Come to Paul's place for a Friday night gathering. Ride your bike, have a beer or even partake in a jolly good game of badminton. BYO drinks and food but there is a fridge and BBQ setup for you. Time: 4:30pm Friday 19/01/2018 Address: 32 Ruwoldts Road, West Woombye Google Maps Link: https://goo.gl/maps/6FKskjCDukw ...
So how hot was Sunday at your place? It was bloody hot at Parklands! 36°C to be exact. Now most normal people would stay at home in the air conditioning, go to the beach or get some of those handy suppositories you can keep in the freezer. But not us, no way! We went for a bike ride – heat stroke be damned!!
Now it wasn’t just the two groups of Bushrangers keen for a ride this day, the Radar Hill road carpark was overflowing with all the riders hitting the black track early while it was still cooler. The regular club ride started off from the Aitkenson Road side with Alf “Putting the A in ABBA” Cerwen and the rookie ride group started from the Radar Hill Road side led by me.
The Club Ride
Club Ride – Ride map and elevation
Alf lead his 20+ riders on a challenging 20km route up Double Dab then through Cancer Tree and Road Rage. They then rode the new green and black trails and then back across the park to the cars. The heat and humidity definitely made things tougher (“especially for the Europeans” Alf said). But everyone had enough water and kept in the shade. Lou had a tumble off the Hobbit bridge in Cancer Tree but came out fine. Word is some crazy bugger on this ride is training for a 6000km self-supported endurance ride – I’ll find out more and let everyone know the details – sounds pretty interesting.
Thanks for leading the ride Alf and I’m sorry to hear that no-one wanted to listen to your excellent jokes. I’m sure they were comedy gold and politically correct as always.
The Rookie Ride
Rookie Ride – Ride map and elevation
The Rookie ride started with 13 riders (which then grew to 17 as we discovered more riders on our journey). Before we started I gave everyone a brief pep talk with 3 rules – check your bikes, drink water and don’t die. Everyone excelled in these tasks beautifully – nice work Team Rookie!
We rode from the carpark to the beginning of the green loop and everyone road the loop at their own pace for a bit until we regrouped back at the container. We then went down Road Rage and up and around the Gumby Loop. Ended up being a perfect 10km and 2 hrs by the time we got back to the car and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.
Thanks to John, Dave and Nick for being tail-end charlie for me. I hope everyone had fun and I’ll see you again next weekend for another rookie ride.
Yours truly,
Michael “It’s OK, we have a 10% loss policy on group rides” Johns
Club Secretary
Today is a special day at Bushrangers HQ! The 18-month consultation/design/redesign/redesign/redesign/approval process has finally been completed and we are now ready to sell the new jerseys! There are two styles of jersey available in two unique colours - Culvert Slime Green and Chain Gunk Black. There is the men and women's 'roadie' style jersey with short sleeves, full zip and pockets in the back. There is the unisex 'enduro' style jersey with short, 3/4 and long sleeve options (women may need to use the junior sizes). The order gets processed at the end of each month so jump on and order your's at https://www.blackchrome.com.au/cycling/bushrangers-mtb/ For sizing just follow the instructions on the product page when you order....
[caption id="attachment_6068" align="alignright" width="270"] Give way to pedestrians and horses[/caption] Each Saturday morning one of the hardest Parkrun events in Australia happens in Parklands which is pretty awesome! At 7am a heap of runners and walkers will move along the fire road parallel to the new black track for a few minutes as they commence their 5km loop through the park. For these few minutes there is a potential risk of collision between a rider and a runner if: a rider flies out of the black or green tracks at speed; a rider rides back up the fire road in amongst the runners/walkers. However there is a clear line of sight for riders and runners so there should be ample time for a rider to slow down, stop for a rest and allow the runners to pass through safely. Please let new riders and visitors know that hikers, trail runners and horses use the fire roads and we need to give way to them....
[caption id="attachment_6064" align="alignright" width="300"] New rock garden in front of the g-out[/caption] Trailworx has been into Parklands and made a few tweaks to the black trail. A new rock garden is in front of the g-out and some ramps have been massaged. Remember, this trail is a progression trail to help improve advanced rider skills like jumping, dropping, berms and traversing rock gardens etc it's not an ultra fast track. The upcoming blue flow trail will probably be faster and there are plans for different black trails in the future so spread the word and stay tuned! Bushranger Committee info@bushrangers.org...
Dodging horse poop and march flies as big as bricks
So the day is winding down and I’ve donned my slippers and smoking jacket and sit in my baby seal covered wing chair sipping brandy that was snatched from the wavering hands of a dying French cavalry officer in 1815. I think back to last Sunday’s club ride and relive the fond memories and chuckle again at all the clever things I said.
Did you know that Sunday’s ride was the first one for the 2018? And according to the large book in my lap called the Encyclopedia of Dodgy Chinese Proverbs and Mountain Biking, this is the year of the Gnar Rabbit*. Isn’t that interesting? Learn something everyday don’t you? But I digress, let’s get back to Sunday’s ride shall we.
I arrived early to get my bike ready so I could then meet and greet everyone and insult their tyre sizes, as you do. But lo and behold there were riders everywhere and carparks nowhere. It seemed the day’s ride was going to be a big one. We ended up with over 39 riders including our regulars, new members, guests from other clubs and some courageous first timers. Big hello to you all and I hope you had a lovely ride.
Ewen Maddock Dam rides are good for a swim afterwards
The weather turned out to be great and only started to warm up towards the end of the ride but this is easily fixed by a quick swim in the dam or pointing your car’s A/C vents at your crotch.
The large amounts of rain that had fallen previously had filled the dam and nearby creeks and left quite a few challenging mud areas along our route. This was keenly noticed by Bronya as she fell off her bike in a particularly wet section of the trail – I do apologise for laughing before I asked if you were OK Bronya, it’s quite a bad habit I have.
The day’s ride leader was our esteemed president Ben “I’m so lucky to have a cool brother” Johns. It was his difficult task to safely lead the group through the perilous obstacles on this ride. These nasty obstacles included The Horse Poop Dash, Horseshoe Hill of No Horseshoes and our old nemesis The Skanky Swamp of Skankiness all this while fighting off bulletproof, fist-sized march flies throwing sticks into our spokes.
But as always, through teamwork, skill and tenaciousness the Bushrangers persevered, conquered all and coolly strutted away without looking back at the explosions.
Thanks for the coffee Brewhaha, thanks for the trails SEQ Water and QPWS and thanks for the ride everyone.
Lovingly yours,
Michael “Brandy tastes bad” Johns
Club Secretary
* 2018 is actually the Year of the Dog – not the Gnar Rabbit …FYI.
Ride Map and Elevation
[caption id="attachment_4712" align="alignright" width="300"] Vote for the best names now![/caption] Hey folks, It's time for the biggest vote you've made in 2018! Vote how you believe and don't be swayed by propaganda from advocacy groups such as the Concerned Citizens Against Trail Names or Dirt Love is Real Love. QPWS have gone through all the suggestions and made a shortlist of potential names. Now we need to vote for the two winning names, one for the BLACK FLOW trail and one for the BEGINNER'S LOOP. So go to the survey link below and place your votes! Voting closes midnight Friday 12/01/2018. https://goo.gl/forms/HTWovR4N1Nlcwigl2 Note that the Bushrangers committee withholds the right to not listen to the decision of this vote and instead activate a $140,000,000 postal survey were we will ask the same question and expect the same answer and only then we will decide to maybe think about it....
Here Martin was only just able to unclip and plant his foot to stop toppling down the hill
So for our last ride of 2017 we had a 40km jaunt through the Ringtail Forest area near Tewantin.
This ride was more challenging than usual due the weather being particularly hot and humid as the predicted afternoon storms brewed up. The heat drained us and we burned through our water supplies pretty quickly. Although some interesting solutions were offered such as drinking from the skanky puddles we came across or sucking the sweat from each others shirts – luckily it didn’t come to that. But be this a reminder that as it gets warmer think twice about your water requirements.
The ride started in Tewantin at the cricket grounds and 23 of us set off to make our way to the old Noosa enduro trail off Louis Bazzo Drive and then back through the forest trails to the cars. Big hello to our new riders and welcome back to Lou and Di from their big biking adventure down south.
Apart from the heat the ride was great with us travelling through various types of bush and having to get over challenging terrain and large mud pits, which unfortunately, no one fell in this time.
Afterwards some of us met up at Cafe Doonan for coffee, cake and a chat.
Thanks for the ride everyone and I hope you all recovered OK.
Michael “Puddle water tastes bad” Johns
Club Secretary
Ride map and elevation
[caption id="attachment_6005" align="alignright" width="290"] Will the black trail stay as "Tazer" or will something better come along?[/caption] You know when you already know someone's name but when you meet them for the first time you think something like "They didn't seem like a Gary"? Well that's why we've waited a bit before putting the call out for suggestions. Hopefully you've now ridden the beginner's loop and the black trail and have learnt their quirks or their 'personality' and can confidently offer a suitable name. For example, would "Loop of Death" work OK? or is it more of a cheeky "Colin"? It's up to you. Post your suggestions on Facebook or email us at info@bushrangers.org by Sunday 31st. The names will be run by QPWS to check they align with their policies then we will put the shortlist to the vote next week! Details: There needs to be a name for the green level beginner's loop and the black flow trail There is another...
Planning these rides has become a lot easier as I’ve been updating OpenStreetMap for so long – the route for this ride was thrown together in around 15min although it helps to have knowledge of the area. This route took into account that Lake Macdonald was spilling and therefore the creeks were going to be up and there was a likelihood of a fair bit of water still sitting around. Turns out that there is no getting away from giant mud puddles sitting across the trails so there was a bit of awkward skirting around them much to Kathy’s and Marty’s demise.
This could be the mud puddle that poor Kathy lost her shoe
Good weather and what looked like a cruisy ride attracted 25 riders to the Cod Park meeting point and without much dilly-dallying we set off just past 7am towards the first mud puddle. We snaked through a bit of ‘Trail 4’ of the Noosa trail network towards Hamilton Rd which will take us onto an access road/mud pit and onto ‘Trail 7’. This route mostly follows the boundary access road of the Yurol State Forest before crossing over Yurol Forest Drive.
Someone made a good joke about how this is what happens when you are actually able to bunny hop a fat bike
Just before crossing Yurol Forest Drive there was a badly washed out culvert with half the road missing. Hopefully this will be fixed up someday soon as it’s been that way for quite a while now. Michael took the opportunity to stick his bike into it and take a picture.
On the Pomona side of the Yurol forest we continued along the access roads and took a small detour that loops back around towards the township – this section is pretty fun as it’s mainly downhill and the wide corners help you maintain speed.
Stopping over at Pomona for cake and coffee for around 45min we set off home back through the forest but this time taking a more direct path. I would normally keep going and cross over 6 mile creek but since the dam was over it would have been a swim. So we went to the end of Kennedys Rd and turn back down the road of giant mud puddles.
It wasn’t long before we were back at the cars and washing our bikes off at the canoe ramp. 30km with a stop over and while it was a bit hot everyone had a good ride.
Ben Johns
Club President
