Tweed Valley gears up for the biggest ever TweedLove Bike Festival

Picture: Tweedlove event at Peebles, TSPL

Known as ‘Bike Valley’ by cyclists around the UK and beyond, Tweed Valley is preparing to host its biggest cycling festival to date with this year’s TweedLove Bike Festival.

The area is renowned for its reputation for excellent mountain bike trails and relatively traffic-free road network, meaning it is the ideal spot for a cycling festival.

There are 35 different events spread over three weeks, with two key weekends within that period, 26th-28th May, and 9th-11th June. For the first time TweedLove will also include a ‘mega bike demo’ weekend, where many of the world’s top bike brands provide the public with the opportunity to try out top of the range bikes - some worth up to £10,000 each – on the trails of Glentress and country roads around Peebles. It will be the biggest event of its kind in the UK this year, with hundreds of different bikes available to try.

Picture: Tweedlove riders in Glentress, TSPL

“This is an amazing chance for people to spend some timing riding the most sought-after bikes in the world, bristling with the latest lightweight technology, all in the UK’s best cycling destination”, says TweedLove director Neil Dalgleish. “It’s fantastic that so many of the world’s best bike brands are coming to Peebles with their latest kit. People can take some time finding out what the bike of their dreams is really like to ride, and enjoy the festival atmosphere and all the events afterwards.”

Also for the first time this year runners can join the cyclists at the party too as the area’s flagship cross country bike event, the Odlo Glentress Seven, will share its 11km course with the brand new Glentress 11 Trail Run, kicking of events for the weekend of 26th-28th May.

TweedLove Festival began eight years ago with some cycling friends organising events for friends to take part in, but is now the UK’s biggest cycling festival, but is still powered by community enthusiasm. “There’s no doubt these events are still a labour of love”, says Neil. “Our small team of organising staff try very hard to put on events which do the place justice. Non of this would have been possible with out all the community support, and that’s still true today. It’s a unique and special place.” 