Big changes are planned for the tenth edition of the Tweed Valley’s award-winning TweedLove Bike Festival – recent winner of the Scottish Mountain Bike Event of the Year award for the third year running.
As part of a major new event, and a totally re-invented festival weekend in 2019, organisers have unveiled Transcend Epic, described as the UK’s first ‘Trans Provence’ style enduro, with two days of uplifts and shuttles providing access to trails in forests from Glentress downstream to Yair and back again. The event is the headliner for the re-imagined TweedLove festival weekend, now named Transcend Festival and switching base from Peebles to a fully-contained site near the trails at Innerleithen.
“The Epic is something we’ve always wanted to do,” explained TweedLove originator Neil Dalgleish. “It’s based on the Trans-Rockies, Trans-Provence format, though obviously a lot shorter – and with better beer. We’ll be working with the guys at Adrenalin Uplift – they provide an awesome service here in the Tweed Valley. It should be an amazing weekend of riding and a big adventure.”
Alongside the Epic, an almost entirely new programme of events and races aims to provide a unique, new bike festival weekend for the UK. Organisers are building on their existing race experience and success with the BEMBA British Enduro Champs and Enduro World Series with additions to the programme which this time are less focussed on the race results.
A new enduro, fittingly called Transcenduro, will provide Saturday’s major trail challenge on the Tweed Valley’s famous enduro tracks, while a short, sweet ‘Boost’ version will run on the Sunday for those who prefer a more compact event. Meanwhile, TweedLove’s established Mega Bike Demo will run all weekend alongside the expo, while a major new E-MTB event will also be announced shortly.
Rounding off the programme are Gritopia – TweedLove’s gravel adventure ride – and a new ‘X-Trail’ event. As Neil explained: “It’s not XC, it’s X-Trail – there’s a crucial difference in the fun factor and it doesn’t fit pure XC criteria”.
Bike uplifts, DJs, live music, a pumptrack, festival bar and food village complete the picture, with parking and camping all on site, too.
“This is a big step up for us,” explained Neil. “We’ve learned a lot over the last nine years and we want to put it to good use with something new. We’ve hosted a fair amount of the top level enduro racing in the UK to date, and we’ve always tried to show how inclusive the sport can be too.
“Building on that, we’re going for a full ‘grin factor’ approach – we want the riding to be as good as it can get, with uplifts and events to squeeze the most good times we can out of a weekend. It’s year one for Transcend, but a big new start for TweedLove.”
Further info
Transcend Epic places go on sale at 7pm on Monday 3 December (limited to 150 places). Entries for the TweedLove Triple Crown enduros will also go on sale at the same time – including Round 5 of the British National Enduro Series (17-18 August), and Vallelujah Enduro (23-24 March). Early bird discounts are available. More details available at www.tweedlove.com
Photography: Richard Turley