It's only a little more than a month before the second Kona Mash-Up 2009 opens its doors at the Glyncorrwg Mountain Bike Centre in Afan Forest near Port Talbot. The event is taking place on Saturday the 5 December with the registration opening on Friday afternoon/evening.

The winter Kona Mash-Up follows the same concept as the summer one offering a mixture of timed and un-timed sections on the Whites Level and July trail at the Glyncorrwg Mountain Bike Centre in Afan Forest. Riders can again enter either the technical or the endurance categories and see who is the fastest over all as well as in the specific timed sections.

There will be three timed sections - including the live timed Black Run - on the technical category and five timed sections on the endurance category. At the beginning of these timed sections you will find a timing marshal who will give you an idea of who is ahead of you and how far ahead so that you can plan your start as best as possible.

The Black Run will have once more fibre optic supported live timing which should give riders instant run times. This will give you the chance to check your times after every run on the Black Run. We are intending to put intermediate timing on the other sections up as soon as they arrive at the race HQ at the Drop Off Café.

There'll be a prize presentation for the over all ranking as well as for the individual sections (down to 5th position) which will take place at approx. 5pm at the Café. Make sure that you stay on for that as no prizes will be posted out after the event.

The event has an open start from 9am on Saturday morning onwards. There is no preset start time for riders and riders can start as late as 12pm (noon). Due to the shorter daylight hours the timing on the July trail (only relevant for Endurance category riders) is only open from 9am to 1pm. The timed sections on the Whites Level trail (relevant to both categories) are open from 9am - 4pm. We will reserve the right to shorten the timing due to daylight or weather conditions. This will be announced before the start.

We will set up a little event village (weather permitting) at the top of the climb (Windy Point). We will have some basic refreshments out there for the riders and the Drop Off Café will take their new Drop Off Bus to the top to look after the riders with some more substantial stuff and to offer some extra warmth. So take a few quid if you think you need to fuel up. We will also have some further shelter and hopefully some patio heaters up there in case it gets cold.

The entry for the winter Kona Mash-Up is open and we are still taking entries. You can enter via the entry form page on our website (www.konamashup.co.uk/entry.php). Providing there are places available we might have day entry available. Please note that there is a £5 surcharge for entering on the day.

The Drop Off Café will be once more the central chilling out point for the weekend with some great food and coffees during the day, some super nice post ride food, a bar and some music. Wrist bands are on sale now for the Drop Off Leaving/after event Party.

We have created a new home for the Kona Mash-Up. From now on you can find all the details on the event on the new www.konamashup.co.uk website. So if you have any questions please check the FAQ section and if you can't find the answer please get in touch with us.