Close to 300 men and women will compete at the MTB marathon elite world championship this weekend here in Grachen, Switzerland. Some will be vying for the honour of spending the next 12months in the coveted rainbow jersey, a widely respected prize throughout the world of cycling. Others will be lining for the sheer experience […]
Swiss Epic 2019 Stage 5
The final stage of the Swiss Epic, stage 5, took the race in full circle, back to Davos. Covering 64 kilometres and 2,350m of climbing, the stage promised no easy finale, with a number of challenging climbs. MarathonMTB.com’s day at the Swiss Epic With one day to go and over 6 minutes lead, Imogen and […]
Swiss Epic 2019 Stage 4
I know from experience that you can’t pack much more than 2,000m of climbing into 50km if you want to finish in the same place you start – so while today’s Swiss Epic stage looks mercifully short, it was bloody hard work, and that’s how it always stood out from the race route. Swiss Epic […]
Swiss Epic 2019 Stage 3
Every race has one, and today was the Swiss Epic’s Queen Stage. The most demanding, most emotional, hardest stage of the race. Today took in 80km and 2,200m of climbing, and while on paper this may look easier than other stages (think stage 1, with 3,000m climbing), the technicality of today’s trails, and the repeated, […]
Swiss Epic 2019 Stage 2
The Swiss Epic’s second stage presented us with a grand tour of St Moritz, the iconic ski town of luxury shops and private jets. So it was kindof a shame to see two hundred bikers tramp through reception in filthy gear yesterday and pretty much ruin the carpet at our lovely hotel, but nobody seemed […]
Swiss Epic 2019 Stage 1
Last time I came to the Swiss Epic was in 2015 and the event was based in the Valais region, with the route taking us from Verbier to Zermatt. This year, the fifth year of the race, the Swiss Epic roadshow has left the Valais region for the first time and headed to Graubuenden – […]
Ahead of the Swiss Epic 2019
I have often said that the day before a stage race can be as hard as a race itself. And even with planning, today was not without stress. The Swiss Epic starts tomorrow, and as I’m about to set off for some dinner in Davos, it seems like there has been little time to rest […]
Why you should do a multi-lap race.
Multi-lap endurance MTB events were somewhat of a revolution in the mid 2000s as the advent of 24 hour racing, 12 hour and many 8 hour events popped up on the calendar and quickly became very popular. In the years following the marathon discipline grew offering a more invigorating experience for multiple hours on the […]
Remembering why at The Willo
Everyone in the MTB community looks forward to The Willo. It’s a cool track, it’s close to home for lots of us, and it’s a chance to stop and remember a really, really great person. James Williamson was the guy at races who always had time to stop and say hi, and smile, and chat, […]
The Samarathon Desert MTB Race – Cory Wallace checks in.
Israel is a Middle Eastern country of 8.7 million people located on the shores of the Mediterranean sea. It has a predominantly Jewish population and is regarded as the biblical Holy Land. Racing a bike in Israel has been on my to do list for a long time as I have heard many conflicting stories […]