Naughty Northumbrian Mountain Bike race is back

With steep descents through woods, climbs up rocky tracks and thrills and spills around the undulating foothills of the Cheviots, the challenging event runs across three days from the 23-25th August.

The full Enduro race is rated black by EWS – in other words, tough – and runs between 40 and 50km in six stages. There is also a Not So Naughty event with four stages in one compact loop.

Camping is available near Alwinton for racers with live music, DJs and a beer tent.

“The Naughty has been running since 2017, but we missed two years due to Covid and storm Arwen,” said organiser Carl Davison.

“However, as Northern downhill I have been working with forestry England and developing trails and running events at Kidland since 2009.”

“The valley has perfect ground conditions as well as being steep and natural - the stronger you are at mountain biking the more you dislike trail centres riding- however access to natural non-machine-built trails is limited. These trails are the essence of the Naughty.”

The British Mountain Biking Championships held a leg in the Coquet Valley in the early 1990s and Carl expects a large number of entrants for this year’s Naughty.

“We expect around 550 competitors to attend but reached over 700 a few years ago.

“I’m not sure on which big names are attending but we regularity have the ‘Dudes of Hazzard’ aka Joe Barnes and Ferguson Lamb. Last year we had a downhill World Cup rider Marc Beaumont attend and promise to return,” continued Carl.

The winners of last year’s competition were Ferguson Lamb and Helen Gaskell.

“This year is the first year in a while we have not had to build a number of brand-new trails, so we can concentrate on perfecting the trails we have. But we are always on the look-out for new venues, be that farmland or forestry. No matter how inhospitable people may think their land is - we will probably like it more.”