It should attract around 300 athletes to compete.
Frederick, MD (NS) Frederick will be the venue for the 2021 Marathon Mountain Bike National Championships on Saturday, October 23.
The one-day event will take place inside Gambrill State Park and the Frederick Watershed CWNA on the ridge of the Catoctin Mountains in Frederick County.
The Maryland Sports Commission will serve as host for the event. Director of National Events for USA Cycling, Tara McCarthy, says Frederick City and the Maryland Sports Commission have been a huge help with making the event possible, “We have had a really great partnership with the Maryland Sports Commission in the past with some of our Road National Championships. And I did reach out and they said ‘We have a couple parks in the state’ and Gambrill State Park ended up being the park that fit our requirements in terms of a host, and of course, the course.”
Marathon Mountain Bike Nationals is a cross-country mountain bike discipline between 32 and 99 miles.
McCarthy says this one is extra technical, “It is typically a 2 or 3 lap race… and we’ll be doing a 2 lap course for this year’s National Championship. And we’ll be on the small side of that mileage, about 36 miles, due to the technical and challenging nature of the course.”
She says what makes this course difficult is the abundance of roots and rocks.