Words By: Eulogy van Dyk
Photos By: Jeff Hernandez
The MTB Dirt Challenge presented by Power Horse Energy Drink in partnership with Qatar Cycling Federation (QCF) drew a huge response on the 31st of March 2014.
For a country with no mountains, it is a great challenge to organise a mountain bike event here.
It’s Qatar’s first and most technical cross country race to date and saw more than 120 riders participating in the event. There were even a few visiting riders from Dubai and two brave members of the newly established Qatar National Women Cycling team that battled their way through this challenging course.
A newly found fresh 3km trail around the area of Al Khiza, combining artificial and natural trail, gave us participants a good taste of cross country racing.
Personally, I was really looking forward to the event to “eat some dirt” as they say. I have been longing to do a bit of technical riding, even if it meant to ride over artificial humps and bumps to get the adrenaline pumping again.
The Open Men were off first with 10 laps to do and two minutes later the open ladies joined them with six laps to complete. There were also an intermediate category for your more “weekend warrior” type of rider that started only after the open men and ladies were complete.
I decided to do a bit of a sprint from the start line to the course, which were about 400m away to ensure I get first on the trail. Up and down we went over loose rocks as well as boulders; there was also a bridge to cross as well as four artificial technical humps. The trail had short steep climbs with tricky turns and one or two technical descents (well, technical enough for the average terrain in Qatar).
Riders were racing back and forth and a few had to climb off and push over some obstacles. I was really enjoying it until my rear tyre decided it had enough, and I got a flat! With only one lap to go I tried everything I could to fix it but it did not last for long, and I knew there was only one option now… run! Three kilometres did not sound that far at first but with your bike carrying it up and over every thing became a bit exhausting. But I persevered!
After eating all the dust I could, I managed to secure the first place in the Open Ladies category. We were totally spoiled by the sponsors and apart from trophies; GO Sport and Giant Bikes provided the top three riders in each category with great gift vouchers ranging from 500 QR to 3000 QR. The Open Men category winner took home a brand new Giant Anthem Bike, what a bonus! All participants that competed also received a small gift from the above-mentioned parties.
It was great to experience this type of racing in Qatar and I definitely look forward to next season for more of this off-road bliss!
