The hub for marathon mountain biking
After 3 days of racing across the Easter weekend a total of 524 cyclists completed the Volcat GP, a UCI category 2 event. Sadly I was amongst the none finishers having picked up the bug on stage 2 which left me too ill to race stage 3. The 2 days I did experience though were […]
The Maxxis Ikon is currently synonymous with XC and XCM racing. Along with the Schwalbe Racing Ralph, the Ikon tread pattern is in favour with many endurance based riders and racers. Like the Hutchinson Python, Kenda Small Block 8 and Specialized Fast Trak and others over the years, the Ikon rolls fast and has predictable, […]
They say you’ve got to be careful what you wish for. Just before heat-induced delirium set in about half-way through today’s stage I reflected that I’ve been walking around for years trumpeting my taste for hot races. Well, today I got what I wished for and more on the final stage at Easter in the […]
Lasseters Easter in the Alice is in its third year, but this time around organisers have departed from their usual format to introduce a hill-climb stage for the first race of day two, which is traditionally split into two stages, with a night race in the evening. Locals have long been familiar with Mt Gillen, […]
The second round of the Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA) XCM Series ran today as stage one of the Lasseters Easter in the Alice Mountain Bike Muster. The ‘Bunny Buster’ is a 90km trek through the rough, rocky, and often flowy singletrack of Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory. 2015 XCM Series champion Andrew Blair was triumphant […]
After Cannondale launched their new hardtail last year, replacing the very popular F29, we had to wonder when the Scalpel would get an overhaul. While the Scalpel has been a very popular bike, it often wasn’t seen as the competitive XC full-suspension bike that it could be. Sure, that’s an opinion, but it’s also one held […]
It’s nearly April, but for XCM racing, the year is just beginning. Overseas, a lot of the top pros (plus a couple of thousand amateurs) have started their season with the ABSA Cape Epic, the world’s biggest, toughest, most helicoptered mountain bike stage race. Here at home, our XCO national season is over, and those […]
The mountain bike year has well and truly begun. Unlike riders in the north, in Australia we receive little respite over the holiday period. We don’t go skiing, we don’t escape to summer climes. We live in the perfect training haven, more or less. So while our whole National XCO Series has been wrapped up, […]
Many of us who have taken to the sport of bike racing, be it in the discipline of road, track or any of the various mountain bike variations now available will likely always remember their first ever race. For most of us; from Julien Absalon to your regular club B grade racer this was likely a local […]
All photos by Robert Conroy Brewing for three years, the 2016 Bright National Championship XCO course, by all accounts, had been aged to perfection. Flowing singletrack gave way to technical rock rolls that dropped riders into collapsed mine networks and spat them out onto tough steep climbs with rewarding berms tall enough to swallow a […]
