The hub for marathon mountain biking
Today went something like: Hours 1-2: Smashy, smashy along some lovely fast fire roads. “Oh this is fun – I like going fast” Hours 3-4: Slog up rocky, lumpy hills. Plod along muddy singletrack trying not to fall into the odd lake that the off camber trail heads towards. Go up a hill, then straight […]
I’ve always said that one of the best things about mountain bike racing is the places it takes you. For a road race, I might make it as far from my home in London as the surrounding counties, or the occasional foray to northern France or Belgium. Fun, but not exactly an adventure. The UCI […]
“Don’t be so hard on yourself” A sentence I have heard many times in my life, not only in sport but also in professional and personal circumstances. High expectations are something I also carried in my day to day life. In a way I believed it made people reach for the stars and in my […]
On the back of confirming that the 2015 Crocodile Trophy will have equal prize money for men and women, the race organisers have also announced that their other event, The Alpentour Trophy, another UCI S1 race, will have equal prize money paid to women and men in elite classifications. More than three hundred participants from 26 different nations […]
Ben Thomas manages and races for Mountain Trax – Vauxhall Motors Cycling Team, and is chasing qualification for the 2015 XCM World Championships. This weekend the second European UCI Marathon World Cup of 2015 took part in Spilimbergo, Italy. Part of the Tilement Bike Marathon the UCI race would cover 2600 metres of climbing over […]
If ever there is an event to re-write the format for first year success, it’s the Swiss Epic. Matt Page and Stu Spies raced the inaugural event for MarathonMTB.com in 2014, and can attest that it was one of the best races either of the two had done. Technically and physically demanding, but with 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 […]
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 transition stage on the Absa Cape Epic – from one race village host town to another – is sometimes regarded as being easier, but Wednesday’s 128km Stage 3 from Elgin Valley to Worcester was “very rough and really sandy”, according to race leader Christoph Sauser. Riders further back in the field also spent several […]
Strong and cold winds turned Tuesday’s Stage 2 of the Absa Cape Epic into an exceptionally tough one and all the talk afterwards was of how Czech strongman Jaroslav Kulhavy powered through it. This is day three of the world’s leading mountain bike stage race, which takes riders from a prologue on Table Mountain and around the Western […]
