by Zach Bigalke

Created on: July 23, 2007

The average mountain bike cross-country competition takes roughly two hours. The average road bike (one-day) race takes approximately six to seven hours. Certainly, there are added dangers in mountain-bike racing: rain can turn a course into a dangerous deluge, dust from drought-stricken trails can blind riders, and a broken bicycle can have a rider running multiple kilometers to the next support zone. But, for most participants in mountain biking, there is not the risk of riding in a pack of two hundred other riders, the touch of two wheels leading to a pileup of dozens of athletes.

Road cycling is the preeminent challenge for any cyclist. Races such as the ongoing Tour de France see 189 riders competing over twenty-one stages across mountains, windy flats, and through all weather conditions. A comparable stage race in mountain biking, such as TransAlps, La Ruta de los Conquistadores, or BC Bike Week, takes riders across stages roughly half the distance each day for at most a week. Further, most mountain-bike races turn into challenges of attrition; rarely does a mountain-bike contest end in a furious bunch sprint with over a hundred riders all clamoring in the same tight space to reach the line first. Rather, victors such as Julien Absalon and Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesja more often than not have gained minutes over their competition by the end of the race. Conversely, a road racer must work tactically with teammates to counter the effects of wind, weather, and other teams on the outcome of the race.

And before mountain bikers berate this logic, citing the ease of riding on paved roads rather than tangled roots, I must counter with perhaps the hardest race of them all: Paris-Roubaix. Held in April of every year, this century-old race is contested over the cobblestones of northern France. The condition of many of these roads is atrocious - and the riders don't have fat tires and suspension systems to dampen the vibrations of endless hours over what is justifiably known as the "Hell of the North". When the race day is dry, the dust chokes riders and blinds their vision as horribly as any mountain-bike race. On rainy days, the dampness make the cobbles as slick as if the racers were riding on an ice rink. Then, just to truly satiate the sadist in the riders who live to contest this race, there is a lap and a half on a banked oval track awaiting the riders immediately upon finishing the last stretch of cobbles in Roubaix.

I mean not to diminish the feats of mountain bikers. However, declaring that mountain biking is more difficult on the mind and body than road racing is pure drivel. Just tune in to the Tour de France on Versus for the rest of the month to get a view of all the perils faced by professional road cyclists; then watch a UCI Mountain-Bike World Cup race. Tell me then which is more competitive and taxing on the cyclist...

Learn more about this author, Zach Bigalke.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.