The beautiful venue known as the Vandeleur residence is a secret place nestled among the foothills of the Blackall Range. It is upon this lush canvas that Paul is painting his MTB masterpiece with trails such as Trump Hill (make climbing great again), Short White Cloud, and Instant Karma. It is upon these trails that the club restarted its racing pedigree.
Hello everyone, I don't know about you but I could barely sleep last Friday night because I knew that when I woke up it would be the most wonderful-est day of the year. GLOBAL FAT BIKE DAY!!!! #GFBD2016 #fatbikelove #chunky&spunky #phatfat #ihatehashtags [caption id="attachment_2083" align="alignright" width="300"] More girth, more mirth![/caption] "What exactly is a fatbike?" I hear you ask. Good question! In my eyes a fatbike is a bike with tyres over 3.5" wide. Now I know there are these new "plus" bikes out there with 3" tyres but it's just not the same so maybe one day they'll have a "Global Half-Assed Fat Bike Day" and they can ride around and be shunned from both sides. Here is an interesting chart which visibly shows the results of a "lengthy" and "unbiased" study into the correlation of tyre width and LOA (Level of Awesome). Note the strange drop around the 3" mark. In our club we have a few folks who have seen the light and gotten...
While we prefer to avoid the pavement unless the weather is bad there is something relaxing about cruising along a pathway by the beach. So we like to draw your attention to the Sunshine Coast Council's Draft Coastal Pathway Master Plan and ask if you could take time to provide your feedback. Summary of the plan is as follows: The council aims to provide a continuous shared pathway spanning 73 km of our coastline. There are many pathways already in place and this master plan will help guide the route and fill in the gaps, where pathways need to be upgraded or constructed. The Coastal Pathway makes it easier and safer for our community to enjoy an active lifestyle, experience iconic views, beaches and parks, and connect to local destinations, services and businesses. Visit our website to view the master plan and complete an online survey. You can also view the plan at your local library. Oh there's also a chance you could win a voucher or two....
Ben, our Bushranger’s president and I were invited to come and try the “Groover Method” on Friday afternoon to see if it might be something useful for the GoGIRLs (Get Into Riding Ladies MTB riding group). I was happy to attend as I am always looking for tips to improve my riding and then pass these on. Chris began with a backstory on how he came to develop the concept and already I could relate as I personally knew many riders who had injured themselves quite badly and have had to have considerable time off their bikes. No-one likes that! He began by explaining the Core Rules. What Chris was saying all make sense. I had some light bulb moments. You know it when you get it just right, you flow from left to right and you get in the groove! Ha ha! But when you don’t it can be disastrous! I think I have a permanent scar on my left shoulder from when trees...
For the next two weeks MTBA members receive 25% discount when they purchase The Groover Method Online MTB Skills Course presented by fellow Bushie, Chris Carter. Chris kindly provided a personal introduction to the course to Susie, Paul and myself on Friday. I found it has the potential to deliver excellent results and the considerable amount of time Chris has invested into the course is certainly evident. The methodology helps you maintain focus on the things that matter by removing the needless thoughts and effort that sap your strength and concentration. They also help you be a safer rider if you're not interested in the performance benefits. Check out MTBTIPS.com and enter GROOVER25 and your MTBA Member number* in the payment section to get instant access. Interested but not an MTBA member yet? Check out our Join-Us page for the details on how to sign up before you purchase The Groover Method. *Discount available to financial MTBA members only. ...
Updates have been a bit slow as we're beavering in the background committing grant funds and organising the end of year event so I thought I'd fill the gap with a boring IT update (shoosh Michael). Recently Microsoft offered to give us an annual credit to use with their Azure Cloud Service. Since December 2015 we have been hosting our website on Google Compute Engine and while I really like the way they do things it does come at a cost. So earlier this week I set up Microsoft Azure Sponsorship subscription and proceeded to run my usual suite of tests to flesh out the new environment and to ensure all the bells and whistles worked. Having used Azure for work made things easier but different subscriptions can mean different features. Once happy that the new digs were behaving predictably I spun up a fresh virtual machine that is 10 times the size/power of the old one in the South East Australia datacentre that was opened at this time in...
Stop holding your breath folks, it's that time again - Global Fat Bike Day 2016! #GFBD2016 The day where 0.0001% of riders who actually own fatbikes can stand up and shout about easily riding through sand (or that rare Queensland snow), brag about climbing loose rocky slopes with the unlimited traction and conveniently forgetting to mention things like rotational mass, chain rub, self-steer, expensive tyres, and weird-ass off-set spoke patterns. OK FINE!! Fatbikers do that every day but this is still our day so tough luck! So this year's ride will be over at Bribie Island. We start at the surf club and ride along the beach while the tide lets us then its BBQ and beers and a lovely ride back under the moonlight. Romantic eh? So if you got a fatbike or are fatbike curious (it's OK we don't spank our initiates) jump onto the Facebook page and have a look - https://www.facebook.com/events/161231834288047/ Michael "Is this sand we are riding on?" Johns Club Secretary...
Hello everyone, It's not a big change but we've added the ability to be a 'club only' member to anyone who doesn't want to pay the insurance component that is charged when you apply through MTBA. So if you're a member of another association like Cycling Australia or another MTBA club and already have mountain biking insurance then you can just pay the membership fee of $30/yr direct to us and be a member of the Bushrangers. This also applies if you have your own insurance or simply don't believe in it. You will need to sign a waiver saying you understand mountain biking has the potential to harm you and you don't want the insurance. But mountain biking can involve bad things like bouncing down gorges on your face so the MTBA insurance is good to have and it is required for a lot of races. For new riders MTBA offer the 8-weeks free membership so if you want the security of having insurance while you give mountain biking...
[caption id="attachment_1798" align="alignright" width="300"] No! They are not my fatbike tyres[/caption] The Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, HQ Plantations and the Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast Councils have gotten together to help stop littering and illegal dumping. We've all ridden our favorite trails but then had the ride tainted by coming across a load of junk some idiot has just dumped on the trail. Probably because they were too cheap or lazy to take it to the dump/recycling centre. Also don't think that a load of green waste is OK because that's how plant's escape from people's gardens and become evasive weeds in our native forests. So if you see a pile of rubbish (or actually see the idiot dumping it) you can now use your phone to report it. It can then be moved and give the authorities the information they need to prosecute or work out the best places to set up cameras. Save the following link into your phone and...
[caption id="attachment_1677" align="alignright" width="236"] Download the PDF[/caption] Bushrangers were asked to give another article to the latest edition of the Sunshine Coast Daily's Multisport Mecca magazine. We thought an article helping people getting into mountain biking would be a good choice this time. Stay tuned for the next article, it's all about the GoGIRLs Check it out at http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/download-september-21-sunshine-coast-multisport-me/3091897/...
