On Sunday 6 October Tim Dunford and Ben Thomas travelled the long journey in the comfort of the Vauxhall Vivaro team van to the Jura region of France to compete in the latest round of UCI Mountain Bike Marathon Series, Extreme Sur Loue. Here’s how they got on. As titles go Extreme-sur-Loue might conjure up […]
Ben Thomas’ Blog: Manx End 2 End
It’s been a busy few weeks for Mountain Trax – Vauxhall Motors Cycling Team as preparations continue for our expansion in 2014. The email inbox is a hive of activity and important meetings are being organised. However there are still a few big races remaining this year including the two final European Marathon World Cups […]
Ben Thomas’ Marathon Worlds Report
After four days in Austria I felt well rested and prepared for the 2013 World Marathon Championships. The course was a 95 kilometre loop with 4400 metres of climbing. I’d practised nearly the entire course before race day so was confident I knew all the lines and could ride all the technical sections. On Thursday […]
Andalucia Bike Race 2013: After the snow
It snowed in Spain. In some places it was the first time in 25 years they’d seen snow. The result: national chaos and cancellation of stage 5 of Andalucia Bike Race. With a severe weather warning in place the organisers made the sensible choice not to send 650 cyclists into the mountains. Stage 6 was […]
Andalucia Bike Race – Day 4: The Queen Stage
Mother nature decided that Andalucia Bike Race’s Queen stage on day 4 wasn’t quite difficult enough, a dumping of snow on top of the mountains would make things a little more interesting. A route diversion followed cutting the stage to ‘just’ 2,500 metres of climbing over 65 kilometres. A neutralised downhill section out of town […]
Andalucia Bike Race: Stage 3
Ben Thomas and Tim Dunford are racing the Andalucia Bike Race as The Mountain Trax – Vauxhall Cycling Team. Today, Tim has retold their version of the days racing. 68 kilometres, 1775 metres were the vital statistics for today, the third stage of the race. After suffering mechanical problems on the first two stages we […]
Day 2 action from the 2013 Adalucia Bike Race
Our final day in Cordoba started under clear blue sunny skies, after 5 kilometres of neutralised “fun”, the race was led out onto farm tracks. The organisers have threatened to impose a 120 minute penalty to any team who overtake the lead car, there’s been plenty of opportunities for this to be enforced but I’ve […]
Andalucia Bike Race, Day one
So today the racers entered the stage racing bubble, 6 days of thrills and suffering has begun. Today the Andalucian countryside swallowed up 650 eager racers and threw us out battered after 75 kilometres, the story has begun. Ben Thomas is reporting for MarathonMTB.com from his experience racing with Tim Dunford on the Mountain Trax-Vauxhall […]