With less than three weeks to go before the 2006 Ritchey 12 Hour event, aka Bristol Bikefest, the organisers are full steam ahead getting everything in place. As if they’re not busy enough, the team behind the event has added a whole extra race to the schedule – Sunday’s 12 hour solo event will now also have a six hour race running in parallel with it. Same course, same start time, you just get to finish after half the time. So if you like the idea of a solo endurance race but 12 hours sounds a bit keen, this could be the one for you. The entry fee is £25 – the entry forms have already been printed, so if you want to enter the six hour race just write “6 hour solo” at the top of the form. There’ll also be kids’ races in under-7 and 8-10 year old categories running on Saturday and Sunday from 12 noon. Registration on the day for those.

We’ve always like the Bikefest course – it’s a feast of woodsy singletrack and has the huge motivational benefit of being lots of fun to ride. Especially as the arena is at the top of a hill, so you get encouraged out for another lap by the promise of a descent just past the line… The Bristol trail pixies have been out in force tweaking and honing the trails, and a couple of changes have been made to make the lap slightly longer and get even more singletrack in there without making it impossible to pass people.

Over 400 riders have signed up for the team event so far, and around 70 soloists on Sunday. There’s still places available, though – head to www.bristolbikefest.com for details and an entry form. If you like to leave things until the last minute you can enter on the day, but the team and solo races both start at 9am on their respective days and registration closes at 8.30am, so you’ll have to be up early. Better to show up on Friday – registration will be open all day.

And apparently there’s some football thing going on at the same time, but there’ll be TVs on site so you can keep up with whatever it is that’s happening…