https://www.redbull.com/uk/en/bike/stories/1331820801177/rachel-atherton-red-bull-foxhunt-course-preview

Have we done this? Rachel Atherton racing just over the hill at Melmerby. I didn’t know you could ride there.
Worth going to watch?

The start ans finish are very difficult to access,parking is limited for spectating and its a fair walk up from the village getting there early might be a good idea

A few girls from our club doing going seems very soft and the campsite/parking is a mud bath

It’s going to be well soggy.

Found it on strava:

https://www.strava.com/segments/13340782

Will head past it tomorrow, be interesting to see how it looks.

It was a cool event in previous years, kind of tricky to spectate though but still worth getting along and soaking it up. Pal of mine is racing, at least this year she’s not borrowing bike so I don’t have to fix it afterwards 😆

We should bring mass-start downhill back to its logical and obvious home, a golf course in the pentlands.

Friend doing it.(she did the one at the pentlands) Travelled down from aberdeen to be told if they have no camping then no parking on site making practice and access horrific. No uplift (they used Jeeps as opposed to defenders tsk) and they just got stuck in the mud….. sounds not that well thought out. Shame as its a great event. Would love gee to do a blokes one!

He has done in the past I think

First one was in 2011.
http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/bike/stories/1326300894885/red-bull-foxhunt-roundwood-2011

Drove through Melmerby this morning. Glorious cloud inversion filling the Eden valley with thick fog, but the race course was in the sunshine above it. Looks like they must have had a good day for it. By the time I came home, most folk had left, but judging from the amount of mud on the road, it wasn’t easy to get out!

The one with Gee is on next weekend in Rostrevor. It’s not a ‘blokes’ one, but last year out of about 400 riders, there were only 9 of us women!

http://www.redbull.com/ie/en/bike/events/1331810276578/red-bull-foxhunt-2016

I’m doing the Ireland one next week. Should be fun

Turns out my friend (and loads of other ridrrs) didnt race. As she didnt get access the first day to practice (there was no where to park as she wasnt camping) she couldnt do a seed run. They wouldnt allow anyone without a seed run to race so she travelled hundreds of miles for nothing.

I understand multiple people in same boat/lots of angry ladies including i understand a media rep from pinkbike so expect some fun on the back of this.

Ouch, bit of an oversight there Stevemuzzy. I organised the North Pennines MTB marathon a couple of years ago over the same area and some of the landowners were very difficult to deal with, wonder if that’s a reason?

Going diagonally off topic. Is there going to be a return of the North Pennines Mountain Marathon in 2017?

Turns out my friend (and loads of other ridrrs) didnt race. As she didnt get access the first day to practice (there was no where to park as she wasnt camping) she couldnt do a seed run. They wouldnt allow anyone without a seed run to race so she travelled hundreds of miles for nothing.

That wasn’t our experience.

My SO was racing and wasn’t camping. She came home on Saturday evening and then we both went up there on Sunday for her to race. There wasn’t any problem parking either on the Saturday or Sunday. No one was being stopped from entering the camping ground, at least the camping ground opposite the field with the main tent.

As for the seeding runs, I believe lots of the girls didn’t fancy the push up to the top in the muddy conditions or didn’t fancy doing their seeding run as the course was challenging to say the least on the Saturday. It didn’t help that the uplifts and the backup uplifts couldn’t make it up the hill in the muddy conditions to allow for practice runs.

On Sunday I spoke to many girls who didn’t seed or partners of girls who didn’t seed and they were all still racing. If you check out the results there are about 25 DNS on the day out of 243 but I heard that only about 90 girls raced in the seeding runs.

We had a really good time. It helped that the weather on Sunday was brilliant sunshine for most of the day so the track dried out, the uplifts eventually got everyone to the top and we spectators could chill in the sunshine. My SO plans to do the event next year if they run it again.

I’ll upload a few pics from Sunday once I get them off my camera.

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/red-bull-foxhunt-results-2016.html

Is there going to be a return of the North Pennines Mountain Marathon in 2017?

Unlikely. High Fell Events were going to organise it this year with me, but Rydal Estate (Cross Fell landowners) wanted to both limit the number of riders, and set such a high land access fee that it would have been impossible to run without exorbitant entry fees and that went against the ethos of the event. Maybe if everyone wore Tweed, thats the way around it…

My best mate and regular riding buddy won it. Well done Rosie!

I enjoyed the event, it seemed well organised,Its just a shame they couldent have found a better uplift track, the jeeps were a waste of time, and I think a massive fail for a major sponsor.

The 8 wheel Argocats seemed to be better at towing the bikes up,also bulldozing the road up with a D8 catterpiller must have cost a fortune and simply exposed the clay soil underneith making it worse.

And well done Ros Newman, a very close second…