Wade Simmons in action at last year’s District Ride (Pic: Markus Greber)

Want to take an already enormous event and make it twice as big? In the case of Nuremberg’s Red Bull District Ride, which attracted 40,000 spectators, that could be seen as something of a challenge. But a bit of lateral thinking has made it possible – turn it into two events.

The great thing about the District Ride was that it took place in a city centre, bringing mountain biking to the masses. It’s a lot easier to get a big crowd if you take the event to the people rather than trying to get all the people to the event. So for 2006 there’ll be a slightly earlier Nuremberg District Ride on 4-5 August, preceded by on in Catania, Sicily on 15-16 July.

It’s an invitational street/freeride event, with 35 riders at Catania and 25 at Nuremberg. 15 riders (last year’s winner Aaron Chase, Gareth Dyer, Paul Basagoitia, Cedric Gracia, Kyle Strait, Joscha Forstreuter, Cameron McCaul, Trond Hansen, Carlo Dieckmann, Grant Fielder, Timo Pritzel, Nathan Rennie, Thomas Vanderham, Darren Berrecloth and Geoff Gulevich) will be invited to do both. There’ll be a bunch of others, plus some wildcard entries for up and coming riders who the organisers reckon have what it takes but haven’t had the opporunity yet. And (pay attention, it gets complicated here) the best 10 riders from the additional 20 at Catania will go forward to make up the 25 at Nuremberg.

The courses at both events will be designed and built by Cory Moore and his team and take advantage of the hillside locations of their respective cities. At Nuremberg the course starts at the castle before heading down through the Durer Platz, Sebalder Square and ending in front of the Town Hall. In Catania, the course will being at a church, drop down through narrow alleys past the Piazza dell’Universita and finishing in Duomo Square. Both courses will be divided into “districts” including drops, spines, wallrides, step-ups and downs, dirt jumps and various other stuff.

Find out more at www.redbulldistrictride.com.