The hub for marathon mountain biking
At 856km, the Mongolia Bike Challenge covers some serious mileage. Sitting down to consider the nature of the course, which includes vast tracts of double track trails as well as some 13,400m of climbing, Mike and I had forever enjoyable task of putting together a bike for me to take on the Challenge. Enter the […]
All photos thanks to MTBA President Russ Baker. Day two of the Lasseters Easter in the Alice was a split stage. You either love them or hate them. The need to go “full gas” twice in one day is by no means beyond the capabilities of a trained cyclist – but it’s a mental load. […]
If you’ve done the Cape Epic, chances are you’ll be told by a local that you really need to do the Old Mutual joBerg2c – it’s true mountain biking and more fun. That’s usually a tough piece of information to take, say on day 5 of the Epic. Over 100 foreign mountain bikers from 20 […]
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to visit south Western Australia. Living in Sydney, it’s not somewhere that is close by. After a 4 hour flight there’s then about a 3hr drive to get there. Round 2 and 3 of the Subaru MTBA National Series was on in Pemberton, so it was a great […]
Swiss mountain biking legend Christoph Sauser’s last Absa Cape Epic as a professional rider ended in triumph on Sunday as he inked his name into history by becoming the first person to win it five times. The 39-year-old and Czech partner Jaroslav Kulhavy (Investec-Songo-Specialized) rode conservatively to finish fifth on a sun-drenched 92km final stage […]
After a week of sand, rocks and long, brutal stretches of rough riding, riders at the Absa Cape Epic enjoyed something of a “fun” day out on Stage 6. Of course, fun is relative at the Cape Epic and the second last day of the race, while only 71km long, still featured 2000m of climbing […]
With day 6 and stage 5 of the 2015 Cape Epic in the books, it’s clear that the leading teams in the men’s and women’s classification are in a class of their own. Is it their bikes, professionalism, genetic make up, drive to perform – or just their preparation and experience that put them ahead? […]
Stage 4 of the 2015 Absa Cape Epic, a 111km loop of the Worcester countryside, finished much like the previous stage – with riders covered in sand, cursing the heat and rocky conditions of the route. And, of course, with Ariane Kleinhans and Annika Langvad of Team RECM Specialized crossing the line first, well ahead […]
A bewildering number of mountain bike stage races exist across six continents. Some claim to be the toughest, others the most scenic, while a few boast of being the greatest. Nevertheless, one race which appears to stand alone, in extraordinary ways, is the Mongolian Bike Challenge. Having raced the event in 2013, Phil Welch explains some […]
Australia and New Zealand have the terrain for epic stage races. We just don’t have many of them besides the Crocodile Trophy. But news has just broken about a new stage race that is taking the Cape Epic mould and applying it along the Southern Alps of New Zealand. The Pioneer was officially launched today […]
