After years of watching the development of the Merida-sponsored MTB Marathon Series (which is going into its 11th season) for the last few years Chain Reaction Cycles has taken on the popular MTB-marathon series and will be the title sponsor for at least 3 years. The new Chain Reaction Cycles MTB Marathon Series (or CRC MTB Marathon Series) will carry on where the 2009 season left off but will also introduce lots of new riders and ideas to the events.
For the last few years the MTB-Marathon series has consisted of 5 events starting in mid April with the traditional Exposure Light Big Night Out night marathon and going all the way through the summer bringing the series to an end around mid September with the final round in Ruthin, Wales. The 2010 series will stick to this well proven format while adding a few interesting changes to the line-up.
“We have been a keen follower of the series for the last few years” says Michael Cowan General Sales Manager at Chain Reaction Cycles “and are delighted to be involved as the new title sponsor.” He continues “The events offer a broad range of riders a great day out in some of the best and most beautiful riding spots the UK has to offer. Our passion for supporting cycling events in the UK remains strong and this year we are helping to take the MTB-Marathon series to the next level.”
The marathon concept:
As in previous years all events will have four different courses to choose from so that every rider can find a suitable challenge. The exception to this rule are the Exposure Lights Big Night Out weekends where there is one course length on Saturday night and three-four different lengths on Sunday. The courses are approximately 25, 50, 75 and 100km long. All marathons are run as non-competitive one loop rides with the start and finish being conveniently located in the event village and the camp ground. All rides have mass starts where all courses and categories start together. As always every entered rider is invited to take part in the pre marathon ‘carbo loading’ at the pasta party and will be given the obligatory finishing T-shirt when coming over the finish line.
Here the dates and locations of the 2010 CRC MTB-Marathon Series:
- Builth Wells – Wales 10-11th April 2010 – Chain Reaction Cycles Spring Marathon / Exposure Light Big Night Out (Night Marathon).
- Builth Wells – Wales 22-23rd May 2010 – Chain Reaction Cycles MTB-Marathon / Road Sportive / Off-Road Criteriums.
- Grassington – England (Yorkshire) 3-4th July 2010 – Chain Reaction Cycles MTB-Marathon.
- Selkirk – Scotland 31st July -1st August 2010 – Chain Reaction Cycles MTB-Marathon / Road Sportive.
- Ruthin – Wales 18-19th September 2010 – Chain Reaction Cycles MTB-Marathon / Exposure Light Big Night Out (Night Marathon).
New for 2010:
The biggest news for the 2010 season is the addition of a 2nd Exposure Light Big Night Out (Night Marathon) and the introduction of a new English round at Grassington. The organisers are working on turning the 2nd round of the Chain Reaction Cycles MTB Marathon Series into a mini cycle festival which besides the main MTB Marathon will host the Road Sportive, off-road criteriums and a selection of other events. There will also be a Road Sportive added to the line-up at the Selkirk round. Watch the website for updates.
Website, entry forms and special CRC offers:
The event website for the Chain Reaction Cycles MTB Marathon Series MTB Marathon http://www.mtb-marathon.co.uk is currently reworked and will re-open with lots of information, facts and figures on the 5 events. New for 2010 will be that the online entry will be hosted on Chain Reaction Cycles offering fast and straight forward entry into the events paired with the rather attractive offer of a 5% discount on any other product purchased whilst still on the site. If you do prefer the good old paper entry then don’t worry, that option will still be available via the entry page on the event website.
Entry now open:
The event website will be updated in the next couple of weeks however the entry form for the Chain Reaction Cycles MTB Marathon Series 2010 is available now as a download. So if you want to beat the rush make sure you go to http://www.mtb-marathon.co.uk/ for your entry form.
Comments (4)
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“There will also be a Road Sportive added to the line-up at the Selkirk round”
There was a Road Sportive at Selkirk this year, so this is not new at all.
Looks good, there is going to be one marathon about a hours drive from my house 🙂
Looking forward to them (hopefully) all 😀
Merida have organised the event for the last 3 year that I have done them, well organised, I hope CRC can do just as good a job 🙂
The training start here, are there going to be a free t-shirt as well 😉 and is the website going to have some training plans on it?
>>Merida have organised the event for the last 3 year that I have done them, well organised, I hope CRC can do just as good a job 🙂
It’s probably the same people actually running it, just a change of name isn’t it…?
Agree they’ve been doing a good job though!
Merida never bothered to seperate the times for the different distances when they published their results, making them pretty meaningless. It was always just one long list of names and times with no way of knowing who had done which distance.
Do CRC intend to publish proper results ?