WIN TransWales race entry packages worth £1,700!

UPDATE: Due to popular demand we’re giving you until Friday 2 June…

We’re very excited about TransWales. Enduro and 24-hour events are all well and good, but it’s about time there was a proper multi-day MTB race in the UK and that time has come. Or rather, it’ll come on 13 August, when 150 teams of two will line up at White House Farm, Builth Wells ready to tackle seven days and 315 miles of the finest Welsh MTBing. The format is a unique blend of short, timed “special stages” (mostly on purpose-built singletrack trails) and long, enduro-style link stages between them, finishing up back in Builth a week later.

You’ll be able to ride light – overnight stuff (tents, sleeping bags, all that kind of thing) will be transported by the event organisers. So all you have to do is ride the link stages in such a way as to not destroy yourself or your bike and then give it heaps on the special stages. We love the concept, and we’re getting behind it in a big way.

Bikemagic and SheCycles: The Teams

So here’s the plan. Between us, Bikemagic.com and Shecycles.com have three teams entered, one in each of the Men’s, Women’s and Mixed categories. In the Men, we have Team Bikemagic, consisting of editorial chaps Mike Davis and David Arthur. Team Bikemagic will be going for the “acceptably brisk, but in it to finish” approach, as well as posting daily reports (ability to think straight and technology permitting).

Team Shecycles will be an altogether more serious affair. We’ve drafted in Elite XC racer, Welsh Champion and Shecycles’s resident doctor Kim Hurst as half of it, but we need another half.

And then there’s Team Bikemagic/Shecycles racing in the Mixed category which currently has no-one in it. So all in all we need six riders and we’ve only got three. Can you see where this is going?

Race for us!

Yes, we’re looking at you. We need to fill these three team places. As the requirements are a bit different, we’re going to do it a couple of different ways. Kim’s obviously proper fast and aiming to win, so she needs a proper fast team-mate – you’ll need to be at least an Expert racer. Get your race CV (and a picture) together and mail it to [email protected] by 31 May – Kim will select a team-mate from there and the lucky rider will get a free entry worth £400.

Then there’s the Mixed team. We’re not necessarily looking for the fastest team in the country here (although it’d be nice to win…) – we’re mainly after a team that’ll do their best and have a lot of fun in the process. Up for grabs is the complete entry package: Ride entry, free breakfast, lunch and dinner, free usage of service stations, free luggage and tent transport from location to location, finishing jersey, free map and course material, free usage of facilities, free camping at all stage locations starting with Saturday night at the White House Farm in Builth and finishing with the following Saturday night at the same location, free parking for the week (at your own risk) and mega event goodie holdall (worth up to £150) which will travel with you for the whole duration. That lot would ordinarily cost £400 per rider, so this is a major prize. Plus we’ll sort you out with Bikemagic/Shecycles kit and various other goodies.

You need to enter this one as a team. We need:

• Photos of both of you (riding and not riding)
• A race/event CV (don’t be put off if you haven’t done many, or indeed any, races – it’s not necessarily a hindrance…)
• In a maximum of 200 words, tell us why you deserve this coveted opportunity.

Send all that stuff to [email protected] by 1 June.

Our judging panel (BM editor Mike, Shecycles editor Bex and TransWales organiser Michael Wilkens) will come up with a shortlist of teams, the details of which we’ll post on both sites and let the readers vote for who they reckon should get it. Plus we’ve got the opportunity of reduced-price entries for runners-up – second place gets £150 off per rider, third gets £100 off. So what are you waiting for? Let’s see what you’ve got…

Find out more

You can find more details of the Merida TransWales 2006 at www.mtbtransuk.co.uk. Or get yourself the full lowdown in handy treeware format by sending an SAE to MOUNTAIN BIKE EVENTS LTD, 3 Belmont Road, Brislington, Bristol, BS4 3PB.