My love affair with the Belgian Ardennes continues, it hasn’t always been a kind relationship, so many times this place has inspired and then demolished dreams. Each May we make our pilgrimage to the area to battle around these beautiful hills, it’s a trip I’ve been making for around six years for marathon races and […]
Train with MarathonMTB.com for the Convict 100
So far the year 2020 has thrown up challenges around the world. The world of sport has been upended, but in some countries events have been able to reschedule, allowing us mountain bikers to set goals for later in the year. Goal setting is a key part of motivation, and a positive goal to train […]
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, […]
The Joy (and Stupidity) of Singlespeeding
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 season on Shimano XTR Di2
Since 2012, the MarathonMTB.com Team riders have predominantly run Shimano group sets. Usually a mix of XT and XTR parts, mixed for the best combination of price, weight, performance and durability. Favour fell to parts from Shimano due in part to their parts availability when away from home, especially in Europe. Personally, I’ve aimed to […]
2018 Australian XCM Series revealed
Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA) have just confirmed the dates and venues for the 2018 National XCM Series. Next year the series is trimmed down to five events, including the National Championship, in a bid to have more riders attend more of the series, according to MTBA CEO Shane Coppin. “We really hope this condensed series […]
The Redback time trial – Stage 3
Related Event: The Redback
I woke this morning on day two of The Redback in Alice Springs to what I thought was a truck reversing into my hotel room. Turns out the wind had blown up overnight and was roaring through the courtyard of the Mercure, shaking the ghost gums and kicking up sand. It brought cooler weather, with […]
The Convict 100 – the marathon that doesn’t make sense
Related Event: Convict 100 - Sydney's marathon mountain bike race
At the start of this year, we published a post outlining the ingredients that make for a great marathon MTB race. One of the stand out components is the route – it needs to be challenging and interesting, and you’d also expect there to be singletrack. So how come, the Convict 100 has no singletrack, and […]
Nankervis and Mullens on fire in Forrest at Otway Odyssey
Related Event: Otway Odyssey
The Otway Odyssey started in 2007 as an epic event starting opposite the Surf Club in Apollo Bay and climbing up to the Otway Ranges. The course took riders through the trails around Forrest and beyond, before dropping them, with a lot of fatigue, back to Forrest for the race’s finish. Since 2013, the race […]