Marathon mountain bike races

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Marathon mountain bike races, often referred to as cross country marathon (XCM), are a very demanding form of mountain bike races covering at least 40 kilometers usually in mountainous terrain. Events held in Europe are typically just a longer than average cross county mountain bike race. Marathon events in the USA and Canada are typically longer than 100 kilometers and are very different than cross county races.

1 UCI events
2 Non-UCI events
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] UCI events

The UCI has established a championship series for such events, the Marathon World Cup. The UCI rules limit events to distances between 40 km (24.9 miles) and 120 km (74.5 miles) and for 2006 limits event to New Zealand, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France and the Netherlands. Almost all of the parcipitants are elite professional mountain bike racers.

[edit] Non-UCI events

A dirty and sleepy looking 4th overall finisher in a 100 mile Marathon event

Non-UCI events routinely cover much longer distances. The typical event in the USA is either based on time, usually 6, 12 or 24 hours, or distance, the most common being 100 miles (161 km) Events based on hours typically allow either people to compete individually or as part of the team. Distances events are almost all solo events. The number of these events and those taking part in them have grown greatly. The first such events began to be held routinely in the early 1990s Typical each year there were less than 10 such events each with less than 50 racers. In 2006 nearly 100 such events will be held and main will have more than 200 racers.

These races attract elite professional racers, experienced non-professional racers and amateurs. Most events do not separate the racers into classes leading to a general feeling of comradity absent from other races. The average age of the racers taking part and placing well in these racers are typically older than in typical cross country (XC) races.