It seems one borough council values mountain bikers at least. Test Valley Borough Council in Hampshire has its own Test Valley Tour 2002 Series and the next event they’ve organised is a 50k offroad ride next month, making the most of the best bits of riding in the county.

The leisure team at the council are expecting over 500 riders to show up on the 28th July for the second ride in the series. The route is a mix of rolling fire roads, technical berms and single track sections, packaged with some first class scenery. It’s not a competitive ride, so there are no categories, but the organisers say that it is a challenging ride.

The route is comprehensively waymarked so no map reading’s needed and there’ll be water stations and free energy bars for riders. There’s also a 32k option at the same standard for the less fit or enthusiastic.

The event starts from Appleshaw Village Green, four miles west of Andover between 9 and 11 am. Entry fee is £8 if you pre-register up to a week before the race date and £10 on the day. You can download more info and an entry form here or ring 01264 368833.

This is now the sixth year of the Test Valley Series, and given its success they’ve added on a winter offroad ride, slightly shorter this time, for the 17th November. Back in April there was also a long road ride that attracted 500 entrants. We haven’t ridden one of their events so we can’t comment on what the riding will be like, but it looks like a good effort on behalf of Test Valley Council in an area that’s not really known for its mtbing.

If you’ve ridden it let us know what you thought on the forum.