Snowies MTB Festival returns in 2023

Well-known for being a sure-fire way to kick off a year of mountain bike racing, the Snowies MTB Festival is descending on the NSW Snowy Mountains again in February 2023, running from the 3-5. For those who are smart with a calendar, you'll notice the Snowies MTB Festival is the week before the Australian National Championships up at Thredbo, running from 8-12 February. You can join the dots – this could make for an epic 10 days!

The Snowies MTB Festival is all about jamming a lot of great racing into a long weekend in the mountains, with everything based out of Lake Crackenback Resort. There are 5 stages over the weekend, with a mix of gravity racing, a time trial and marathon and cross-country events. New for 2023, you can even choose to race the event as a team – head to the in2adventure site for more details.

You'll race up the Thredbo Valley Trail (TVT), tackle Thredbo's Ricochet descent against the clock, and then take on the whole TVT from Thredbo to Gaden Trout Hatchery the next day. Saturday also sees a flat out happy hour time trial at the resort in the late afternoon. Get a good night's sleep as Sunday has a lap-based event on the resort trails, to see who can claim the winning crowns.

While there's plenty of stages to get excited about, there are also plenty of options. You can race the full distance in the Wild Brumby event, or scale it back a little and do the Brumby. Either way, the easy event logistics, awesome trails and stunning setting remains the same. Given the very comfortable setting at Lake Crackenback, how you want to approach the event is up to you. There's plenty of time to socialise, so you can make the racing fit around time with friends, or vice versa.

Entries are open now, so get some mates together and lock it in for 2023.