Only a week from today, over 350 Mountain Bikers will be standing on the starting line at the Huangshan International Mountain Bike festival, waiting for the start gun to go off. Amateurs and professionals, side by side. Some will be aiming for the 25km race, some for the 50km.

Amongst many famous Mountain Bikers to be at Huangshan this year is Svein-Thore Gerhardsen, a former top Mountain Biker from Norway and now an employee at Nordic Ways.

Svein-Thore has been responsible for the tracks to this event and he believes them to be better than anything he has ever ridden him selves.

“Its absolutely one of the best tracks one can ride as a mountain biker. The terrain is so good that is would be possible to arrange WC Mountain Bike Marathon here in the future, especially when one consider that the track also has been approved by UCI. On top of that you have the nature, what can I say, it’s stunning”

Also Bernt Johansson, a gold medalist in the 1976 Montreal Olympics Road Race and a hero back home in Sweden, is a big fan of Huangshan and the possibilities that lies in this region of China. He is truly looking forward to joining this event on April 6^th.

But Huangshan is not just a Mountain Bike race, it truly is a festival. Banquets, Easter egg hunting, music, sightseeing and shows are some of the many things that happen around this event, and thus bring more people then only bikers down to Huangshan from April 6^th to 8^th.

Some of the many guests are the Swedish and Czech Ambassadors. Both will be attending the opening ceremonies and official banquets. The Swedish Ambassador is bringing his family and is looking forward to showing them around this beautiful part of China, with is history and nature. The Ambassador especially pointed out the three UNESCO world heritage sites that the track runs through as something he was very much looking forward to taking his family to visit.

Also TREK bikes will bring one of their top Mountain Bikers to Huangshan this year. The Japanese star Shinobi Noguchi will be on the starting line for the 50km and is believed to be going for glory. One of the most exciting parts of the race this year will probably be to see whether or not someone can rob this Japanese nr.1 of the gold.

With as much as 300 racers on the starting line and hundreds more taking part in the festival as a whole, the Huangshan Mountain Bike Festival 2007 truly looks to be one to remember for life.