Fun in the sun at Builth Wells

Was it hot or what? This year seams to be the year of extremes with the Merida 100 in Rhayader being super wet and muddy and the Builth Wells round being super super hot. Shows again how versatile our sport and the conditions we enjoy it in is.

Builth Wells Summer Marathon

1,100 riders entered the Builth Wells round and made it so far the highlight of the 2006 season. It was a tough day and the conditions made it even tougher. Temperatures up to 33°C made the event a real challenge for everybody. The camp ground filled up quickly on Saturday with more and more families and small groups now joining in on the Saturday warm-up rides and the main event on Sunday. The atmosphere down in the event village was super relaxed with the lady in the ice cream van making a real killing.

Roughly two hours after the mass start from the White House Farm the first riders in the 25km category started coming over the line. From then onwards a stream of riders kept coming over the line until just after 8pm when we welcomed the last rider back from his adventure (Had he walked the whole thing? -Ed).

Selkirk Marathon

Attention now turns to Selkirk – the only UK round outside Wales and one of the most loved event of the series. Our man on the ground Pete Laing has been busy over the last few weeks so that we can offer four different course lengths at our Selkirk round as well. The conditions have been good up north and hopefully we will see a dry but not too hot event day at the end of the month (29/30 July). The route in Selkirk has its own character and offers an interesting alternative from the riding at the last three events of the 2006 series. There’ll be lots of technical sections, parts of purpose-built trail and spectacular views over the Border region. Make sure you don’t miss out on this year’s event. Going by the countless comments we have had since we have included Selkirk into the series this is not an event to be missed. And with the riding centres if Glentress and Peebles just around the corner from Selkirk it is the perfect palace to make a ‘very long’ weekend out of it.

The Selkirk event always attracts a few extra companies for the event village. Besides our regular supporters like Extra, Schwalbe, Pedro’s, Hayes, Ergon, High5, CycleActive, What Mountain Bike and obviously our main sponsor Merida we will also welcome the guys from Crank Brothers and the guys from ZIGGG.

You will also find kids’ entertainment, catering and our friends from CycleActive in the event village who will provide again free of charge skills/warm up rides. Feedback from these rides has been fantastic, with loads of riders saying it made a huge difference to their day on Sunday. So sign up soon to guarantee your place!

Selkirk has been very popular for the last three years and has since attracted more and more riders from all over the UK. The entries so far have been really good – there is no need to panic yet but if you are thinking of taking part why not make use of our online entry (http://mtb-marathon.co.uk/catalog/) where you can submit your details and pay for the event all in one go. Alternatively you can still enter by sending in a filled-in entry form with your cheque. You can find a downloadable form on the ‘entry’ page (http://www.mtb-marathon.co.uk/entry_forms/entry_forms.php).

Austria event

All the regular marathon riders know that the Merida 100 “on holiday” round is kicking off this weekend in Bad Goisern, Austria. We have again a nice team going over to take part in this rather different marathon and we will hopefully be able to tell you a few stories when they return. For all the people who want to get the preparations for the 2007 season on the go early please watch out for the 2007 flyer of the Bad Goisern round in the signing on bag in Selkirk, the TransWales and Ruthin.

Merida TransWales ’06

Talking about the TransWales – we still have places available in the Team and Solo categories. So if you can find the time to join us simply download the entry forms from the event website www.mtbtransuk.co.uk and send it in to us. Don’t forget that if you take part in the TransWales that you could get a free comprehensive nutrition and health assessment based on your diet, lifestyle and genetic profile worth £160 by taking part in the fatigue study conducted by the University of Portsmouth (more details here: http://www.mtbtransuk.co.uk/news_guinea.php). We are currently adding the last few touches to the new route which will be on the website soon.