Many opinions agree that the ‘Mountain Bike Marathon’ (XCM) is the speciality which is closest to the spirit that this type of wide wheel machine was envisaged for: crossing fields and mountains through their tracks and paths. It is only a longer variant of the ‘Cross Country’, the other most popular mountain bike trial, which is shorter and often a circuit trial, in order to make organisation easier.

But the appeal for the general public is more in the long distance. Because that ‘pure’ feeling the MTB marathons bring to mind, also refers to participation, with the same layout as the cyclotourist trails on the road: in most of them people with competitive desire mix with the mere bicycle lovers, who come out in order to arrive and, above all, enjoy the journey, crossing valleys and hills from different parts of the country or the world, soaking up the Nature without thinking how long it’s going to take. There can’t be better ways of discovering the natural secrets of a region.

Made popular after the mid-90s, the ‘Bike Marathon’ has more and more followers all the time, and there are races that have about ten editions or more, like the Fuerte Bike held in Fuerteventura or the Maratón de los Monegros, which gathers well over one thousand BTT users each year around the arid land of Aragón. Each year new trials appear, as it is also a way of promoting tourism at the same time, even though the organisation is quite hard: signposting for a trial of this calibre is important and arduous, as is the volume of technical and support staff required, because let’s not forget that there are a lot of kilometres out in the country.

Distances

While in some cases trials even less than 40 kilometres are considered marathons, this is usually because they are extremely hard. In fact, the International Cycling Union (UCI) requires them to be between 60 and 120 kilometres long, although outwith the organisation even bigger trials are common, which proclaim themselves that way, or 'ultramarathons'. One of the toughest is the 209 kilometres Austrian Salzkammergut Trophy!, with a 7,000 incline (...)