Cycling South Africa is pleased to announce that the second annual Pietermaritzburg MTB Festival will soon be making its way to Africa’s Bike City, as it hits the Cascades MTB Park from Saturday 30 April to Monday 2 May 2016.
With the continued support of the KZN Government and Msunduzi Municipality, partnering with Cycling South Africa, Africa’s Bike City continues to host top-notch events for cyclists, showing the commitment of local government to the development of this sport in KwaZulu-Natal.
KwaZulu-Natal’s capital city has already played host to various UCI MTB World Cup legs, all three UCI MTB World Championships, a UCI Para-cycling Road World Cup, as well as other international events across all disciplines, guaranteeing festival attendees world-class excitement from the get-go.
Being a long weekend, families and friends alike will travel from far and wide to soak up the last remainders of KwaZulu-Natal’s extended summer sun – the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the outdoor activities on offer at the province’s most exciting mountain bike festival.
The event will host a multitude of races, including the 2016 SA MTB Masters Marathon Championships, cross-country races for Elite and Junior Men and Women, KZN Inter-Schools MTB Series, KwaZulu-Natal Development Race Series and an ever-growing-in-popularity Enduro event. The Junior XCO race is part of the UCI Junior World Series.
On Saturday 30 April, the UCI Elite XCO HC category race will see an explosion of fast, hard and gripping race battles from some of South Africa’s best and the world’s great XCO favourites. With the all-important 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games just around the corner, this HC contest will provide great opportunity for UCI points offering.
Also open to the Junior Men and Women classes and carrying a UCI-HC rating, the junior race forms part of the UCI Junior World Series, which promises to provide an array of technical and single-track action for the young heroes of the sport.
Another major attraction of the weekend is the 2016 SA MTB Masters Marathon Championships for riders aged 30-and-above, which has been included in the PMB MTB Festival plans for the next three years. Taking place on Sunday 1 May, race organisers expect to see a large crowd and participant pull, as keen mountain bikers descend upon Pietermaritzburg to pedal it out over large portions of the 2014 UCI MTB Marathon World Championships course for National Championship prestige.
The culminating event of the KwaZulu-Natal Sport and Recreation’s mountain biking development programme will also be hosted on Sunday. The development programme has been successfully run throughout all 11 districts of the province over the past months and teams of young development riders will get a chance to race their hearts out in a true competition environment at the world class Cascades facility.
Monday 2 May will be a day reserved for those who love Enduro racing. The thrill and exhilaration of downhill riding, combined with the enjoyment of cross country skills and terrain, provides for mountain bikers the best of both worlds, as they take to the adventurous timed downhill sections and more relaxed untimed uphill’s with pedals or pushes to the top.
Whilst the Enduro riders test their skills on the mountain, a leg of the KZN Inter-Schools MTB Series, which sees masses of young school goers compete head-to-head in fantastic mountain bike terrain, will also be taking place.
The Pietermaritzburg MTB Festival takes place at Cascades MTB Park from 30 April to 2 May 2016. For more information, click here: http://www.cyclingsa.com/2016-pmb-mtb-festival/
