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BBC News
16 hours ago
- Sport
- BBC News
Mountain bikers bid to conquer 'deepest, darkest Wales'
Gee Atherton attributes Wales' landscape as the most "impressive and intimidating" for building the Worlds hardest downhill racing track.A former World mountain bike downhill champion, Atherton is co-founder of Hardline – widely regarded as the hardest mountain bike race in the Hardline returns to the Dyfi Valley in mid Wales for its eleventh year on 26 JulyThe event see's the top female and male riders from around the world battle it out over two days to become the Hardline year Irish World Cup racer Ronan Dunne took the win and will be looking to defend his victory again this with his brother Dan, Gee Atherton designs and builds the track each year and also participates in the race, which he won in 2018 after a few unlucky years of mechanical faults on the track, had prevented him from finishing the race. "Every year I would be there and I would be close and either mechanicals or crashes or injuries," Gee Atherton said."I realised I was almost pushing too hard and I wanted this win too much and I almost had to kind of step back and calm myself down and think about it slightly differently."I managed to get my head around it and managed to take a win but it's not an easy event to win by any means, there's very few people that have won it multiple times."The event is often regarded as the hardest course in the World with only the top athletes invited to take part each event has one competition in Dinas Mawddwy, in Wales and one in Tasmania, with the Welsh clash known to be more challenging than its counterpart race."I mean, we've been all around the world riding and training and racing and looking for venues for these kind of events," Atherton added."And, you know, we've never found anywhere as impressive as intimidating as where it is here in Wales."I think it's that unique kind of feel you can only get from when you're in, you know, deepest, darkest Wales."Everything from the climate, the venue, the mountain, you know, everything is terrifying. So it's the best spot in the world for it." A competition so extreme, it must be difficult to test its safety?Mountain biking at this scale, built to test the very top of the worlds talent can only be tested by the riders themselves, as the only people with the skillset to complete the may be the only sport in the world that the guinea pigs are its own professionals right in the heart of a World Cup World Cup brothers, Dan and Gee will build and test the course before inviting other riders to test before the competition gets underway."It's difficult really, Dan and I, we've got this kind of agreement between us and we know how each other works and I'll suggest something and he'll say no that's too far, or that's a great idea," Atherton said."Often he will build something and I will have to test it so there's a lot of trust there between the two of us." I think we work well together, sometimes I'll have to test something that he's built and I'll have to trust that it's going to work 75% of the time it does and occasionally it doesn't."You're building the hardest track in the world, you're guinea pigging some of the biggest features anyone's ever hit on a bike, so it's very difficult to then decide yes this is okay or no we've gone too far you know we have to push the sport."We have to challenge the riders we have to be at that kind of that pinnacle that's forefront of what you can do on a mountain bike so each year the riders turn up and there's a new feature that's bigger and more difficult than the previous years."If you go too far with that, you know, if you push them too far, then the riders can risk getting injured, which, you know, does happen sometimes in testing. But at the same time, you know, you have to be ambitious. You have to push the sport along. And that's where that balance comes in. And you have to walk that very fine line."The three Atherton siblings are arguably mountain biking's most impressive family,From their own bike brand to a bike park as well as Gee, Dan and sister Rachel's vast World Cup winning records. The three have been in Wales since 2004, with Dyfi Bike Park established in 2010, creating a destination for mountain bikers from all of the world to test their skills."The talent that's developing, that's coming out of this area is incredible, riders onto the World Cup scene with quite impressive results," Gee Atherton said."We've been here a long time, we've developed a Bike Park here in Machynlleth which has helped put the area on the map."It's turning into one of the UK's biggest bike parks and getting busier and busier and it's just this huge mountain of the most unique, intimidating daunting, but incredible fun to ride trails."There's very few places you can find this kind of landscape and this kind of terrain that suits mountain biking so well."
North Wales Chronicle
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- North Wales Chronicle
Young coders gather at Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor for competition
The annual Code Club UK competition, hosted by the Dolgellau campus, saw budding programmers from Ysgol Bro Idris sites compete to develop the best original game. Ninety enthusiastic learners from Dolgellau, Dinas Mawddwy, Rhydymain, Friog, and Llanelltyd one of the winners of the Code Club UK competition, holding the tablet he won as a prize with staff from Ysgol Bro Idris and Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor (Image: Supplied) The event celebrated the conclusion of a year-long effort by IT students, who ran Code Clubs at Ysgol Bro Idris, teaching basic programming skills. Throughout the academic year, Level 3 Information Technology students at Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor taught 96 Year 5 and 6 pupils how to create their own games and activities. The competition allowed these children to put their newly acquired skills to the test by creating an original game using Scratch programmers focused on developing their own games (Image: Supplied) They had to think about backdrops, characters, sounds, how points would be awarded or deducted, and how the game could be won. Games were judged on creativity and originality, technical proficiency, gameplay, and user experience. The winners were Brandon and Ollie from the Dolgellau site, who took first place, followed by Prideaux and Macs from Llanelltyd in second, Celyn from Friog in third, and Isaac, also from Friog, in one of the winners of the Code Club UK competition, holding the tablet she won as a prize with staff from Ysgol Bro Idris and Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor (Image: Supplied) The winners were awarded tablets to help them continue to develop their coding skills. Sioned William, IT Level 2 and 3 course coordinator at Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor, said: "Code Clubs are an excellent opportunity to develop sought-after skills and to foster an interest in coding from a young age, which is high on the agenda for development at primary schools. "Also, they are a fantastic opportunity for our learners to use their skills and work with the local from across Dolgellau, Dinas Mawddwy, Rhydymain, Friog, and Llanelltyd showcased their skills (Image: Supplied) "Most of our learners are nervous to begin with, but once they have done the first session they thoroughly enjoy it and note it as one of their highlights of the course." Level 3 student Sam Stocks said: "I really enjoyed being a part of Code Club this year. "The experience taught me a lot about how I can help others, and how passionate children can be about things they enjoy."(Image: Supplied) Fellow student Pawel Lenort added: "It's been a great experience for me as it helped me be more confident in coding, and I enjoyed helping pupils with their games." Code Club is a nationwide initiative that promotes digital literacy and skills for future generations. They aim to empower young people to use computing technologies to shape the world.
