British Cycling x Science in Sport — MTB Drop-In: Email + Article

Send date 2 July 2026 · Mountain bike focus · The email is the start line, the article is the race.

Subject line: You're at the top of the descent. Drop in.

Preview line: We've teamed up with Science in Sport, trusted by Sir Chris Hoy and the LA2028 Podium Squad. The clock is already running.

Hi [First Name],

Clip in. You are at the top.

Below you, two kilometres of cross country singletrack fall away into the trees. Roots laced across the line. Loose dirt skating over hardpack. A fast, dark plunge through the treeline before the trail bites back up the far climb. Tyres at 22 psi. Heart already at 140. You fuelled an hour ago, exactly to plan, and now there is nothing left to think about.

The marshal catches your eye. Three. Two. One.

You drop in.

The first berm rushes up and you rail it, weight back, eyes already three turns down the hill. The front wheel skips over the roots and you let the bike dance underneath you, hands loose, trusting the line you picked a heartbeat ago. The wind tears at your jersey. The trees blur. Somewhere under the adrenaline your legs are starting to burn, low and steady, and you grin, because you know, you absolutely know, you fuelled for this.

Then the trees thin. The trail kicks up.

And this is the moment the whole race has been hiding. Not the descent that feels so fast. The climb that decides everything. Your power has to hold now, right now, and whether it does was settled before you ever clipped in.

→ How did I finish? (CTA links through to the on-site article.)

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Pillar: Custom sports · Funnel stage: Awareness · Primary keyword: mountain bike race fuelling · Conversion keyword: cycling nutrition packs · Emotion: Thrill / Exhilaration · Nudges used: Peak-End Rule, Identity Reinforcement · Read time: 4 min (~720 words)

Tags: mountain bike race fuelling, cross country MTB, cycling nutrition packs, endurance fuelling, race-day strategy Slug: dropped-in-at-the-top-the-mountain-decided-the-rest

Two kilometres of singletrack. One climb that breaks people. And the quiet truth that the race was won before I clipped in.

The berm spat me out and the world went dark under the trees.

Loose dirt over hardpack. The back wheel stepping out a hand's width on every turn, and me letting it go, because fighting a slide is how you end up in the ferns. Roots came up like piano keys and the bike played them, light and loose and alive beneath me. My forearms were already on fire from holding the bars. My legs had not started screaming yet.

They would. They always do. On a cross country course the question is never whether the legs will go. It is what is left in them when the trail turns up and points at the sky.

Here is the thing nobody puts on the highlight reel. The descent is the reward, not the test. Gravity does half the work and your nerve does the rest. It feels fast, it feels heroic, and it lies to your face. Because the race is not won where the trail drops away. It is won where it rears back up.

On a cross country lap the climbs are where power output goes to maximal and stays there, lungs sawing, heart pinned. That is where the rider who fuelled rides away from the rider who did not. And by the time you reach that climb, the decision has already been made for you. The climb does not care how fit you are. It asks one question. What is in the tank?

The treeline broke and the gradient hit like a wall. Out of the saddle, weight forward, and now the legs were talking loudly, that deep and specific burn of muscle glycogen being torn through fast.

Punching up a climb leans hard on the fast, powerful, finite energy pathways. Every sharp effort on a cross country lap draws them down, and they only partly refill on the descents in between. The longer the race runs, the smaller the reserve you carry into each new climb. The rider who reaches the foot of the final ascent with glycogen still in the tank is the rider who holds power all the way to the crest. Everyone else watches their wattage bleed away and blames the gradient. It was never the gradient. It was the fuel.

I had fuelled an hour before the gun. Not by luck, not whatever happened to be in the van, but deliberately and to a plan, so I would hit that start line with full stores instead of a hopeful guess. And I kept feeding the engine on the move, taking on carbohydrate before the tank ran low rather than after it ran dry.

That timing is the whole game. Carbohydrate taken before you empty keeps real power available for the efforts that decide the race. Carbohydrate taken after you have bonked is just damage control, and the damage is already done. There is even an edge the gut never gets credit for. Carbohydrate in the mouth signals the brain before digestion has even begun, quietly dialling down how hard the effort feels and helping you hold your output. On a climb that is trying to break you, feeling a fraction fresher is the entire difference between holding the wheel in front and watching it ride away.

So. How did I finish?

I held it.

Out of the saddle over the last brutal pitch, vision narrowing to a tunnel, legs absolutely alight, and the power held, because there was still fuel in there to burn. I crested the top with my heart trying to climb out of my chest, dropped back onto the gas, and let the final descent fire me home with the climb behind me and nothing left owing to the mountain.

That is the whole secret, and it is not a secret at all. The thrill is the descent. The result is the fuelling. You earn the right to enjoy the first by getting the second right, quietly, an hour before anyone is watching.

The mountain decides the race. You decide what you bring to it.

Our three Cycling Packs take the guesswork out of exactly this. Each one is dialled to a type of riding, built by the performance nutritionists behind Sir Chris Hoy and the LA2028 Podium Squad. Find the one that matches your ride, fuel it properly, then clip in and drop in.

Performance Pack	Endurance Pack	Tempo Pack
For the punchy, high-intensity days — Shop Performance Pack	For the all-day, big-mileage epics — Shop Endurance Pack	For the sustained threshold grind — Shop Tempo Pack

Why does the climb decide a cross country race more than the descent?

The descent is gravity assisted and skill led. The climbs are where power output goes maximal, and that is where a fuelled rider rides away from an unfuelled one. By the time you reach the climb, the fuelling decision has already been made.

Can I fix my fuelling in the middle of a race if I get it wrong?

Mostly no. Carbohydrate taken before you empty keeps power available. Carbohydrate taken after you have bonked is damage limitation. The race is won on the hour before and the steady topping up along the way, not on a last ditch gel when the tank is already dry.