The Australian XCO season reaches its climax this weekend with National Championship racing at Armidale’s fast and rocky University of New England course. MarathonMTB.com got between the tape early to bring you a preview of what’s in store for riders vying for the green and gold. The course begins with a fairly standard, flat, out […]
Canyon Topeak cinch Tankwa Trek
The third and final stage of the Momentum Health Tankwa Trek, presented by Biogen, was won by Nicola Rohrbach and Daniel Geismayr (Centurion Vaude by Goldwurst Power), and Yolande de Villiers and Mariske Strauss (Silverback Volvo OMX); but despite a tense moment for the leading women neither the pink or yellow jerseys changed hands. No […]
Report: Imogen Smith at the 2018 Oceania Championships
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 […]
2018 XCO Oceania Championships course preview, Dunedin
Oceania Champs, the Continental Championship for riders from New Zealand, Australia, and much of the South Pacific will take place this Saturday, February 10, at Signal Hill in Dunedin, which sits halfway down the east coast of the South Island. Huge UCI points are on offer so the event, in this beautiful harbour town, is […]
KMC-Fruit to go move to Ridley bikes
The KMC-Fruit to Go team will be riding on Ridley mountain bikes for the 2018 season. The switch to the popular Belgian brand Ridley is a logical one according to the team. ‘With our team we do not only race mountain bikes but our riders are also active in beach races, cyclocross and gravel races. This means we are the whole year […]
Backcountry Beauty: The St James Epic
The St James is a loose name for a backcountry area of New Zealand’s south island around the headwaters of the Waiau river, spanning from the alpine divide down towards the Hanmer Plain. In the 1990s, the New Zealand Government purchased the area from the landholders for a tidy sum of $40,000,000. Given that this […]
Yuki Ikeda gets set for TransCape challenge
With a strong record in marathon and stage racing, Japanese cyclist Yuki Ikeda will test his skills in unchartered territory when he makes his debut in the Liberty TransCape MTB Encounter in the Western Cape from next weekend. Currently based in Tokyo, the mountain bike marathon star from the Topeak Ergon Team will join up […]
Snow Bike Festival and a winter wonderland
There are few days where everything that needs to fall into place, falls into place. It can happen on race days, it can happen on social rides, but even with the best preparation it doesn’t always happen. Having the the right mix of motivation, conditions, equipment and experiences does not always happen. I’m lucky that […]
XCO National Series Round 3 and 4 – inferno on the Commonwealth Games Course
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 […]
TransCape lands a major sponsor for 2018
South Africa is the land of mountain bike stage races, and one of the top events, the TransCape, has received a major boost with the news that Liberty will be the title sponsor from 2018. This is another breakthrough for the seven-stage race, which recently received UCI status and takes cyclists on a 614km challenge […]