From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
[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. There is an annual world championship event, the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships.
[edit] Non-UCI events
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 events each with less than 50 racers. In 2006 nearly 100 events were held and most had more than 150 racers.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
