The Borderland Mountain Bike Challenge is on Saturday 11th May and starts from Rhiwlas Village Hall near Oswestry, on the border of England and Wales and should not be confused with the Borderland Mountain Bike Association, a laudable endeavour, but based in El Paso, Texas where the border in question is the one between the United States of America and Mexico.
The members of this Association ride the peaks and canyons of the Ferguson mountains and it looks like exciting, desert terrain, which couldn’t be more different to the lush green slopes of the hills and valleys or the foothills of the Berwyn Mountains, near Oswestry.
This all came to light when a keen mountain biker, Ian Stewart was working in Oswestry and saw a flyer about the Borderland event and decided to Google it to find out more details and was presented with an arid Texan vista, he said, “With the amount of rain we’ve endured this year, I expected the countryside to be a little greener, but then I realised I was looking at the wrong country – in fact, the wrong continent! I soon got the right website though and have now signed up a team and am busy sorting out sponsorship – the Air Ambulance is such a great cause to raise money for, and we must do all we can to keep them in the air. Now, can’t wait till May, we’ll be there in those green hills – near Oswestry, not El Paso, Texas”.
It’s great that people travel so far – from Yorkshire – possibly not from El Paso, to enter this great challenge, and it would be nice if it is a sunny day.
For more info go to www.borderland-mtb-challenge.org
Riders from the Borderland Mountain Bike Association in Texas (Picture: BMBA).
Ian Stewart training in Yorkshire (Picture: Ian Stewart).
