The hub for marathon mountain biking
When I set up the MarathonMTB.com website in late 2010, it was only because I had countless hours of help from a friend. By help, I mean he built it, designed it, and continues to look after the site to this day. I just had a concept. After working, riding, racing and travelling for the […]
It’s a famous phrase – “the winter of my discontent” – reiterated and echoed on an annual basis with surprise each time that the inevitable does return. Short daylight hours barely exceeding the time spent at work, cold driving rain, grey skies – it’s a time of year better suited to books and hot chocolate than to […]
I’d hoped this story would be more triumph than tragedy where I could use my favourite, “I love it when a plan comes together” line as I saw my hard work come to fruition around the rolling hills of Belgium in the Rod d’Ardenne marathon. But nooo, I had to get sick the week before […]
Before the days of Trailforks, finding an epic trail was all about distant magazine articles. One of the most lauded trails was the Dun Mountain loop, a short back-country loop based out of Nelson, New Zealand. Like many of New Zealand’s back country rides, it follows an historic route through the hills, tracing the old […]
I have been riding bikes to escape, spend time with friends, and explore since I can remember. As soon as I was allowed to ride to a friend’s house unaccompanied I did. When I asked to be allowed to go further, that was fine, and I had a physical boundary set by my parents, of […]
A little while ago, I read an article on the internet that infuriated me greatly. Surprisingly, it wasn’t just pure clickbait fake news from the Murdoch press inciting against cyclists via facebook memes, but an article on Pinkbike: Riding Rigid is Ridiculous. Putting my keyboard warrior posturing aside, the Pinkbike article makes a very solid […]
A few years ago, New Zealand’s (then) Prime Minister John Key was faced with an interesting dilemma: how to promote cycle tourism in a country with roads that barely fit two vehicles, let alone cyclists. The solution was a novel one: Te Ara Ahi, the Great New Zealand Cycle Trail. A network of off-road pathways, […]
Iceland “the land of fire and ice” is a small island nation lying just south of the Arctic circle in the North Atlantic ocean. It has become a tourist hotbed as people come in droves to see its extraordinary landscape full of Volcanic activity, geothermal energy, glaciers, waterfalls and vast expanses of moon like rock fields. […]
Marathon races in Australia are often mass-participation events, where ‘completers’ outnumber ‘competers’ by huge margins. Cross Country Olympic racing (XCO), on the other hand, usually attracts hard-core racers chasing medals and jerseys. But even if you’re a marathon ‘completer’ when you get out to race, there are lots of reasons to love, watch, and even […]
Since finishing my PhD earlier this year I’ve gone back to tutoring. Sixty per cent of the academic workforce in Australia is casual, an issue that I’m probably not going to explore in a blog about mountain biking, but one that I thought I’d mention in case you’ve ever wondered why I never seem to […]
