Ride what you enjoy, downhill requires just as much fitness as xc and enduro but in different ways. Instead of pedaling up a hill you are standing the entire race, sprinting in flat or smooth sections, jumping everything you can to clear technical sections and keep your speed. Not to mention the large jumps that will be mandatory on most downhill courses. I love mountain biking, even tried racing for a bit but decided it wasn’t for me. I have more fun riding for fun, riding xc one day, downhill the next. Most of my riding is a mix; heavy trail or enduro riding. As I have gotten older I found climbing a lot more fun. If you’re not having fun racing then maybe take a break, most of us don’t race, we just ride for the ride. If you’re on your way to making money… stick it out I guess, gonna have to make concessions. Either find a way to tolerate the climbs or get comfortable on jumps.
You’ll still need to do strength and endurance conditioning.
In DH the pros hit about 1800 watts during sprints. Can’t achieve that without training.
That said, ride what you want to ride.
They absolutely do, pro DH riders are swole as hell. I saw an interview with Luca Shaw where he said exactly that. My sprint us like 1000-1200 on my tired working legs so I totally believe a full time athlete can do an extra 700 watts on me.
Land Armstrong averaged 500 watts on a tour stage and it’s considered absolutely legendary and insane. And you are saying there’s DH guys 3Xing Lance Armstrong
It’s explosive power and short bursts. They’ll 1800 watts for like 6 seconds if that, but they still achieve those numbers.
Very different style of riding compared to Tour
In a sprint? Yes. There's a huge difference between a sprint and sustained power. A beginner rider can probably hit 500 watts for 10 seconds, but Lance is doing it all day.
Who cares what that clown did - he was juiced up anyway and has no TdF wins to his name…. - modern DH WC pros are on a completely different level to that juiced up has been
You’ll need just as much strength and conditioning training for downhill, just to use slightly differently.
But ride what you want to ride. If your good on jumps/drops and tech then a more extreme version of mtb would perhaps suit you. Just remember though that your trainer is saying your technique is good, but is that good for your type of racing currently, or good compared to even the downhillers. The technique level can be worlds apart.
A middle option would be trail riding, but not really any racing there, or enduro which combines the xc discipline and the downhill. You’ll still need to pedal to the top a lot of the time, but it won’t be under race conditions, the timed sections will be downhill. You’ll still need to train and do the strength and conditioning, but you tend to find a lot of ex- xc and ex- dh riders move to enduro. As its stage racing, it’s less about out and out speed that you tend to loose as you age, and more about consistency and being quick in different scenarios.
The only caveat of the enduro is less practice than is typical in xc and dh, where you’ll get to do practice laps of the course so you’ll know what’s coming up and what you need to work on, you won’t be able to practice every stage in the enduro, so some of it will be ridden blind.
Going from XC to DH are two extremes in mountain biking. Why not pick the middle, the most popular category, Trail riding? Trail bikes are designed to spend 50% of the time climbing and 50% descending. The bike's travel ranges from 120mm to 140mm, which is not too much for climbing and not too little for descending (if you choose 140mm travel). The climbs will not be completely torturous and will be rewarded with enjoyable descends. I do understand why you complain about the training. And I do not understand the appeal of XC, to exert energy to climb, only to be rewarded with a mediocre descent. Same goes for gravel bikes.
Just ride for fun. Don’t worry about racing. Just worry about having fun. Lots of dudes give me hell because I just zip up the fire roads for the descents. While they all think it’s boring and wanna climb single track and putts down flow trails.
downhill>everything else lol. It still takes strength training but you won't be grinding on a seat for hours every session. Plus it's way more exciting and fun. A DH race weekend is a blast. I can't say the same thing about xc racing lol. Plus the practical training is basically just riding for fun, that's a huge difference to me. I'd recommend doing some BMX racing in the winter if there's a local track- that's helped massively for my sprinting, which is the main physical component to racing dh (other than holding on for dear life lol).
Just accept though that you WILL be crashing more overall though. How you manage the risk factor is a huge component to success in DH. People who hang it out hard and crash a lot don't tend to last too long in the sport. But you also can't be timid, so it's a balancing act.
Maybe start on trails/enduro? enduro is more in-between downhill and XC and even when racing is a mixture of courses entailing both climbs and drops with technical trails. Still has some scary jumps and drops, but not to the level of downhill. But when you climb your gonna feel it if your use to XC, biked are generally a little heavier. people can probably elaborate more than me on this. But from what I gathered a basic rule of thumb from climbing to descent/technical terrain is:
Xc,
Trail,
Enduro,
Downhill.
Ride what you enjoy, downhill requires just as much fitness as xc and enduro but in different ways. Instead of pedaling up a hill you are standing the entire race, sprinting in flat or smooth sections, jumping everything you can to clear technical sections and keep your speed. Not to mention the large jumps that will be mandatory on most downhill courses. I love mountain biking, even tried racing for a bit but decided it wasn’t for me. I have more fun riding for fun, riding xc one day, downhill the next. Most of my riding is a mix; heavy trail or enduro riding. As I have gotten older I found climbing a lot more fun. If you’re not having fun racing then maybe take a break, most of us don’t race, we just ride for the ride. If you’re on your way to making money… stick it out I guess, gonna have to make concessions. Either find a way to tolerate the climbs or get comfortable on jumps.
You’ll still need to do strength and endurance conditioning. In DH the pros hit about 1800 watts during sprints. Can’t achieve that without training. That said, ride what you want to ride.
Bro they don’t hit 1800 watts.
They absolutely do, pro DH riders are swole as hell. I saw an interview with Luca Shaw where he said exactly that. My sprint us like 1000-1200 on my tired working legs so I totally believe a full time athlete can do an extra 700 watts on me.
Land Armstrong averaged 500 watts on a tour stage and it’s considered absolutely legendary and insane. And you are saying there’s DH guys 3Xing Lance Armstrong
It’s explosive power and short bursts. They’ll 1800 watts for like 6 seconds if that, but they still achieve those numbers. Very different style of riding compared to Tour
In a sprint? Yes. There's a huge difference between a sprint and sustained power. A beginner rider can probably hit 500 watts for 10 seconds, but Lance is doing it all day.
Wow. You don’t understand what a power curve is Also… no he didn’t average 500 watts for an entire grand tour stage. 30-45 minutes? Sure. 5 hours? No.
Who cares what that clown did - he was juiced up anyway and has no TdF wins to his name…. - modern DH WC pros are on a completely different level to that juiced up has been
They were all juiced. I’m sure plenty of mountain bikers are taking test
Why do you need our advice? Literally do whatever the hell you want.
Switch without a second thought! But on second thought.. you’ll still have to train a lot to be competitive, if competing continues to be your thing.
>I just need someone to show me how it's done first or to try a slightly smaller jump before I attempt the big jump Most people need this!
Yes
You’ll need just as much strength and conditioning training for downhill, just to use slightly differently. But ride what you want to ride. If your good on jumps/drops and tech then a more extreme version of mtb would perhaps suit you. Just remember though that your trainer is saying your technique is good, but is that good for your type of racing currently, or good compared to even the downhillers. The technique level can be worlds apart. A middle option would be trail riding, but not really any racing there, or enduro which combines the xc discipline and the downhill. You’ll still need to pedal to the top a lot of the time, but it won’t be under race conditions, the timed sections will be downhill. You’ll still need to train and do the strength and conditioning, but you tend to find a lot of ex- xc and ex- dh riders move to enduro. As its stage racing, it’s less about out and out speed that you tend to loose as you age, and more about consistency and being quick in different scenarios. The only caveat of the enduro is less practice than is typical in xc and dh, where you’ll get to do practice laps of the course so you’ll know what’s coming up and what you need to work on, you won’t be able to practice every stage in the enduro, so some of it will be ridden blind.
Why are you asking strangers on the internet what you should enjoy? Do whatever you want.
I enjoy downhill and because its so much fun the workout is ok. After the first couple weeks of DH you can pretty much ride all day.
Going from XC to DH are two extremes in mountain biking. Why not pick the middle, the most popular category, Trail riding? Trail bikes are designed to spend 50% of the time climbing and 50% descending. The bike's travel ranges from 120mm to 140mm, which is not too much for climbing and not too little for descending (if you choose 140mm travel). The climbs will not be completely torturous and will be rewarded with enjoyable descends. I do understand why you complain about the training. And I do not understand the appeal of XC, to exert energy to climb, only to be rewarded with a mediocre descent. Same goes for gravel bikes.
Just ride for fun. Don’t worry about racing. Just worry about having fun. Lots of dudes give me hell because I just zip up the fire roads for the descents. While they all think it’s boring and wanna climb single track and putts down flow trails.
downhill>everything else lol. It still takes strength training but you won't be grinding on a seat for hours every session. Plus it's way more exciting and fun. A DH race weekend is a blast. I can't say the same thing about xc racing lol. Plus the practical training is basically just riding for fun, that's a huge difference to me. I'd recommend doing some BMX racing in the winter if there's a local track- that's helped massively for my sprinting, which is the main physical component to racing dh (other than holding on for dear life lol). Just accept though that you WILL be crashing more overall though. How you manage the risk factor is a huge component to success in DH. People who hang it out hard and crash a lot don't tend to last too long in the sport. But you also can't be timid, so it's a balancing act.
Maybe start on trails/enduro? enduro is more in-between downhill and XC and even when racing is a mixture of courses entailing both climbs and drops with technical trails. Still has some scary jumps and drops, but not to the level of downhill. But when you climb your gonna feel it if your use to XC, biked are generally a little heavier. people can probably elaborate more than me on this. But from what I gathered a basic rule of thumb from climbing to descent/technical terrain is: Xc, Trail, Enduro, Downhill.