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 […]
Chasing XCM World Championship qualification
It’s nearly April, but for XCM racing, the year is just beginning. Overseas, a lot of the top pros (plus a couple of thousand amateurs) have started their season with the ABSA Cape Epic, the world’s biggest, toughest, most helicoptered mountain bike stage race. Here at home, our XCO national season is over, and those […]
XCO club racing – the heart of mountain biking!
Many of us who have taken to the sport of bike racing, be it in the discipline of road, track or any of the various mountain bike variations now available will likely always remember their first ever race. For most of us; from Julien Absalon to your regular club B grade racer this was likely a local […]
Volcat GP to see 700 participants take to Catalan Hills this Easter
This Easter weekend, 25 – 27 March, the Spanish Catalan Hills will host the 3 day UCI category 2 Volcat GP. This year the town of Igualada will host all 3 stages making it logistically easier for participants. Whilst the Elite race competes for UCI points as individuals the open race is run as a […]
Algarve Bike Challenge 2016
This past weekend the UCI category 2 Algarve Bike Challenge took place. The event is a marathon stage race taking place over 3 days. You can read my preview for the event here https://marathonmtbcom.wpengine.com/2016/03/03/algarve-bike-challenge-preview-and-stage-race-catch-up/ The event was a pair’s race so I teamed up with Austrian Uwe Hochenwarter who rides for the Craft Rocky Mountain […]
Algarve Bike Challenge Preview and Stage Race Catch Up
This weekend Algarve Bike Challenge takes place, the event is a UCI category 2 marathon stage race taking place over 3 days. It’s the 4th year the event has taken place and I thought it was about time I checked it out. It will be my first visit to southern Portugal, the Algarve is known […]
Escaping the Winter Wonderland
Around this time last year, I wrote an article on what training in winter looks like for those in the Northern Hemisphere. Not that I’ve had to endure such hardships, although it did get a little windy the other day. I spoke of skiing as one alternative to riding that could tick some pre-season goals […]
Australian XCM Championship schedule announced
Last week, Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA), announced the schedule for the upcoming 2016 Australian XCM Championships in Derby, Tasmania. In 2014, MTBA committed to holding the race in Derby for two consecutive years. Last year, the rugged course on the Blue Derby trail crowned Brendan Johnston and Jenny Blair as Australian National Champions. In 2016, […]
XCM revisited- A return to the Otway Odyssey!
After a 3 year break from XCM racing and an 18 month hiatus from racing in general, I was excited to get back the ‘eye of the tiger’ at one of my favourite events on the Australian MTB calendar- The Otway Odyssey. I always had painful yet fond memories of this race and the 2016 […]
400 sign up for Salzkammergut Trophy Extreme
July 9th, 2016 has been saved in many marathon racing calendars for close to a year. The 19th edition of the Salzkammergut Trophy has more than 1300 entries so far, 400 for the extreme distance! More than 4.000 mountain bikers from more than 40 nations are expected again to tackle the seven different distances. Those who register […]