A couple of weeks ago we headed over the hill for a weekend of female led mountain bike fun at Gowaan Gals Festival. Despite some challenging weather at times, it was a brilliant weekend.

Bex Baraona and Martha Gill of Gowaan Gals are world famous mountain bike racers, having both won some seriously big races from Enduro World Cups to Queen of Crankworx title. Despite being at the very top of the world, they are still huge supporters of the grassroots and encouraging more women to get sendy on bikes. We've been to a couple of previous festivals and had a great time, so jumped at the chance to return.

The festival took place at Farmer Johns Bike Park in Marple, near Stockport with attendees having exclusive use of the park. A stacked schedule from morning yoga to floodlit evening mini-bike relay racing, the focus of the event was firmly on having fun and getting stuck in.

Cotic brand ambassador Esme Ward and her whole family took a break from their hectic BMX and 4X racing schedule to come along for the weekend, and absolutely loved it. Esme and her sister Charlotte got stuck into everything with an infectious energy. 9 year old Charlotte even sent the airbag!

Both of them won the pump track fastest lap competition in their age categories, and Esme also picked up a special award for progression, as chosen by Bex and Martha for her air bag skills. She was nervous about hitting such a huge ramp, and after some tips from the pros and a few attempts, she was sending one-handers and landing smooth as you like. We done Es!

My wife Kelly came along too and had a great time rallying her FlareMAX. Along with Esme and Charlotte's mum Katie she got stuck into some coaching, maintenance sessions and rode laps of the bike park with everyone.

We also entered the floodlit mini-bike race on the Saturday evening, a brilliantly chaotic relay race involving a bra as the relay batten and an off-camber tarp soaked in washing up liquid, all raced on kids bikes with a shot before handing your bra to the next racer!

Safe to say I was rubbish at that, other than the booze!

We showed off our bikes, chatted to loads of folk and ate delicious pizza from main man Fabio at PREAM Pizza, always a treat. If you haven't had one of his amazing creations yet, you really must. Special thanks to Fab for the breakfast pizza made up with nutella and pistachios, what a way to start the day!

Sunday was a wet one, and the planned long-jump competition was changed to a drift session on the wet grass! Loads of fun with plenty of comedy slides and some seriously long skids.

Cotic donated a Gen1 Jeht frame as the star prize in Sunday afternoon's massive raffle. Excitement built up, and the frame ended up being won by a young lad called Wilf, who was over the moon. Such a wholesome way to round off a lovely weekend of bikes and good vibes.

We have a handful of these frames in stock if you fancy a bargain for yourself, or maybe for a growing youngster in your household?

We'll be back next time, just hopefully the wind and rain doesn't make a return!

It was a great way to end event season. We are already starting to plan which events we'll be heading to in 2025. If you have any suggestions for MTB or gravel events you'd like to see Cotic at next year, please do get in touch.

Happy trails,

Sam.