There is a time and a place for stages races to be long, epic stages back to back. But thankfully, that’s not what Lasseters Easter in the Alice is about. The three days of mountain bike racing in Alice Springs is a mix of a long marathon, with two shorter days filled with challenging, hand-built […]
James Downing: For the love of Alice Springs
Some places are on our personal race calendars as we have them as a major target. Others are there as you know they always draw a big field, or because you’ve arranged to try something new with friends. Some places make it just because the riding, and racing, ar exceptional. Everyone has their own choices […]
Why ride and race in Alice Springs?
Here at MarathonMTB.com we have a soft spot for Alice Springs. With over a dozen visits between the whole Subaru-MarathonMTB.com Team over the past decade, we are repeat offenders when it comes to visiting the Red Centre to ride (and race) our mountain bikes. We often get asked what draws us back, why go again […]
2018 Australian XCM Series revealed
Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA) have just confirmed the dates and venues for the 2018 National XCM Series. Next year the series is trimmed down to five events, including the National Championship, in a bid to have more riders attend more of the series, according to MTBA CEO Shane Coppin. “We really hope this condensed series […]
Redback Wrapup
Yesterday The Redback’s sixth and final stage took in 45 kilometres of desert trails, sand traps, and rock features. We lined up just south of the Telegraph Station, the town’s trail hub, and rolled up the bike path, at a neutral pace. I hoped to catch sight of the dingo munching on a dead kangaroo […]
The Redback rolls on – Stages 4 and 5
If you think of all the sports in all the world, from archery to zorb football, then divide all these sports into their different disciplines, so that gymnastics becomes parallel bars, pommel horse, the rings, beam, and so on, you’d have what – a couple thousand? I can lay these sports end to end on […]
The Redback time trial – Stage 3
I woke this morning on day two of The Redback in Alice Springs to what I thought was a truck reversing into my hotel room. Turns out the wind had blown up overnight and was roaring through the courtyard of the Mercure, shaking the ghost gums and kicking up sand. It brought cooler weather, with […]
The Redback Returns
What’s my favourite thing about mountain bike stage racing, you ask. The camaraderie? Wrong! The epic scenery? Wrong! Visiting new places and experiencing new cultures? That’s great, but wrong! Nope, it’s the buffet breakfasts. So. The Redback got off to a good start for me when I hit the buffet at the Mercure Alice Springs […]
Five reasons Alice Springs is worth the trip
While Alice Springs might be the closest town to every beach in Australia, it’s also prohibitively far from all the nation’s capital cities. For many of us, this means a longish flight or maybe two; it means a fair bit of holiday budget sunk into airfares and accommodation; and it means we might think twice […]
Easter in the Alice stage 3, A close call after a fast stage
The third and final day of the Lasseters Easter in the Alice MTB stage race took riders on a 40km stage of fast, flowy and smooth trails in stark contrast to yesterday’s rocky trails. With a short neutral section on sealed roads out of the historic Telegraph station riders then took at turn onto sandy […]