Cutting Corners

I started trying to write this post a couple of times but never quite got it right, however with a couple of recent events I’ve once again been inspired to write about cutting corners and intentionally going off the track.

Rachel Atherton took the win at Windham but on her way down she lost control and went through the tape then rejoined further down. A lot of people thought she should have been disqualified for it and enough people have been in the past like Steve Peat at La Bresse last year. As a marshal at Fort William I’ve heard the call over the radio enough times to know the question always asked is ‘did they gain any time by doing it?’ That’s what it comes down to in the end was it a course cut to gain time or was it an out of control slide through the tape that lost them time rather than gained it. In many cases it’s the marshal at that spots call although with the coverage Red Bull is giving this year you can watch replays of it. With this question in mind neither Rachel nor Peaty should have been disqualified. Unless you argue that by going in and out of the tape they stayed on their bike when otherwise they would have crashed and lost more time, however this seems a little harsh on the riders if you’re insisting they crash rather than cut the tape.

On the other end of the argument I have got increasingly annoyed by people cutting corners up at Ashton Court.  Why ride a trail if you’re not going to stick to it, yes there are a few corners up there where it’s easy to get a bit wild on the exit and end up off the trail but just cutting corners for the hell of it seems daft. Surely most people are going up there to ride for the fun of it so why do they need to save time by cutting a corner.

 The other thing I’ve seen up there is people cutting drop offs on the red run, if they can’t hit the drop offs then they shouldn’t be riding the harder sections. However what has put me off entering a race up there in October is going up there after the summer race to find that people have deliberately cut massive corners to save time. Now that’s cheating and worthy of being disqualified, I know they don’t use course tape but surely there should be a certain sense of honour amongst the riders in not cutting a corner to save a couple of seconds in a local endurance event. To me it seems a bit pathetic.

In response to people cutting corners a few well placed rocks and branches were added to the inside entrance to corners, however as corner cutting continued the people doing this have gone a bit nuts completely lining the inside and outside of turns with rocks, making a really tight line with hard consequences if you do accidently stray off line. In some places they’ve even lined the straights with rocks which are apparently rather pointy. I was looking down at my gears strayed a bit to the right and ended up with this, I was going uphill and not very fast so they must be pretty sharp rocks.

If you stray out accidently and it’s that or crash fair enough but if you deliberately cut a corner to save time, in a race you’re cheating even if the course isn’t marked well, if you’re not racing it’s pointless and if done consistently damages the sides of the trails and the ground they’re on, as the Ashton Court trails were built up partly to help protect the land this a particularly ignorant thing to be doing. Mountain Biking allows us to see the countryside and appreciate it, so why destroy it for other people to save a couple of seconds that mean nothing to anyone.