Biggest bike festival returning to best venue in the Borders

The 2018 Whyte BEMBA British Championship Enduro race is taking place over the weekend of June 8-10 and will see 600 riders battle it out down the slopes of the Tweed Valley around Peebles and Innerleithen.

Enduro is now the biggest discipline in mountain bike sport and the UK Championship will be the most hotly contested race of the year, giving the winner of each age category the privilege of wearing the highly-coveted Champion’s jersey.

The country’s top professional riders are already all signed up on the start list, with their team support crews also due in Peebles for the TweedLove-hosted event.

Amateur and enthusiast riders have the chance to race against some of Enduro’s top athletes, including Katy Winton, Lewis Buchanan, Joe Barnes and Mark Scott.

While pro riders are used to travelling the globe and riding new trails, it could be a home advantage that takes the win this summer, with world enduro number three Katy Winton having spent the winter months training in New Zealand, and Innerleithen-based Lewis Buchanan having spent the start of 2018 training on his backyard tracks. This year could also see Ruaridh Cunningham, from Stow, race his first enduro season following a successful downhill career.

The race will be the pinnacle event of the TweedLove Bike Festival weekend, which will see the Tweed Green taken over by some of the bike industry’s biggest brands, who will be exhibiting their latest and greatest products and allowing the public the chance to demo a fleet of dream bikes, some worth up to £7500 each. The weekend will also include events for road bikes, gravel bikes, children, and families and there will be plenty for non-riders too.

This is the fourth year that the TweedLove Festival has taken place on the Tweed Green and it follows on from the huge success of last year which saw 10,000 people attend over three days.

Event organiser Neil Dalgleish said: “We’re immensely proud of the TweedLove festival – it brings many thousands of pounds of revenue to the Tweed Valley and increases the profile of the area as a cycling and outdoors area of excellence.”

The Whyte British Enduro Championships is supported by both Scottish Borders Council and EventScotland, part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate.

For more about all events across the festival weekend, visit www.tweedlove.com.