- [Neil] So a few of you guys might have seen the video that Marc made a little
while ago asking our cross-country is fast on the descents.
- [Marc] I don't want to say slow.
- [Man 1] You're going to say slowly. Why cross-country ride is so slow downhills?
- Well, well it's a race, isn't it?
- So, we're at Lenzerheide for the World Cup cross-country and downhill.
We're actually going to send Marc out to do a full lap of the track to see how he
gets on, but what Marc doesn't know, we've got a little surprise up our sleeves.
We've got Nino Schurter, well known as being the best cross country-descender.
♪ [music] ♪
- Nino, how much do you think it's important to be fast in the downhills
in cross-country?
- [Nino] Yeah, today you have to be really complete, and you have to be fast in the
uphills and in the downhills and also to recover a bit. If you feel a bit more
comfortable in downhills, you can recover probably a bit better.
So you have to be a good descender if you want to win races.
- So Marc Beaumont has won two World Cup downhills. How do you think
you're going to do against Marc on the descents?
- It's difficult to say. It's actually not really technical downhills
here, so I don't think he's making too much time, but I don't know how fast he's
going the uphills. I want to do now, a fast lap also in the uphills,
so I'm probably suffering a bit, and then I can't go that fast really in
the downhills.
- Awesome, so we're going to send Nino and Marc off for a full flying lap,
see what the lap times are like and see what the dissents are like specifically.
So we're going to send you off to a lap of the track here, cross-country track
at Lenzerheide and see how you get on. How do you think you're going to get on?
- Well, I'd like to think I'd hold my own on the descent.
Obviously, I'm riding a bit of a different bike here, borrowed one of Brendan.
Seat high, fixed seat post, we'll see how we do.
- So what's the plan of attack? Hammer it the whole lap or look
for the down hills?
- I think the sensible man would have to say I'm going to have to conserve
energy on the climbs, because I'm not going to be fastest for a whole lap and
then try and play to my strengths on the descents, see where that gets me.
- Let's see.
♪ [music] ♪
- So, Marc, you raced the cross-country lap, flying lap,
did some times. We had a little secret weapon up our sleeves. We sent Nino
Schurter out to ride through a flying lap as well. Sounds like you weren't full gas.
How do you think you got on?
- Well, my practice lap was okay, quite casual. Flying lap...
- How did it feel?
- Horrendous. Horrendous, like within a couple of minutes or a minute the
heart rate was up there, then obviously maxed, and I wouldn't mind betting that it
didn't come down the whole time. I couldn't descend anywhere near how I
wanted to, because I was like... So, my heart rate was so maxed that I didn't have
any strength in my arms, so I couldn't even be aggressive with the bike.
- Should see the results everybody?
- I'm not sure we need to see the results. Do we?
- So, what should we say? In fairness, you only had one practice lap.
Nino had done a few practice laps.
- And it is 20 minutes from his house.
- All right, all right, excuses. We've had enough now.
- Do you want me to write your list?
- If you want to see a video of top 10 excuses, click up here.
Nino's lap was 10 minutes, 30. Marc's lap 13 minutes down, so maybe you would expect
Nino to be faster over the whole lap, but...
- I would say that's a given. Isn't it?
- Two and a half minutes faster.
- Yeah, but is that good?
- It's probably better than I could do, so I'll let you off for that one.
But the main reason we're doing this is to actually see the comparisons on the
downhills, so we split the track into three major downhills. They're not super
long but interesting nonetheless. Marc, you were two seconds slower on the first
downhill, a second slower on the second downhill, and three seconds slower on the
last downhill. So...
- You could say there's an element of fatigue setting in towards the end.
- You could say you were slower on all downhills.
- That's one way of putting it.
- We've got to say that I haven't watched Nino's GoPro. He actually set off
into the downhills a lot faster than you did just because of the sheer speed he'd
been going up the time beforehand, so it's pretty flipping impressive.
So, what you think of that Marc?
- Well, perhaps I got my tactics all wrong in a way, because obviously,
I wanted to do as fast a lap as I could to see like, to see how fast these guys
really are. Perhaps if I'd have gone slower up with climbs and not put myself
into such a mess, then I could have relied on my skills to perhaps,
that might make better reading for the descent.
- The interesting point is in the race at Lenzerheide, Nino's average lap time for
8 laps was 11 minutes, 08, so eight laps at that speed is really impressive.
- So still best part of two minutes.
- Yep.
- Faster than my fastest, so, that's enough embarrassment for me.
You guys asked for this video, and I failed miserably. And I'm sure you're
going to leave loads of comments about it.
- Yeah, down below.
- So obviously, we'd like to hear them, and we'll get back to you.
- And for more videos from GMBN, you can click up here for our Pro bike check
on Nino Schurter's bike he absolutely smoked Marc on, that the exact bike.
And for my enduro training tips, check that one I marked down here,
click down there for that one, get training.
- And if you'd like this video to end as quickly as possible,
Click on me to subscribe.
- In conclusion, cross-country races are very fast everywhere.
- That one from Switzerland appears to be very fast everywhere, yes,
and I need to do some more work. I will challenge him to a longer descent, Neil.
- What about an arm wrestle, thumb covered?
- Yeah.