Train to Race: Mountain Bike Racing Advice for Beginners

There's nothing quite like screaming down a singletrack on a crisp fall day—bright red and orange leaves crunching beneath your tires as you cut through the cool autumn air. Now picture riding with dozens of your closest friends or, better yet, a horde of fellow mountain bike racing fanatics.

Mountain bike racing is a "social event in which you'll meet a lot of other fun people who also like to ride bikes," says Nina Baum, a professional rider for more than10 years. It's also a "great opportunity to test yourself and find out what your strengths and weaknesses are."

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Even if you don't want to race, the experience will introduce an entirely new set of cycling skills that will make those refreshing fall rides all the more enjoyable. Here's what you need to know to go from weekend rides to races.

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Getting Serious

When Baum decided to start racing, she bought a book and coached herself through the first season. "Once the racing started I saw huge improvements," Baum said. But by the end of the season her early success did a U-turn. Overtraining and time-management proved to be more difficult than she'd first realized.

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Instead of repeating her mistakes, Baum hired a coach for her second season of racing to develop a better plan.

"It gave me an objective outsider with whom I could discuss the intricacies of racing and training," says Baum, who recently placed tenth at the Mountain Bike XC (cross-country) Nationals event in Sun Valley, Idaho. "My learning curve steepened exponentially with the kind of input I was able to get. I'd highly recommend a coach for anyone looking to take their racing to the next level." 

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How Racing Is Different from Riding

On a casual ride, you might start slow and crank up the intensity over the course of the ride, conserving your energy for big climbs. In racing, it's just the opposite:

"It's all about the start," Baum says. "It's about being able to go all out for 10 minutes and then hang on for dear life at an intensity you would normally save for only the steepest hills during a casual ride."

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In addition to a heart-pounding start, Baum highlights four more skills that are essential for racing:

• Fueling on the bike—if your energy reserves run low, it's impossible to race at your highest level.
• Staying focused—mountain bike racing requires extreme focus, especially on technical terrain.
• Having a modicum of technical ability—although she says you can sometimes fake that.
• Keeping a positive mental attitude no matter what—first and foremost, mountain biking should be fun.

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How to Improve

Anyone can race, but if you want to be competitive you need two things: persistence and patience. Persistence to train even when you don't feel like it and the patience to know your hard work will pay off. It takes time to pinpoint what works well and develop the skills that aren't up to par.

Baum recommends homing in on your strengths and weaknesses.

"Identify your weaknesses and hammer on them until they become your strengths," says Baum, whose proudest achievement has been her ability to stick with racing long enough to pass her knowledge on to junior racers.

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Don't be "afraid to make changes, but also [don't be afraid] to stick with something that you think works for you, whether or not it works for anyone else," Baum says.

"Of course," Baum adds, "hiring a coach makes all of the above a lot easier to do; it can be really hard to figure these things out on your own."

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