I turned 35 last week. This unwanted birthday coincided with a periodontal abscess, a round of tortuous self-interrogation about my lack of (ahem) job or even employment prospects, and inevitably pressing questions about when I was going to start a family. From my mother. Mostly for me, my birthday brought home a pretty unfortunate biological […]
Archives for February 2016
Sheppard and Ward take Snowies MTB Festival titles
Wellington’s Samara Sheppard (NZL) raced to a clean sweep of all five stages at the three-day Snowies MTB Festival this Valentine’s Day weekend at Lake Crackenback Resort & Spa in the iconic Snowy Mountains of New South Wales. The 25-year-old Kiwi dominated each stage including the fifth – and final – 45-kilometre marathon on Sunday afternoon […]
The beauty of pairs racing
It takes Two to Tango… Pairs Racing Marathon racing is in decline in Australia. Make no bones about it. No matter how many cries of ‘there are just more races out there, so numbers are diluted’ I hear, the simple facts are that fewer people are attending marathon races – regardless of reason and when […]
Tortour Cyclocross race captured by Winterberg
The inaugural Tortour Cyclocross race was a perfect start and a crowning finale of the cyclocross season: From 12 to 14 February 2016, almost 90 athletes from 10 different nations competed in the event in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, the first-ever multiday ultra cyclocross and gravel stage race in the world. The race was clearly dominated by Swiss riders. […]
Snowies MTB Festival Day 2
Related Event: Snowies MTB Festival
It looks like tomorrow I’ll be going into hell to build a snow man to make the time up on Andy and Kyle. But with many more kilometres to race at the Snowies MTB Festival, as always in stage racing, it’s still all to play for… – 6 hours earlier – Yesterday’s TT around Lake […]
Snowies MTB Festival Stage 1
Related Event: Snowies MTB Festival
Given my affection to mountains, my list of holiday destinations in Australia is not the longest. Living in Bright ticks one great area of the list, and one that I seem to be frequently ticking off these past few weeks is the Snowy Mountains. With the Thredbo National round last weekend done, it was back […]
Who could win the Giant Odyssey?
Related Event: Giant Odyssey
The Giant Odyssey (formerly Otway Odyssey) will be celebrating 10 years of running one of the premier XCM races in Australia next Saturday (February 20). As one of the pioneer events of marathon mountain biking in Australia the event has earned a reputation as a difficult, epic, hard man/woman yet enjoyable marathon event. The race […]
Transalp rides the roof in Bormio
Related Event: Craft BIKE Transalp
It only takes one summer in the European Alps to realise what a fantasy it is to traverse the alps by bike. It is a need that drives thousands of ambitious cyclists onto the trails to cross Europe’s highest mountains. The BIKE Transalp leads mountain bikers through the Alps from July 17th to 23rd; racing for seven days and […]
Thredbo XCO – The two hour tour
After missing the Pemberton rounds to stay at home and tend to my vegetable garden, I was eager to start smashing it at XCO pace again. The Thredbo course was awesome and a whole lot better than the previous editions. With the Dirt Art team at the helm of the development, the new singletrack had […]
Pioneers descend to Queenstown
Related Event: The Pioneer
Today was the last day of the first Pioneer mountain bike stage race. Final stages are different beasts in every stage race I’ve done. In shorter stage races, there’s no need for a parade, or gifted wins. In some longer stage races, the race leaders might grace a stage win to other teams, if they […]