Ruthin MTB Marathon Report

Mike reports:

All done for 2010 – but there is more to come in 2010. The Chain Reaction Cycles MTB Marathon Series powered by Mercedes-Benz Vito Sport has come to an end with a challenging yet super busy finishing round in Ruthin, Wales. Nearly 1,300 riders made their way to the Ruthin Rugby Club, located just a few hundred yards from the busy center of the beautiful market town in North Wales. After a season of ups and downs on the weather front the final round was no exception, challenging the riders with wet and muddy conditions but still an all round great atmosphere.

Exposure Lights Big Night Out 2

The 2nd Exposure Lights Big Night Out night marathon 2010 was the latest addition to the 2010 event line-up and we were keen to find out if riders would embrace the re-introduction to night riding at the end of the summer. Around 100 riders took on the challenging course, which was specifically put together for the night marathon. At 7.30pm with darkness setting in quickly the riders left the event village to tackle the 42km long course – armed with handle-bar and helmet lighting that turned the pitch black night almost into day.

From the start the riders followed the usual return route of the marathon, gently climbing through Bathafarn Farm and continuing to climb off road till it crossed the A494 by The Clwyd Gate Motel. The route continued off road to the forestry on Moel Famau, here the track alternated between forest track and single-track right through the woods, finally exiting the forestry and descending Frith Mountain.

After a spot of tarmac through the village of Cilcain, the route climbed back onto Moel Famau, on single and dual tracks across the moorland. Here the route crosses the Offa’s Dyke Path then descends rapidly all the way to Gellifor, from here its tarmac and bridleways back to Ruthin.

The first rider over the line managed to finish the course in 1 hour and 56 minutes while the last one finishing the course in 4 hours and 24 minutes.

Chain Reaction Cycles MTB Marathon

After a well deserved rest from the night event more than 1,100 riders got ready for the start of the last MTB Marathon of the 2010 series. The weather was still unstable with parts of the course being extremely muddy. Proper mountain biking… As always we had 4 courses on offer with the half marathon and the full distance being the most popular. The fastest rider on the 30km long mini marathon was back in an incredible time of 1 hour and 17 minutes while the last full distance rider made his way over the finish line at the Ruthin Rugby Club 8 hours and 23 minutes after the start. The challenging course conditions and weather out on course had no impact on the fun people had during the day. Going by the endless row of smiling faces the last event of the series was another great success.

Photos and website updates

Our event photographer Jon Brooke and his colleagues were again on site as well as on course taking pictures of pretty much everybody. So just go onto Jon’s website – HERE – to find your photos there to view or buy.

Thanks to everyone:

With the 2010 season now being over and done with we are going to take a break to work on next years events. As it looks we will have once more 5 events starting in April going all the way through to September. We will hopefully finalize everything in the next few weeks and will let everybody know via our website, the newsletters and announcements in the press. We would like to thank once more our great sponsors in 2010 in particular Chain Reaction Cycles and Mercedes-Benz Vito Sport for their ongoing support. Further we would like to thank Saris, High5, Schwalbe, MBUK, Exposure Lights, Magura, Birzman, Alpina, Squirt, Buff, Fibrax, Gore Bike Wear, USE, CTC, PPG, cafe2you and last but not least the great skills coaches from Cycle Active. Above all we would like to thank all the riders who came to the 2010 events and who made them once more a big success. We hope that we can welcome you all again in 2011.