Brendan Johnston and Samara Sheppard wrapped up the 2016 XCM National Series titles in style with dominant victories at the Kowalski Classic in Canberra today, Sunday October 16th 2017. Johnston is a dual national XCM Champion, and has made his mark on most of the major marathon races around Australia – including those that make […]
2017 Australian XCM Championships march north to Townsville
Defying some predictions of a return to Mt Joyce, or even going to Hiddenvale, Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA) has confirmed the Australian Cross Country Marathon Championships will be held in Townsville, Queensland for the next two years – right up north in some of the least populated area of the Australian East Coast. MTBA Chief Executive […]
XCM Champs: What does it cost to wear green and gold?
Marathon mountain biking isn’t a glamorous sport. In the past year I’ve got nude in a rainy paddock surrounded by blokes because there was nowhere else to get changed, slept in the boot of a car, smuggled a $7.50 toaster into a hotel room to avoid having to pay for breakfast, and washed filthy kit […]
Previewing the Australian XCM Championships in Derby
Related Event: Australian XCM Championships
This weekend the Australian XCM Championships take place in Derby, Tasmania. This is the second year that the event has come to Derby, and the sixth year that the race has taken a lap-based format. In 2015, the marathon racing stars of Australia came to Derby unsure what they would find. While many knew that about […]
Blair and Smith win MTBA XCM Round 2
Related Event: Easter in the Alice
The second round of the Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA) XCM Series ran today as stage one of the Lasseters Easter in the Alice Mountain Bike Muster. The ‘Bunny Buster’ is a 90km trek through the rough, rocky, and often flowy singletrack of Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory. 2015 XCM Series champion Andrew Blair was triumphant […]
Australian National XCO Championships 2016
All photos by Robert Conroy Brewing for three years, the 2016 Bright National Championship XCO course, by all accounts, had been aged to perfection. Flowing singletrack gave way to technical rock rolls that dropped riders into collapsed mine networks and spat them out onto tough steep climbs with rewarding berms tall enough to swallow a […]
McConnell and Henderson seal the Subaru MTBA XCO series
The final round of the Subaru MTBA Mountain Bike Series ventured north for a C1 ranked race in Toowoomba this weekend. With the XCO racing on Saturday, and DHI on Sunday, there were hot and dusty riders all over the mountain. With start times a little later than usual, the Elite women started at 10am, […]
Thredbo XCO – The two hour tour
After missing the Pemberton rounds to stay at home and tend to my vegetable garden, I was eager to start smashing it at XCO pace again. The Thredbo course was awesome and a whole lot better than the previous editions. With the Dirt Art team at the helm of the development, the new singletrack had […]
McConnell and Henderson back up in Pemberton
After the third C1 ranked round of the Subaru MTBA National Series in Pemberton yesterday, racers backed up for the C2 ranked round four today, on a different course at Pemberton Mountain Bike Park in South Western Australia. But McConnell and Henderson still fought to the top step. Henderson shoots late In last year’s double […]
MTBA announces 2016 Cyclocross National Series
Cyclocross has become the lost cousin in Australian cycling. If you’re reading this somewhere outside of the world’s largest island, you’ll probably be chuckling, wondering how cyclocross races can run in Australia. Do we have to race kangaroos? Wrestle a sheep? Is it too hot? Do we even have mud? While I can attest that […]