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THIS year sees the celebration of 25 years of mountain biking events in Llanwrtyd Wells - and to commemorate the anniversary there will be a whole host of new biking events for people to try.
Llanwrtyd’s base as a home for biking events started in the early 1980s with the popular new sport of mountain biking taking hold of the nation.
The Easter bank holiday of 1985 saw Tim Gartside and Phil Westerby, who ran the National Off Road Bicycle Association (UK) and MTB Centre, inviting a group of enthusiasts to Llanwrtyd Wells, home of the Red Kite Mountain Bike centre and the Man v Horse race.
The purpose of the invitation was to launch their Fat Tyre Five, and to talk to Gordon Green about entering mountain bikes in the Man v Horse for the first time.
Mountain Bikes did enter the competition in 1985, and they competed in the world reknowned event until 1988, when a law was passed preventing people racing bikes on bridleways.
That spelt the end of Mountain Bikes in Gordon Green’s Man v Horse race, but it didn’t stop him developing other mountain bike events.
From that came, Red Kite Bash, Mountain bike bog snorkelling and of course Green Event’s top mountain bike event the Real ale Wobble. All these events continue today and mountain biking is as strong as ever for Green Events.
This year sees a whole new series of mountain biking events for Llanwrtyd Wells.
To celebrate, over 25 years of mountain biking, in the smallest town in the UK GreenDragon Activities is promoting a series of activity event days around Mid Wales.
There will be non-competitive mountain biking leisure rides for all the family, starting on the March 26 and 27 with a 43km ride in the Crychan forest near Llanwrtyd Wells.
On the day you can enjoy various rides of different lengths to suit all level of abilities.
Red Kite Events, have also developed a series of long distance rides and enduro events, through the Cambrian Mountains.
In May they will host The Cambrian Bike Fest, a three day event offering challenging way-marked MTB routes for the beginner/novice through to the professional rider.
There will be a different route on each day covering up to 75 kilometres but all routes will have bail out points to shorten the ride.
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