The weekend of the 23rd and 24th of June 2007. Just the same as any other weekend on the race calendar. Or so you would think! For me there was the choice of four races, and below is my rundown of what they are and why I will, or won’t, be doing them.

  1. Mountain Mayhem. (£47.50)The original 24hour race, now in it’s 10th year. It would have been nice to go ride this on a fast team, but a frankly uninspiring course with little climbing, and a long journey down south, means it would probably be slightly dull from a riding point of view, although the social will be good as always.
  2. Aviemore Merida 100. (£60) This might well be one of the best mountainbike enduro events on the calendar for 2007. It is bound to have some amazing trails, and take in some awesome big climbs.
  3. Scottish Mountainbike XC Championships. (£25) This was fairly high on my priorities, and I would expect to be able to get a top five this year, but at the moment I don’t know where the course is. It could also be decisive for series placings, but you get to drop one or two rounds, so that is fairly safe as long as nothing goes wrong at other rounds.
  4. Etape Caledonia. (£49) 83miles, 2079m of climbing. All on road. 2500 victims riders. The first of it’s kind in the UK. Some great mates along too. This sounds like the one for me! Although not really a race, it would be nice to get a fast time around this. The large amount of climbing is certainly appealing to me, and I missed out on the Bealach Na Ba Challenge entries, and event which involves another 900m of climbing.

So the Etape it is, although plans may change depending on whether my entry is accepted, and how fast I’m going.

Update. Prices added after a discussion about the cost of the Etape with Steven ‘Dynamite Kid’ Moffat.