2016 British Marathon Championships gets Wild

The British Cycling Mountain Bike Marathon Championships will be hosted by The Wild Welsh event in 2016.

The Wild Welsh event, which takes place in Llandovery in the heart of Wales, will be the first time in 10 years that the Marathon Championships will be held in Wales.

It’s a one-off for 2016 organised by A Cycling, the team behind the Battle on the Beach, and it’s based on 2 laps of a 40km course within Crychan Forest.

Here are some details from the press release:

The championship race, held over 2 laps will be a total of 80km with 3000 metres of climbing, with Veteran and Senior titles up for grabs. Both 2015 senior champions, Sally Bigham and Ben Thomas are entered and will be looking to defend their titles on August 28th.

Alongside the championship event will be an Open format race, open to all with no requirement to have a British Cycling license. The Open event will have the option of 40km or 80km.

The event will start from Llandovery Town Centre, with a road closure and full support of the town council before heading into the countryside and Crychan Forest, which will be closed for the event to allow racing to take place and 100% off-road.

Event Organiser Matthew Page said “Having grown up in Llandovery and spent countless hours riding and training in Crychan, I am really excited to be able to bring such a prestigious event to my home town and my local trails. The challenging nature of the area should make it on a par with European marathon races and put the area on the map as a fantastic riding location”

The large area of Crychan Forest and the low number of rights of ways make it possible to offer a timed event over a longer distance, which is otherwise a challenge within current laws of England and Wales. Expected to attract over 200 riders from around the UK, with other local riding hot spots such as Brechfa, Bike Park Wales, Brecon Beacons and Cwm Rhaeadr all less than hour away, riders can make the most of a long bank holiday weekend.

Entries are open now from £30, with places limited and only available online in advance. For more details, click here.

Barney Marsh

Barney Marsh takes the word ‘career’ literally, veering wildly across the road of his life, as thoroughly in control as a goldfish on the dashboard of a motorhome. He’s been, with varying degrees of success, a scientist, teacher, shop assistant, binman and, for one memorable day, a hospital laundry worker. These days, he’s a dad, husband, guitarist, and writer, also with varying degrees of success. He sometimes takes photographs. Some of them are acceptable. Occasionally he rides bikes to cast the rest of his life into sharp relief. Or just to ride through puddles. Sometimes he writes about them. Bikes, not puddles. He is a writer of rongs, a stealer of souls and a polisher of turds. He isn’t nearly as clever or as funny as he thinks he is.