Badlands

This route was more technical than any XC stuff I'd done in Oz so maybe. But at the same time, I finished on this bike without any mechanicals so it kinda proves that it worked. Maybe my hands would be a little less 'nervy' right now if I'd have used a hardtail but then on this setup I swapped hand positions a lot so that is an advantage over a flat bar. Lower gears for sure would've made some of the more rocky sections faster for me but I don't have enough experience with suspension to know if a suss fork would have helped me. 38cm bars definitely not great - spent a lot of time fighting the front end when it was being kicked around or getting loose on the sandy corners. Wider tyres may have helped but then they'd have possibly been slower on a bunch of sections and not necessary on a lot of the climbs.

Basically I dunno. I just don't have enough experience with MTBs to know what I could do with one. I could get too confident and stack it on the first descent too so maybe having a bike I was worried about (mostly the fucking tubeless tyres) made me ride stuff slower than I would have if I was on some kind of MTB with huge tyres. Nursing the bike a little might've helped my body too.