The Merida MTB Marathon Series 2009 have come to an end with a sunny and super busy finishing round in Ruthin, Wales. Nearly 1400 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 blessed with perfect riding conditions and all round great atmosphere.

After Saturday’s sportive came to an end the mountain bikers started to descend onto the event village at the Ruthin Rugby Club. Almost than 1100 riders picked up on the great weather leading up to the event and the promising weather forecast and made their way to Ruthin to enjoy the challenging courses around and over the Clwydian Range. The small amount of rain on Saturday night did not affect the amount of fun riders had on the four courses on offer and judging by the amount of mud on peoples bikes the rain only really dampened the dusty course down.

Jon Brooke and his partner Lauris Naglins our long standing event photographers were out on the valleys and hills around Penrith taking pics of everybody. Jon has a new website this year, go check it out at www.rightplacerighttime.co.uk.

With the 2009 season now being over and done with and Merida leaving the series as the long standing title sponsor preparations for the 2010 series are already in full flow.

We will have once more five events starting in April going all the way through to September. We will hopefully finalise everything in the next few weeks and will let everybody know soon. We would like to thank once more our great sponsors in 2009 in particular Merida Bikes and Gore Bike Wear for their ongoing support.

Further we would like to thank High5, Ergon, Lizard Skins, Schwalbe, MBUK, Exposure lights, the Bike Chain, Squirt, Buff, CrankBrothers, Fibrax, Fizik, USE, Topeak, CTC, PPG 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 2009 events and who made them once more a big success. We hope that we can welcome you all again in 2010.

Find out more at www.mtb-marathon.co.uk.