The hub for marathon mountain biking
You know it’s a bike race when you hear a drone buzzing overhead and a dirt bike kick starts behind you. Standing on a sharp upward slope beneath an enormous Rothaus beer inflatable arch, in start block D is where my Rothaus Bike Giro finally got underway, after a start to our 2018 European trip […]
And just like that, it’s over! Reef to Reef today finished with a sweet 50-kilometre stage that took in some icons of tropical north Queensland riding: Wetherby Station, The Bump Track, and Port Douglas’s Four Mile Beach. Logistically, this was a tricky one to manage: everyone corralled in the dark at 6am to load bikes […]
Stage three of Reef to Reef and we’re back. After all the challenges of the last fortnight or so (so sick!), Mike and I finally woke up feeling good. And excited. And not sick! Want to catch up? Check out our reports from Stage 1 and Stage 2 Today was the Queen Stage of the […]
After having such a great time yesterday, Mike and I had a pretty average recovery and a revival of dodgy sick symptoms (me especially) and decided (excruciatingly) that it would be wise to sit the second day of Reef to Reef out. This nearly broke our hearts, especially when people started returning from the stage […]
Reef to Reef is finally here! There’s been a fair bit of excitement about this event and it’s understandable. Not often do you get the chance to 1. Race in Cairns in the dead of winter, and 2. Race in a pair in Australia, or even 3. Attend an event in its inaugural year. The […]
It’s been quite some time since I’ve written a blog for MarathonMTB.com. Far too long, in fact, if you read the fine-print on my contract. But it’s not by accident. The last time I wrote just after National XCM Champs I managed to compose a cheery-ish, superficial post that sufficiently, I thought, masked the utter […]
The National XCM Champs in Townsville, held last weekend on 29 April, was a race that had started out a huge goal for me when I planned my season months and months ago but which, as the event approached, ended up being something I was quite relaxed about on the day. The last few months […]
MarathonMTB.com flew into Townsville early this year to get the low-down on the new course at Mt Douglas MTB park. National Champs had been planned to take place at the Pallarenda trails closer to town, but A LOT of summer rain left the course in need of considerable maintenance, so the Rockwheelers MTB club made […]
I headed off to Oceania Champs on my own this year, a week after my 37th birthday. Last year was meant to be my last year racing XCO, but I had an accident and couldn’t, so this year I’m doing all the stuff I’d planned to before I hit the deck, making up for lost […]
I arrived early for Round Three of the Australian XCO National Series at the Commonwealth Games course at Nerang and watched the junior men race. By 8:30am it was already over 32 degrees and very, very humid. The field was completely devastated by the heat, many youths ending up in the first aid tent. I […]
