Tired legs roll out of Bannockburn This morning we got up before dawn and munched through breakfast in the dark. It’s always unbelievable to me that, given my usual appetite, when we get into the depths of a stage race I find myself completely without interest in food, so that eating is stripped of any […]
Archives for November 2018
The Pioneer Stage 4 – Mt Difficulty and other difficult climbs
Click. Beep. Click. Beep. Click. Beep. Ok I’m definitely in my smallest gear, but how is that possible? I’ll just check again. Beep. Yep. Shit. Getting going again Today Mike and I started Stage four of The Pioneer with the goal of making it to the first feed zone, then reassessing things after our nightmare […]
“That’s one of my hardest days on the bike” – midweek at The Pioneer
Related Event: The Pioneer
Today’s stage from Alexandra to Bannockburn looked a little innocuous on paper. 79km, with a couple of big climbs – but all farm track. That’s over 20km shorter than Stage 2, but similar climbing, but no singletrack – so it should be faster. And I think for many people, they probably liked it. And deep […]
Pioneer hits the Alex trails for the Queen Stage
Why is it that we only crash when things are great? All those awful, cold, wet grovels where you’d pay good money for a legitimate Out, nothing. Nothing goes wrong. Except maybe a flat tyre, but that’s fixable. Now when you’re ripping through trails, performing well, loving it – that’s when life deals you a […]
Queenstown rocks The Pioneer’s first stage
Related Event: The Pioneer
Sure, we all raced a prologue yesterday. We did 20km, got a bit muddy and had some fun. And while it gave us our start position, and settled some nerves, it was but a drop in the ocean for what lay ahead. All that would start this morning. My pet hate at any stage race […]
Pioneer Prologue-2018 event kicks off in challenging conditions
Related Event: The Pioneer
Cold. It was cold. We got up at 5:10am, which if you’ve just arrived from Australia feels a lot like 2:10am, and bolted some breakfast before heading for the first shuttle up to Coronet Peak, the ski station that towers above Queenstown and just happened to be under a whole lot of snow just a […]
How to set your bike up for The Pioneer
The Pioneer is just days away, and all in a rush it was time to actually make the changes to the bikes Imogen Smith and I are taking to The Pioneer for 2018. We’ve both done a number of mountain bike stage races, but this is the most ‘trail’ we have set up our race […]
European XCM Championships hosted by Malevil Cup in 2022
The European Championship will return to the Czech Republic in 2022. The European Marathon MTB Champions will be selected on the trails of the Malevil Cup in Lusatian Mountains, 10 years after the last time. The Commission of European Cycling Union entrusted the Malevil Cup organisers to host the European Championship in MTB Marathon (XCM) […]
Unrivaled Adventure and African Experience at the K2N Stage Race
Africa; the dark continent. Industrialized South Africa has burst into the mountain bike scene with a lions roar but what about the rest of the continent? Fellow Appalachian Adventurers Thomas Turner and Gordon Wadsworth set out for the first annual Kilimanjaro 2 Ngorongoro Stage Race across Northern Tanzania to find out! While the K2N is […]
Hellfire Cup Sprint Stage Race Wraps up in Tasmania
Related Event: Hellfire Cup
The final two days of the Hellfire Cup have wrapped up on the stunning Tasman Peninsula outside Hobart, Tasmania. Friday evening brought with it a rather catastrophic forecast with sever weather warnings given to the race area of catastrophic winds of over 110km/h. Subsequently the race organisers ‘Storm Bay Productions’ headed by Tasmanian MTB personality […]