Ride your way into mountain bike mythology

Press Release / 28.10.2011

Will you - like Homer, hero of the Odyssey - stand atop Victoria’s Otway Ranges come February 18th, muddied but triumphant as a two wheeled warrior, conqueror of vertiginous kilometres of climbing, having ridden through thick swathes of forest split by blinding single track and the odd mud monster clawing out from the ferns?

It’s a story only those who enter the Kona Odyssey, a mountain bike marathon like no other, will be able to tell. Entries have now opened online for the newly-sponsored and so re-named event at www.konaodyssey.com.au.

This is the event Australia’s mountain bike Gods look to; the one they hold up as the biggest two wheel battlefield of all.

“The Kona Odyssey is the pinnacle mountain bike marathon event in Australia and there have been plenty of legends made and mythologised over the five years we have held it,” says Rapid Ascent’s Sam Maffett. “So we thought the flavour of the legendary Greek warrior Homer recast as a mountain biker was appropriate!” he says of this year’s theme.

“Likewise we recognise that Kona make some pretty legendary mountain bikes, so we welcome them aboard as naming rights sponsor of the Odyssey event for the next three years. We look forward to seeing their bikes and riders on course, hopefully up front-of-pack.”

Featuring three challenging yet scenic courses - the 100km main game along with the 50km ‘Shorty’ and 15km ‘Pioneer’ – the event scoots along world renowned single track, providing a heroic mountain bike journey through a range of wild landscapes in what Rapid Ascent reckons is “an Odyssey sent from the gods.”