Don't sweat it. Look on www.xcracer.com at the event page. Choose your local / regional race as a starter. There is no need to get a race licence to begin with if you are testing the water. If you are a fairly experienced regular cyclist you can easily enter the sport cat, unless you are over 30 and want to enter your age category. The sharp end of the age categories are going to be very quick but there is plenty of depth and you won't get left behind. Training wise, for this year just ride your bike a lot. Then buy Joe Friel's Mountain Bike Training Bible and devour it ready to start your training seriously in october time. We post our training planner on www.fullysussed.co.uk if you're interested and we hope to put some beginner / intermediate programmes on there very soon. Training hours - if you believe the majority of riders I talk to, they are not doing more then 8 hours per week. Regional races tend to be about 1.5 hours long. So find a race, enter online, turn up at least an hour before to pre ride the course and warm up, attach your number and pedal like hell. Stop when the nice man tells you to. Jay Horton Team Certini-McCaulays www.fullysussed.co.uk