No, it’s not a particularly niche ‘gentlemen’s interest’ website, it’s your chance to ride your bike a load and potentially win a whole host of ace stuff the upcoming Tweedlove cycling festival in the Scottish Borders. The full details are below…
“Are you a TweedLove Machine?
Can you cope with ten consecutive days of bike events?
Want to win a ton of great bike stuff and ride a whole heap of the UK’s best trails (and some classic roads)?
Want your accommodation paid for over all ten days?
If the answer is ‘yes’ then meet the new TweedLove Challenge
You are invited to enter and win the amazing ‘tough but fair’ opportunity to complete a fairly ridiculous schedule of bike events during the ten day TweedLove Bike Festival in the Scottish Borders
If you’re chosen as the TweedLove Machine®, all your entry fees and tickets will be paid for, you’ll get free accommodation for the whole festival (for two) and if you complete the task you’ll win £200 of Alpine Bikes Vouchers, a POC Trabec helmet, t-shirts, and other goodies. And, best of all, you’ll be hailed as the TweedLove Machine 2012 and probably become incredibly attractive to everyone.
Here’s the Challenge for you and your bike/s:
Saturday 26 May
POC King & Queen of the Hill: Practice
(evening: hang out as VIP at the TweedLove photo exhibition preview)
Sunday 27
POC King & Queen of the Hill, Glentress: Race Day
A major new all mountain enduro, with riders competing on timed stages throughout Glentress Forest. Mammoth descents, pretty much every kind of trail you can imagine, thought-provoking climbs – the course has a bit of everything.
Monday 28
Local Ride-Out: Innerleithen trails
Get a gourmet taste of the best riding round inners with a local knowledge guru.
Tuesday 29
Peebles Sprint and Family Ride: if you’re a suitably competent roadie, you may have the chance to ride the crit in the centre of Peebles with some of the country’s fastest amateurs. Otherwise just join the fun and ride the course with all of the spectators before the main races start.
Wednesday 30
Race the Dual Slalom at Glentress
Do a back flip (or something) on the airbag.
Join the Alpine Bikes ride-out at Glentress.
Have a burger on us at the BBQ (optional!)
Thursday 31
Join the Local Ride-Out: Peebles trails. Ride some classic sweet trails round the valley.
Evening: Film Night / photo comp. Enjoy Strength In Numbers and a bunch of great short films, for nada.
Friday 1 June
Race the Pump Track Champs: Innerleithen
Better brush up on your pumping technique to avoid humiliation, some of those kids are waaay good!
Evening: Relax – big day tomorrow!
Saturday 2
Race: The Glentress Seven. Seven hour endurance race on trail heaven. And you don’t HAVE to do it solo.
Evening: Crank It Up gig: We Were Promised Jetpacks/Frightened Rabbit DJ Set/plus support
Sunday 3
Skinny Tweed: 45 mile road ride. To loosen the legs after yesterday’s pain. Then…
Evening: Back on the bike for the bivvy night. Start in Peebles and head out for an overnight trail ride. Yes, you’ll sleep fine.
Monday 4
Join one or two of the Local Ride-Outs: Peebles, Selkirk or Innerleithen.
Tuesday 5
The Last Event: Natural Tweed: 45k of natural trails mtb ride round the valley. What a lovely way to finish.
Evening: feet up and start recovery process.
We’ll also ask you to write a short daily report during the festival. We would also hope that you might be able to write a report on how you are preparing for the challenge. The reports put out into the blogosphere to tell the world how you’re doing so you’ll likely get a fair amount of online exposure during and after the festival.
How it works:
It’s free to enter, so if you think you’re tough enough and would like to be considered for the challenge, just email us at lovemachine@tweedlove.com with your name, address, DOB, mobile number and write an old school, but tweet-sized ‘tie-breaker’ (max 130 characters) as to why you’re the best machine for the job. Humour and attitude may score as highly as a big riding CV! The winner will be notified by text & email.
Your details will not be used for any other purpose.
Accommodation provided by The Bikelodge, Innerleithen and other Tweed Valley accommodation providers. Thanks to Alpine Bikes, POC, 2 Pure and all other prize givers and contributors. The organisers reserve the right to change things about if needed, OK?
TweedLove Bike Festival 2012
Sat 26 May – Tues 5 June 2012
www.tweedlove.com
