← All eventsThe Naughty Northumbrian
Timed-stage MTB enduro at Kielder — result is combined timed descent-stage times, liaison climbs untimed; decided by descent skill and repeatability, not FTP. Distance/elevation/stages and date are approximate estimates.
A timed-stage mountain bike enduro in Kielder Forest, where only your combined time on the descent stages counts. The long liaison climbs between them are untimed. Race the downs, ride the ups.
Around a 40km loop through Northumberland forest and moorland, roughly 1,500m of climbing, with about five or six timed stages of fast, loamy, rooty, rocky singletrack.
Only ten to twenty-five minutes is ever on the clock. But it decides everything, and it goes to the rider who descends the last stage as fast and clean as the first.
Who finishes, and how
Patterns like these, drawn straight from 2025 race data, are baked into how Beina coaches you for this event.
Is The Naughty Northumbrian for you?
- Confident technical descenders who trust their lines on greasy loam and roots at speed. Line choice on the stages is where the time is won.
- Riders who descend well repeatedly, not just once. The result is decided as much on the last stage as the first, on tired arms and fading grip.
- Aerobically durable riders happy to spend a long day out. Only minutes are timed, but the liaisons stretch it to a four and a half to eight hour day.
- Anyone on a capable enduro or trail bike (150-170mm) with a dropper. This is natural Kielder terrain, not XC hardtail country.
Training plan for The Naughty Northumbrian
A training plan for The Naughty Northumbrian isn't a generic base build. Beina reads the event's exact demands, looks at your specific profile and the time you actually have, and maps a highly adapted plan to the start line.
- Fast, committing forest descents on greasy loam, roots and rock where line choice at speed makes the time.
- Repeatability: going near-max on a stage, recovering on the liaison, then doing it again five or six times.
- Long untimed liaison climbs, roughly 1,500m across the loop, ridden without burning the matches you need for the stages.
- A four and a half to eight hour day that hammers hands, grip and focus, in changeable, exposed north-east weather.
- Repeated-descent sessions: 5 to 8 near-max descents with a liaison-pace climb back between each.
- Weekly technical skills on natural forest descents, loam, roots and rock, not just trail-centre flow.
- Skills under fatigue: 30 to 45 minutes of technical descending after a three hour ride, modelling tired late stages.
- A long liaison-style ride building to five hours with big climbing, plus a full-day multi-stage simulation before race day.
- Built from your current fitness and the time you actually have
- Adapts every week as Beina learns how you respond
- Syncs your sessions straight to Garmin and Wahoo
- One clear next session, never a wall of spreadsheet
