Alan Hatherly and Hayley Preen started their 2026 seasons with stellar victories in the Momentum Medical Scheme Attakwas Extreme, presented by Biogen. The 120-kilometre race from Chandelier Game Lodge, near Oudtshoorn, to the Pine Creek Resort, in Great Brak, featured a revised route that lent itself to faster times. As did the cool weather on [...]
Safari Essence Titan Racing’s sophomore season is likely to be a busy one, with the squad racing from January to November, in both mountain and gravel bike disciplines. The new year also brings a new signing for the team as Roxy Kemp joins Danielle du Toit in one of just two women’s-only teams in South [...]
Easily recognisable in their neon kit, Insect Science Mountain Biking have been mainstays of the South African cycling peloton since 2018. As the squad’s 9th season begins, they mark the new year with an expanded roster, renewed vigour, and new sponsors. Wessel Botha and Johan van Zyl join team stalwarts, Arno du Toit, Keagan Bontekoning, [...]
On Saturday, the 17th of January, the South African and global mountain biking season gets underway at the Momentum Medical Scheme Attakwas Extreme, presented by Biogen. Dubbed the Hell of the South, it challenges riders to an infamously tough, 120-kilometre course from Chandelier Game Lodge, near Oudtshoorn, to the Pine Creek Resort, in Great Brak. [...]
In the first episode of the new year, we look ahead at what’s to come on the bike in 2026. From the Attakwas Extreme, which kicks off the South African racing season through the Tankwa Trek, Cape Epic, Garden Route Giro, and on into the World Series calendar, which gets underway in South [...]
The UCI MTB World Series visits 9 countries in 2026, with South Korea replacing Brazil as the only non-European or North American leg. The new host country also gets the series underway this year, with a late start on the 1st of May. After the long haul to the Far East, the European leg visits [...]
Over the last decade, we at Diverge have covered around 25 events per year across MTB, Gravel, Road, and Trail Running. With that experience in hand, we'll be bringing you more insights in 2026. Some of it will be on the ground, on the job for the event, while we will be covering other races [...]
The 20th anniversary edition of the Momentum Medical Scheme Attakwas Extreme, presented by Biogen, will challenge mountain bikers with an infamously tough course from the Klein Karoo to Great Brak on the coast, but the tweaked route may well prove faster. A return to the original approach to the Attakwaskloof removes two rocky climbs, along [...]
Drikus Coetzee drew on his extensive experience in the Nedbank Desert Dash to win the 2025 title in a remarkable time of 14 hours, 13 minutes, and 32 seconds on Saturday, 6 December. Having started at The Grove Mall of Namibia, in Windhoek, the Namibian raced 401 kilometres through the night to reach the Platz [...]
Namibia’s Drikus Coetzee and Germany’s Nina Holtrup won the 2025 Nedbank Desert Dash on Saturday, 6 December. The pair won in vastly different manners, as Coetzee used an early attack to reduce the freshness of his rivals’ legs before settling into a rhythm with Andreas Seewald to build an advantage that ensured that only disaster [...]
