Why would anyone want to ride for six hours when there are so many easier ways to have fun on a mountain bike? You could spend a couple of hours on a way-marked singletrack, or go jumping down at your local bombholes. What is the point of slogging it out for several hours miles from civilisation? Well, one reason is that you ride a mountain bike. Surely a mountain bike requires a good thrashing on a mountain every once in a while. Britain contains very few real cycleable mountains, such as Snowdon, Helvellyn, and Skiddaw; but the Yorkshire Dales, or the North Pennines are a lot closer to being mountains, than say, Epping forest.


While we all love the twisty singletrack through our local woodland, there is also great deal of satisfaction to be gained from taking on a big mountain route and (hopefully) winning. The reward for completing a true epic is mental and physical exhaustion, extreme muddiness, and an inane grin! While the moorland areas of Britain are seldom life-threatening, and thousands will have ridden any route before you, when you are half way up the Corrieyairack in a blizzard, you will feel like a pioneering explorer.


So what are the essential ingredients for an epic route? A big loop through rough terrain, at least 5 hours of riding, and the most important ingredient; a damn good cafй halfway round! Good routes often comprise of ancient trackways, formerly used to connect villages, which have been abandoned in favour of newer surfaced roads. This often eases the navigation, and surfaces can vary from grassy singletrack to badly eroded four wheel drive tracks.


Avoid the Rambler!


An unexpected bonus is that good mountain biking thrives upon a totally different type of terrain than that which attracts the walker. A good epic requires vast expanses of rolling moorland, while the walkers fight it out on the highest peaks and sharpest ridges. Even in the overcrowded Lake District, the best routes are often well away from the madding crowds, in forgotten areas such as wet sleddale or Skiddaw forest. Even the lakes classic, High Street, is deserted, once you are north of the actual summit. If you want peace and quiet on a bank holiday weekend then try some of the more remote routes in the north Pennines or mid Wales.


British Epics


So where do you start? Well it takes time to build up the stamina and experience required for a true epic, but anything that satisfies the exhaustion/mud/grin criteria can be used as a starting point. At the bottom end of the scale, a 20 mile stretch of the ridgeway or south downs, just about fits the bill. Then you can work your way up to some of the real epics in the north of England or Wales. Once you have really got the hang of it, any true epic rider must try his hand at Scotland. My favourite route is a 70 mile loop from Fort William, crossing rannoch moor, and involving 38 miles of continuous off-road riding! It took 11 hours.
Epics can be strung together into multi-day routes. The English, Welsh and Scottish coast-to-coast routes are all incomparable 4 to 5 day rides. Many Scottish routes are too long to complete in one day, and make superb weekend rides, requiring a minimum of luggage.


Foreign Epics


If you really want to push the upper boundaries of epics, then try looking abroad. The Germans are very fond of their 'Transalp' routes, taking 2 weeks to cross from southern Germany to northern Italy. There is even a race version of the Transalp now.
Scandinavia offers weeks' worth of wilderness terrain. The greatest European challenge is probably Iceland, where even the roads are off-road. A crossing of the interior by bike, is perhaps the last true cycling adventure left on this continent.
Perhaps every mountain biker should crown off his career with the mother of all epics; Lhasa to Kathmandu. This month long journey will take you across the Tibetan plateau and into the Himalayas, perhaps visiting Everest base camp. The crowning glory is the descent into Nepal which lasts one and a half days, the longest downhill on earth!