You may already have heard of XTERRA - the off-road triathlon event is what XC legend Ned Overend chose to while away his "retirement". It got started in 1996 on Maui, Hawaii as the AquaTerra race - an open ocean swim, mountain bike race and trail run. The concept of an off-road multisport event has proved highly successful - XTERRA claims to be the world's fastest-growing multisport series with a European Series, Global Tour and World Championshop back in Maui. And this year it'll be coming to the UK for the first time.

XTERRA UK will be held at Afan Forest Park in South Wales on the weekend of 2/3 September 2006. The organisers promise a "fun and action-packed weekend for the whole family", with races for MTBers and triathletes at all levels. At the top end there's £20,000 of prize money and qualifying slots for that Maui World Championships up for grabs.

The packed weekend will include the main XTERRA UK Championship (1,500m swim, 32km MTB, 10km run) for individual competitors, plus a team relay event over the same distances. For the less ambitious there's a half-distance triathlon and a children's duathlon for the youngsters.

Then there'll be two MTB enduro events - choose from 75km/2,500m of climbing or 32km/700m of climbing. And a selection of trail runs from 5km to half-marathon distance, plus a kids' run. And all sorts of other peripheral attractions. Sounds good to us...

If you're at this weekend's TCR show at Sandown then you can find out all about XTERRA, otherwise wait for after the weekend and have a butcher's at www.xterra.co.uk.