself.

Even with fenders blocking some mud, mud is still going to cling to virtually every surface of your bicycle. It will also cling to the fenders themselves.

What you can do is take Pam cooking spray (it prevents food from sticking to pans) and spray it on your frame, fenders, pedals, and tires. This will usually lessen the mud build-up.

It’s worth a shot, because less mud equals more riding. And if you encounter a hike-a-bike in the race (quite common on muddy days,) a bike not coated in 20 pounds of mud will be much lighter for you to carry.

3. Mud tires.

Tire choice is always a top priority, but even more so when there is very little traction to be had. If you have the time and money to carry a range of tires for all conditions, you definitely want some meaty tires in your arsenal.

You may also want some extra-skinny tires, too. See, there are two schools of thought when it comes to mud tires.

The first says you want the big, fat, meaty tires that will give you traction in thick mud, without getting bogged down. This is the “conventional wisdom” approach, but many experienced racers do not follow it.

The second says to choose skinny tires (~ 1.75,) especially in soupy mud, because they will slice through the mud and find something to grip beneath the slick surface. They also provide more clearance between the tire and fork, making it easier for mud to fall through instead of build up.

If you opt for a narrow tire, you may go with a Panaracer Fire Mud or Maxxis Medusa. Both are lightweight, narrow, 1.8″ tires with widely-spaced tall knobs.

There’s also a third school of thought, and it says that the traction you get in the mud is going to be so bad that selecting some specific mud tires won’t make a difference.

Basically the point is that, if it’s sooo sloppy you wouldn’t run your regular lightweight XC tire, you’d probably finish faster by running your bike through the worst sections than by installing mud-specific tires and trying to ride everything.

Bottom line: get some narrow mud tires if you expect to do lots of races in the mud, but don’t expect miracles.

4. Thick chain lube.

To keep those mud tires rolling, you need the chain to be moving, too. The best way to do that is to use a thick chain lube that stays put, even when wet and coated in mud.

My personal favorite is Dumonde Tech lube. Just look at the picture in my review and you’ll see how nice the chain looks despite the bike being coated in mud.

Another cool thing is that Dumonde Tech won’t wash off with plain water, so you could rinse your drivetrain in-race and the lube will still be there for the next lap.

5. Lock down your grips.

One bike part that should not be rotating is the grips. Many grips will rotate around the bar if they get wet enough (a condition known as “throttle grip,”) so you want to lock them down tight.

Two of my favorite grips, Oury and Ergon, are available with a built-in clamp that will lock the grip to the bar. That’s the best method for keeping grips in place.

If you don’t have lock-on grips and don’t want to spend extra money for them, you could try tying the grips to the bar using wire or cable ties and/or using a little spray adhesive when installing them.

Bonus tip! Practice in the mud.

If you think there’s a chance you’ll be doing a muddy mountain bike race (if you race enough, there’s a 100% chance you’ll end up racing in the mud,) you should go out and practice riding your bike in the mud.

Riding in the mud requires a lot of handling skill, and you can only get that skill from practicing in the mud. You are shortchanging yourself if you only ride on dry trails on sunny days, and you’re kidding yourself if you think just switching to mud tires will make it easy to ride in the mud.

Photo credit: Gregory White (mistagregory)

I started out mountain bike racing in west/central PA around July 2002, but it has taken me many years to actually find the little local races in the area. One of them, the Dash for Cash in Sarver, PA (northeast of Pittsburgh,) has been around for years, but I never did this race till June 6, 2009.

I was talking to local racer Shane Gouldthread the week before the race, and he mentioned how cool it was – unreal climbs, bomb singletrack, etc. Plus a huge pig roast and party afterward. So I signed-up.

The race description said something about “lung busting climbs” and “gnarly descents,” but virtually all races make those claims in order to attract riders, so I took it with a grain of salt (even after my 18-month layoff from mountain biking.)

I figured the ITT format (i.e. mountain bike time trial) would make for an awesome race without worrying about huge bottlenecks going into the singletrack, plus it would give me a chance to have a little more fun on the obstacles without pressure.

[[Fast forward to the race >>]]

This is one wicked race! I don’t have much in the way of a race report, but after that race, I had to write a little something about the course itself. The course description is actually putting it lightly! This is unreal singletrack!

The course starts with a quick ride down the pavement, down a dirt road, into a hay field, then into the singletrack. It starts out with fairly fun, technical singletrack. It’s real twisty with plenty of rock gardens and logs. Then you head through another hay field, then the real technical stuff starts.

It’s hard to believe you could find this stuff on an XC race course. I’ve raced the Michaux races (Carlisle, PA) multiple times, and there is serious rough stuff there, but this Dash for Cash course is way more technical than that!

As the promoter says, it’s “100% rideable,” but that’s easier said than done. Especially in a race situation where you’re going too fast at obstacles you’ve never seen, and possibly delirious from the monster climb you just completed.

The toughest part is that there’s not much space between obstacles, you if you dab on one obstacle, you probably have to walk/run through another 3-5 obstacles before you can get back on your bike. It’s tough stuff!

Example: You’ll come through a tight corner with very little momentum, then you’re faced with a rock the height of your front wheel. Next corner, a pile of big, loose rocks that requires both muscle and finesse to conquer.

Get through that and you get to a super-steep downhill with lots of mud and loose rock, with a 90 degree turn at the bottom. (That was one of the scariest downhills I’ve done in an XC race.)

Somewhere in there you also have a section of rocky trail cut into the side of a hill, which is probably 18″ wide, with a nice drop off on your right side!

If you make it through that, eventually you hit the stream crossing. Spoiler alert: It’s not rideable! The moving water is at least knee-deep, and the stream bed is big, loose rock. Just walking through it was dangerous – I almost twisted my ankle twice where my foot slipped and wedged between big rocks.

After trudging through the stream, you get the joy of a huge dirt road climb. After that, things went a little hazy.

But I do remember a few more hill climbs, which are probably half a mile or a mile long and pretty steep.

Plus, a couple more descents that were quite steep, but much more fun than the first one. These descents let you keep some good speed because they’re slightly smoother and are more open at the bottom. The danger comes from the width of the trail. It has to be under 12″ wide, and the sides are higher than the trail; it’s easy to catch your pedals on trailside rocks and roots if you’re not careful.

Then there’s fun stuff like smaller creek crossings that are rideable, some more cool singletrack, as well as a jaunt across a golf course. You actually ride on the golf course, but watch out – there are golf carts everywhere trying to take you down!

Somewhere in there, there’s a really long tunnel. Hopefully you’re not claustrophobic, because it’s narrow, and pitch black. Plus the cement bottom is slippery due to the moss and other slime. (At least it’s not rocky like the tunnel in the Peanut Butter Festival race that’s just down the road from here.)

Throw in some more rocky singletrack, blind corners, big log pyramids, narrow wood bridges, and other obstacles I can’t really describe, and you have a beautiful 14 mile course. (The 19 mile expert course takes you back over 5 more miles of technical singletrack before heading up a big paved climb to the finish.)

Did that scare you off? Or get you even more excited?

Don’t get me wrong – this is probably the most fun course you could ask for in a joy ride. So much cool stuff. Trying to actually “race” the course takes the fun out of it though (at least when it’s the first time you’ve ridden it.)

So definitely check it out if you can. I don’t think you get much for winning (it’s more of a charity thing,) so just go and have fun!

Speaking of fun, did I mention it’s at a farm and has a great atmosphere? Live music and a HUGE post-race barbecue. Tons of meat, tables full of fruit and snacks, kegs of beer, a Red Bull tent, live music, etc.

It’s actually like a shorter version of the VisitPA.com Marysville Stage Race and Festival Weekend.

Find out more at the Dash for Cash page at the American Adventure Sports website.

P.S. There is also a 14 mile trail run on the course that starts about an hour before the bike race. If you have a buddy who runs, bring them too. But I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to run on a course like this!

P.P.S. I wish I had pictures of the obstacles, but I don’t. Luckily a blogger named David took some pics and video and has more useful info in a blog post about the Dash for Cash pre-ride. Those are the only published pictures I’ve seen of the course, so study them.

P.P.P.S. Shout out to the Steelers and Penguins, making Pittsburgh the Super Bowl and Stanley Cup champs this season!!

Need to get aerodynamic on your mountain bike?

If you happen to be doing a road race in the mountain bike category, or you are flying solo along a smooth stretch of dirt or pavement during an XC race, you typically want to be as aerodynamic as possible without compromising control or power.

You rarely see any “aero tucks” during a mountain bike race, but at an uphill time trial on the road, you never know what you’ll see…

I prefer to keep my hands on the handlebar (as my mountain bike position is just as low and stretched out as my road position,) but I picked up a very intriguing aero tuck position from Zak Dieringer (of TeamSpin.com) that I wanted to share:

(You can click the pics to see larger versions.)

Yes, his hands are on the fork crown! I tried this on my bike, and it was not stable whatsoever, but it must work for Zak.

[Note: Zak is typically on or near the overall podium in this King of the Mountain race. Your results may vary!]

Tip from Zak Dieringer: This was at an up hill time trial, so speeds were low and aerodynamics were not terribly important. What was important, however, was power output. This position, as weird as it looks, put me very close to my position on my road bike, and at least I felt like I was pedaling harder. The handlebars are about level with the saddle on this bike, which works great in the woods, but I felt like my mom on her hybrid pedaling up this hill. I would also not recommend this position if there is another rider in within a mile of you, you have to brake or turn, or, most importantly, there is someone with a camera nearby.

Back to the topic of aerodynamics on a mountain bike…

What I tend to do if I need to get aero on my mountain bike is move my hands close together, but keep them on the handlebar. That puts my hands close to the stem; then I flatten my back as much as possible, giving me a flat back and forearms, which present a smaller profile to the wind. (If I don’t need to pedal, I can stand up and get my butt in the air to really flatten my back.)

With those techniques I’m still pretty aerodynamic but maintain control of the handlebar, which comes in very handy on dirt road downhills, the likely place where you could use such a position.

Caution: Riding in any position like this in any situation is very dangerous as you could easily lose control and hurt yourself or others!

Photo credits: Levi Bloom