The weather has been real unpredictable recently, ranging from torrential rain to heatwaves. So it was a sigh of relief when we emerged from our tents on the morning of the Rhayader round of the MTB Marathon that the sun was shining down on us.

The unpredictability of the weather didn’t deter people from entering as 900+ riders gathering at the start line proved. Work on the course by John Lloyd and Clive Powell dramatically improved the riding. Extra road and fireroad at the beginning prevented bottlenecks from previous years and newly carved sections of singletrack spiced things up nicely. Yes, there was plenty of fireroad, but it was regularly interspersed by fun technical descents.

We continue to roll up to these events again and again, and the reason is simple – they’re great fun. The atmosphere is super laid back, people are real down to earth and the raceheads that do take part you’ll never see because they’re way out front, so no problems with people shouting “Rider!” and squeezing past.

We had our BM photographer there – you probably spotted the glow from his bright yellow t-shirt – and the photos are now live. Follow this link to search for your number and see plenty of crashes.

The next round is at the classic Builth Wells. Bikemagic.com will be there and we’ll have our photographer again snapping all of you. For entry forms visit the mtb-marathon website, where you can enter online or download an entry form.