Hi all,
Looking to put some training into participating in an event this year - had a little look round and many events still don't seem to be running due to covid etc.
Does anyone have any recommendations for any long distance/marathon events which aren't lap based and will be running this summer!?!? In the UK or maybe in Europe?
Cheers
Joe
Following.
Exposure 24/12
Torq in your sleep
Vittoria MTB Marathon (TBC)
Deadwater 100
Yorkshire MTB Marathon
All in the UK.
It's difficult getting a big lap out in England due to silly ROW restrictions, so these are all laps - some bigger than others.These are the only competitive (i.e. races not off-road sportive) that I know of that are confirmed. Vittoria will probably happen..
Following.
The Yorkshire one I had never heard of, the others I need to get in the diary.
Racing focused:
Marathon
2022 will see the first-ever national series for mountain bike marathon. The series will feature one round per month from July through to September, beginning in Pippingford, while the third round in Kielder Forest will double up as the National Marathon Championships. Jacob Scott and Isla Short will return as defending champions.
National Marathon Series
Round 1: 2 – 3 July, Pippingford
Round 2: 31 July, Isle of Man
Round 3: 7 August, Kielder Forest
National Marathon Championships
Kielder Forest, 7 August
Cider focused:
http://www.heavenofthesouth.co.uk/
National Marathon Series
Round 1: 2 – 3 July, Pippingford
Round 2: 31 July, Isle of Man
Round 3: 7 August, Kielder Forest
Interesting, but I can’t see many going over to the IOM - hasn’t it had issues with numbers? I costed it up & TBH the price all in was prohibitive..
Anything in the UK that's not multi-lap has been covered above.
My favourites in Europe:
MB race (Megève) - The hardest 140km of your life, and an absolute joy if it's dry. Alpine trail goodness with 7000m of climbing.
Roc Laissagais (or any of the Roc series for that matter) (Laissac) - a bit more low key, but fantastic trails in a lesser known part of France.
Roc Ardennes (Houffalize) - another one with fantastic trails, and very easy to get to from the UK on the tunnel. This is the biggest of the Ardennes marathon series, which all look great.
Have a look at the UCI calendar and filter by marathon race type. https://www.uci.org/calendar/mtb/1voMyukVGR4iZMhMlDfRv0?discipline=MTB&raceType=XCM
Don't be put off by the UCI classification if you're not competitive - the elites set off first, followed by a thousand odd enthusiasts.
Salzkammergut Bike marathon in Austria aus on my European radar
As is ultrabike.de in the Black Forest, Germany
Longest day, longest ride final event?
That's the one I think I'm doing instead of twentyfour12 this year.
As per above - Grand Raid Christalp (or whatever it's now called) is amazing (as long as you like climbing!)
What about a multi dayer? Sudety and Beskidy in Poland are cheap and very well organised. Only ridden the latter, but the riding was amazing.
The IoM race might be tough to get to but it's also really good. Tougher than you might imagine too...
Are the Scott Marathon series not coming back? They were my go-to events.
Also worth looking at some of the 'gravel' events.
We did the Glorious Gravel Lakes route last year, 60m/100k loop, on gravel bikes.
But we're going to use our HT's for this years event - there was enough hard descending & climbing.
"2022 will see the first-ever national series for mountain bike marathon"
Not much of a "series" is it? It seems to offer nothing new apart from tying together three pre-existing events.
I did Deadwater last summer, only one lap instead of two due to illness in the week leading up to it, but it was a pretty good event and course. I will be doing it again this summer.
what happened to the Hope series? the website just says the 2020 events are cancelled, so clearly not been updated for a long time. They haven't tweeted since Feb 2020 and their facebook page looks dead too.
Would be interested to hear more about the Deadwater 100. It would fit nicely into my diary this year and i should be pretty fit by then
How brutal was the course?
I wouldn't say brutal at all. Pretty good and fun really.
mixture of fireroad and manmade singletrack (much of it poorly maintained though), started with a black section of downhill, couple of long very boggy sections they had cut through a moorland hillside, that was the only bit that was unpleasant.
I don't remember any significant tarmac sections.
British heart foundation South Downs way in a day
Loads of stuff from the racing collective. It’s gravel focused. But an mtb with fast rolling tyres would be fine
https://www.theracingcollective.com/gbduro.html
The one day events are about 100 miles
I’ve signed up to the MTB trilogy in Czech Republic. It’s a 5 day Enduro stage race (there’s also an XC marathon running in parallel). Looks like madness but also looks like great fun!
Lots of events seem to be back up and running - loads of UK events on here with many new (long) gravel rides www.roughrideguide.co.uk/events