Ben Thomas and Tim Dunford are the riders on the Mountain Trax – Vauxhall Motors Cycling Team and news of their 2013 schedule has just come in. Looks like they have a busy year ahead of them!

Thankfully the guys have been training hard all winter and should be in tip-top shape by now. Their first event is just around the corner so we’ll soon find out how the work has paid off.

Stay tuned this week as the team will be providing us with some training and nutritional tips features.

Here’s the press release:

Mountain Trax – Vauxhall Motors Cycling Team 2013 Schedule

The 2013 season kicks off this weekend for the Mountain Trax – Vauxhall Motors Cycling Team, the riders have been training hard since the start of November successfully battling through the wet winter months.

The riders are both well ahead of their training targets and look forward to testing their legs at the first events of the year which will include the Brass Monkey marathon and Gorrick cross country where both riders will compete. Tim is in contention to win the Brass Monkey series title so the team’s first objective will be to secure Tim’s victory this Sunday.

Following on from these events the team flies to Spain for the Andalucia Bike Race, which is a 6-day stage race from Cordoba to Jaen. This will be the first big test of the year. Ben is looking forward to returning to Spain after racing the event in 2012, “It was great racing Andalucia Bike Race last year, the trails were some of the best I’ve ridden and the February sunshine was an added bonus! It’s good to see a few more Brits have signed up to this year’s event; it’s certainly a race I’d recommend. Hopefully pairing with Tim and having team logistics manager John Newport along for support we can challenge for a top 15 result.”

In March Ben will attend the first of the British Cross Country Series at Sherwood Pines Forest. Ben will be aiming to challenge for top 5 podium finishes in the series and also at the National Cross Country Championships in July.

Meanwhile on the 24th March Tim will begin the defense of his National Endurance Series title at the Whinlatter Challenge. The main priority for the team will be marathon distance events and in April Ben and Tim will take on the Roc Laisagais round of the UCI World Marathon Series before heading home to race for the National Marathon Championship title in Builth Wells on the 14th April.

Following this the team will fly to South Africa to compete in the 9 day stage race Joberg2c from Johannesburg to Durban. Tim is already excited about visiting South Africa, “The Old Mutual JoBerg2c is our main aim for the early season and from reading the stage descriptions it looks like it’s going to a tough one and will take lots of perseverance and great teamwork to complete successfully. The thought of 900km of amazing riding on some of the best trails in South Africa to finish on the coast is mind blowing and has helped motivate me through another wet, cold British winter.”

With three of the biggest events on the mountain bike calendar falling into the month of April the team are aiming to be at peak fitness.

The team won’t have time to hang around long in South Africa before flying home to support Tim at the European and UK 12 Hour Championships on the 11th May; following Tim’s performances over the longer distances in recent years you’d be a brave person to bet against him.

The team will then take a short break before the riders split and head to different events, Tim will compete in the mountains of Schladming in Austria at the Alpen Tour Trophy at the end of May. Both riders are hoping that the first half of the year will conclude with selection for the World Marathon Championships taking place in Kirchberg in Austria on the 30th June. Tim and Ben learnt from their time riding for the Great Britain Team at Worlds in 2012 and hope to have another chance this year.

In July the team will attend TwentyFour12 in Plymouth where they will be joined by 2 guest riders to form a 4-man team in the 12-hour event. In August the same will happen at the Gorrick 12-hour which is the local event of title sponsor Mountain Trax who are based just down the road from the venue in Wokingham.

The Kielder 100 is the biggest and toughest UK marathon; the gruelling 100 mile event was won by Ben in 2011 and by Tim in 2012. This will be a key event for the riders especially with it being the National Endurance Series final. A week earlier the riders will make their first appearance at the Isle of Man End to End race which attracts 1700 riders to the island.

The team will conclude its season travelling through France in its Vauxhall Vivaro to the UCI World Marathon Series rounds in Ornans and Frejus. Each year Frejus, which is on the Cote d’Azur, hosts the cycling festival Roc d’Azur, which in 2012 attracted around 18,000 visitors. The events will host the final of the World Series as well as numerous other events and the team’s final race will be the Roc d’Azur Cross Country race that finishes on the beach in Frejus on the 13th October.

It’s an exciting schedule with the team racing all over the World. We’ll be bringing you news reports, picture galleries, and videos from as many locations as possible.

Thanks for your support, see you on the start line.