Paul Van der Ploeg thumped the final right hand corner into the Mercure Hotel on Sunday morning in Alice Springs to claim his 5th stage win of the 2019 Redback and overall Redback Crown. And he smashed the course record by four minutes while he was at it—coming home in a tick over two hours. […]
Making memories at The Redback
Mountain bikes are a tool for fitness, a tool to earn a living (for some!), a method of self expression, a vehicle for transport, a way to blow off steam, a pride and joy, a travel buddy and usually a combination off all those things and more. In just the same way, a mountain bike […]
Redback MTB day 3: A sprint finish after riders rewarded with Alice Spring’s best trails!
Related Event: The Redback
Day 3 of The Redback MTB stage race is the first single stage day of the race. A longer and more challenging 42km course from the race hotel to the lush ‘Telegraph Station’ just north of Alice Springs took riders onto some of the finest trails of the region. A perfect mix of singletrack, fire […]
The Redback Day 2: Sun and Moon stage’s
Related Event: The Redback
Day 2 of racing in the red centre of Australia for the Redback stage race involved two 22km races one a TT and one a mass start race both competed on the same course but with one BIG differentiating factor. One competed under the warmth of the sun and the other under the stars and […]
Stage set for The Redback MTB race
Related Event: The Redback
Mountain bikers from across Australia will race along kilometres of hand built single-track in Alice Springs next week as part of The Redback, a four-day, six-stage bike race held around Alice Springs, NT. All the action begins Thursday 23rd August with a 39km stage and continues with racing each day, finishing on Sunday 26th August. […]
The Redback rolls on – Stages 4 and 5
Related Event: The Redback
If you think of all the sports in all the world, from archery to zorb football, then divide all these sports into their different disciplines, so that gymnastics becomes parallel bars, pommel horse, the rings, beam, and so on, you’d have what – a couple thousand? I can lay these sports end to end on […]
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 Redback Returns
Related Event: The Redback
What’s my favourite thing about mountain bike stage racing, you ask. The camaraderie? Wrong! The epic scenery? Wrong! Visiting new places and experiencing new cultures? That’s great, but wrong! Nope, it’s the buffet breakfasts. So. The Redback got off to a good start for me when I hit the buffet at the Mercure Alice Springs […]
Five reasons Alice Springs is worth the trip
Related Event: The Redback
While Alice Springs might be the closest town to every beach in Australia, it’s also prohibitively far from all the nation’s capital cities. For many of us, this means a longish flight or maybe two; it means a fair bit of holiday budget sunk into airfares and accommodation; and it means we might think twice […]
Redback heads to Alice Springs again this August
If there is a rite of passage for an endurance mountain biker in Australia, it must be doing a stage race in Alice Springs. And mountain bikers from across Australia will race along kilometres of hand built singletrack in Alice Springs this August as The Redback, a four-day, six-stage race invites riders to escape the colder temperatures […]