Cyclists take on mountainous challenge

THE Khmer Cycling Club and the Comin Khmer Company are hosting the very first mountain bike race around the top of beautiful Phnom Kulen this Sunday. Registration will be open until the race starts at 7:30am, so there's still time to get on your bike and sign up. Registration will be $8 for Cambodians and $35 for foreigners, increasing to $45 for registration on the day. The fee includes the standard entry fee for Phnom Kulen, a.k.a. Mount Lychee.  For those registering on time, it also includes an overnight camping trip on Kulen, a beautiful mountain about 40 kilometres outside Siem Reap that has long been a popular picnic site for Cambodians. The race, over a four-kilometre course, caters for four different levels of experience, from five-lap experts to novices who do three laps of a shorter course, with the difficult bit cut out. The challenging ride takes competitors through jungle, over rocks and alongside the famed underwater lingas and includes some tough terrain, strong right angles and U-turns and some fast downhill sections.

 Rasmey Prum, from the Khmer Cycling Club, says the organisers are keen to stage more races at Phnom Kulen. "We want to develop Cambodian cycling as much as we can on behalf of the Cambodian cycling generation and small clubs here. If we don't do it, nobody will,"said Rasmey Prum.Almost 100 participants are already registered for the event. Most are Cambodian, say the organisers, and this is a sign of the growing localinterest in this sport.

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