18hrs of Melrose

The recent 3rd place getter of the Kona Dirty weekend and all round great guy Kevin Pullen confirms for the upcoming 18hrs of Melrose on June 3 and 4 2011. The Gauntlet has been thrown down who can challenge the man they call wind!

Easter Activity in Melrose

What an awesome Easter we had in Melrose, the weather was stunning and plenty of folk were out to cycle it up.

We started the precession on Saturday with a fantastic ride out at Bartagunyah taking

in the whisky trail and a little test of the new Super D beginning out there soon. On arrival back in Melrose my warm down consisted of turning the cycle rotisserie sheep on a spit for an hour! The spit was prototype 1, so we were able to detail a few changes in the minutiae so it will be mint when it is rolled out again sometime in the near future, but the lamb tasted wonderful at 9.30pm and was even better by 10.30.

Morning rides were super popular as were the family rides we hosted from the shop. Great people were out riding and camping with the romantic smell of camp fires all over town in the mornings and evenings.

Plenty of work was done too with some new lines plotted at Barts and plenty of old lines sprayed in so we will once again be able to find our way. There was even a little time to start shaping the chicane on blazing saddles!

Tony Boon Confirms for IMBA trail building weekend at Melrose

So just to confirm IMBA is running a free trail building weekend in Melrose this weekend April 30/ May 1. If you are interested please ring and confirm ASAP. 08 8666 2222.

Don't know who Tony Boone is? Here is a sample of his CV: -

In 25 years, Tony has lead teams of professional trail building companies, governmental agencies, and non-profit organizations in the planning, designing and building of over 800 kilometers of purpose-built trails for mountain bikers. These trails are valued in excess of $5,000,000 USD. He is known for creating sustainable, kinesthetically diverse trails that mountain bikers love to ride. He is highly skilled on the utilization and training of state-of-the-art trail technology like the SWECO and Sutter 450 and 480 Trail Dozers, miniature excavators, miniature loaders/dumpers, ATV rakes/harrows, hydraulic/gas powered drilling, and blasting.

Tony is extremely passionate and has been responsible for pioneering the evolution and perfecting the art of designing and building sustainable, machine-built, trails for mountain bikes, including: training eight IMBA/Subaru Trail Care Crews, inspiring IMBA Trail Solutions Program, and assisting with both IMBA books (Trail Solutions: IMBA’s Guide to Building Sweet Singletrack and Managing Mountain Bikes: IMBA’s Guide to Providing Great Riding).

Upcoming Events in Melrose

KEEP THESE DATES FREE!

Easter school holidays 15 April to 2 May

Easter Sunday 24^th April – Melrose Dirty T - Dirt time trials -> Race against the clock. For some fun and a little bit of competition meet at OTE at 9.30am ready to ride at 10am. $5 to cover insurance – this event is self catered so please bring your own supplies / sunscreen / water etc.

Shop rides - Please check with OTE to confirm if the 7am and 5pm rides are going out daily – otherwise meet at OTE for the 2pm Saturday ride with Rich and a quick 7am Sunday ride and a couple of family rides.

Saturday and Sunday 30th April – 1 May

2 days of IMBA trail building with Nick Bowman

There will be some in class theory then out onto the trails for practical trail building and maintenance on the local Melrose trails. Thank you to SFFTA for their continued support.

Saturday and Sunday 7^th– 8^th May

Fat Tyre Festival Leader training

Ian Fehler from Escape Goat tours will be coming up to Melrose to train our Fat Tyre Festival ride leaders. If you would like to be a volunteer ride leader this is your opportunity to ride the trails and understand the importance of leading a group ride. Start at 10am and go for a few hours, followed by an epic ride that you could potentially be leading for the festival! Otherwise ride the Melrose trails at your own leisure. Sunday will be a trail building day with Jake, so stick around for the whole weekend, enjoy a beer at the North Star and catch up with all the locals!

Sunday 8 - Tuesday 10 May

Outback Odyssey returns to Melrose

There is over 100 riders expected for this years OO and they will be descending on Melrose sometime on the 8 May. Monday 9 May is a lay day so there will be a few skills sessions and rides heading out during the day

Saturday 14- Sunday15 May

Inside Line DownHill Race

Inside Line Club return to Bartagunayh in what is becoming an annual pilgrimage for the gravity oriented folk. The trail is a fast off camber shoot from the top of Stegasaruas to below the woolshed. The atmosphere is usually pretty awesome, great for spectators and competitors alike

Sunday May 29th

SFRR and North Star pizza night

If you happen to be in Melrose on these dates call into North Star – we will be having a fundraiser pizza night where money raised goes into the Southern Flinders Rough Riders MB Club Trail Building Fund. See you there for the best pizzas in town!

Friday 3 June - Saturday 4 June

18 Hours of Melrose

The inaugural 18 hours of Melrose is bound to be a big old party not to be missed! With the traditional Over the Edge midnight start enabling a Saturday 6pm finish so we can celebrate the night away before heading home on Sunday or not! Maybe stay to ride and explore more areas of our beautiful region.

Friday 10 June - Monday 13 June

Melrose Fat Tyre Festival

Sublime 9 Fat Tyre Festival is here. Nine great years of celebrating mountain bike greatness. Coopers will be here this year helping us get the right spirit to the occasion. Join the famous Rat Patrol from the ACT with crazy bikes and even crazier antics. More skills sessions, mechanic sessions and of course great rides.

Volunteers required for “18 Hours of Melrose” – NEW EVENT

For all enquiries please contact kerri@otesports.com.au or call in!

Easter Rides

The Weather is looking great for Easter so lets look at some shop rides: -

Easter Friday- 7am shop ride

Saturday - 2pm Bartagunyah 3hr plus ride

Sunday - 7am shop ride

- 10am Dirty T, Dirt Time Trial run by Stu Clements - meet at the shop at 9.30

Monday - 7am Shop Ride

- 10am Family Ride

Tuesday - 7am Shop Ride

There is a possibility of some 5pm shop rides but check at the shop first.

All rides leave from the shop unless otherwise stated, if you are hiring a bike please let us know ahead of time so we can organise you early.

Dirty Weekend anyone!?

Heading off early tomorrow morning for what has become an annual pilgrimage for the Over the Edge crew and friends. This year we have signed up for the somewhat harder 24hr team of 4 category, however in previous years we have opted for the slightly more social 12hr cat, which is certainly more of a relaxing day out. Having done the Mont last week I have realised that a little bit of planning can go a long way, that's not to say I won't forget something!? All will be revealed in the next 48hrs.

Mean while back at the ranch, Melrose has got Rock the Mount on this weekend, with such luminaries as Leo Sayer (unsure of spelling) and Beccy Cole. This is traditionally a Country weekend but Leo is adding his own touch of flare. Pity the 2 events clashed on the same weekend.

Easter is just around the corner and we will be hosting a few rides and also a Dirty Time Trail...give us a call for more details.

Happy Trails

Return from the Mont 24

This is an impressive event! Well run with many runs on the board, where the organisers clearly try to keep it fun and light. Unfortunately after 18hrs of dry weather the heavens opened at 6am the following morning and only the hardy continued on...I was not amongst them! As we continued to slip down the placings it became obvious we could not maintain the early pace with only 3 riders. So after my 2 slow laps at 3am we tried to sleep with the thought of maybe a final few laps in the morning before heading home, but as I mentioned the rain put paid to that. The car was packed and on the road in short time, Manly Beach was calling. It was hard to believe that by 2pm we we're sipping on lattes and thrashing around in the surf in a balmy 29 degrees before the cool change caught up with us later in the evening.

Some stats: 2800 riders or 600 teams turned up to have a go at the

18km East Kowen Forest

This was my first 24, having taken only the 12hrtrail that took a bit of a hiding. Roughly 600 riders circulated at any one time. I would say that 80-90% was single track which was pretty amazing.

It was a warm dusty start with the typical Le Mans carnage...actually it is an exciting way to start and the carnage is limited. Day receded into night and it stayed relatively warm....and dusty which made for interesting riding as the light reflected off the dust.

soft option in the past, which is really like a good long ride. A 24 requires a lot more planning. I wanna say if you were younger you might find it easier but a 24 hour involves a lot of mental as well as physical. To keep getting out on the track hour after hour, rider after rider, aching, tiring, withering.... not to be under estimated.

Having said all this, it was fun, with an amazing atmosphere. There were tents and caravans for as far as the eye could see, good food and a good line up of interesting product on display. It is a pretty cool thing to be surrounded by so many like minded people that share the same passion, all leaving it out on the track but always maintaining such a happy and positive outlook. Makes you proud to be a mountain biker.

Mont 24

Well it has been a very last minute decision to head to the Mont 24 hour this weekend in Canberra. But here I am in Sydney having flown over from Adelaide today and we will set off for Canberra early tomorrow morning for what will hopefully be a funny weekend.

Squirt has sponsored this event from South Africa and so it was very late notice that I got to then put a team together. We managed 4 which over night became 3.

Hey we're all pretty amped and I am about to head to bed after some long travel hours so I can hopefully turn out some hot laps tomorrow???...will keep you posted over the weekend.

TOUR DE FLINDERS - Pt Augusta – Arkaroola, April 18-24 2011

CYCLISTS SAY: “LEAVE URANIUM IN THE GROUND AND RIDE FOR RENEWABLES”

“Tour de Flinders – Ride for Renewables”, is a 380km tour by bicycle of the Flinders Rangers in Northern South Australia.

On Monday morning 18th April, approximately 15 cyclists will set out on the journey from Gladstone Square, Port Augusta.

Hitting the road by day and camping at night, the riders will take six days to cycle through Adnyamathanha country, along bitumen and dirt roads which take in iconic Flinders Ranges sites, to finally arrive at the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary on Sat 23rd April.

The tour is in opposition to uranium mining, and aims to raise awareness of the detrimental health, environmental and cultural impacts of uranium mining that go hand in hand with nuclear power.

This ride for renewables and ambitious display of ‘pedal power’ hopes to bring alternate energy sources to the fore and into the public eye.

“Safe renewable technologies need to be publicly supported as opposed to high risk nuclear industry which I can't imagine anyone wanting in their back yard, especially in light of what has been happening in Japan recently.” says tour co-coordinator David 'Wave' Beach.

Wave also said, “Travelling by bicycle is a conscious effort to do what we feel to be a practical demonstration of the need to move towards renewable means of energy consumption.”

A report released last year by the Melbourne based organisation Beyond Zero Emissions details how Australia can transition to 100% renewable stationery energy over the next 10 years, and cites Port Augusta as a focal point for these technologies.

The impending climate crisis requires us to urgently phase out coal as an energy source, but nuclear power is not the solution. Nuclear power is economically unviable, emissions intensive and unsafe, as demonstrated by the recent tragedies in Japan.

Arkaroola was chosen as the destination for the ride as a license has recently been re-issued for uranium exploration.

Riley Ashton, co-coordinator says, “We ride in solidarity with the Adnyamathanha people and all indigenous communities whose concerns and cultural identities are marginalised by mining giants across the world.”

The riders will be accompanied by support vehicles as a safety precaution and to make the ride accessible to riders of all capabilities, and they will also meet some of the Adnyamathanha elders at Nepabunna, an aboriginal community close to Arkaroola, and along the journey.

Please join us for a community morning tea at 10.30am on Monday 18^th April at Gladstone Square where there will be public speakers and information available.

Come along to show your support for the cyclists, share some stories, join us for a bit of a ride through town, or even all the way to Quorn for the first stage – or more!

For media inquiries and interviews please contact

David 'Wave' Beach: 0403 758 433 / wavedb@aussiemail.com.au

Real Estate for sale in Melrose - Tree Changers!

Here's an opportunity for any keen mountain bikers. The local IGA /Roadhouse/petrol station / General Store is for sale now. This business is live in and has huge potential to develop into a boutique super market in the vein of something you'd find in country Dalesford Vic or the Barossa Valley...?

http://www.realestateview.com.au/Real-Estate/24-stuart-street-melrose/Property-Details-buy-commercial-1268801_S.html

Bluey Blundstones is also for sale. This is a Bed and Breakfast and a cafe. It is a refurbished blacksmiths shop and has huge character. The potential to turn this into a day spa and develop the cafe is huge or what about antique furniture sales too....? Both good business's with the figures to match

http://www.rs.realcommercial.com.au/business-sale/3074775

There I have done my Real Estate bit, feel free to call me and discuss for a very frank discussion on what i think of these business's and the future of Melrose.

Are you living or just existing?

Wow what a great weekend the weather was perfect, the riding was memorable and the people were great.

On Saturday I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity to do a 120km road ride from Melrose to Quorn, down the Pichi Richi Pass and back over the historic Spear Creek Rd (Paris Roubaix) before venturing into Horrocks Pass bruised, broken and my mind wondering from exhaustion; eventually I was picked up by my ride returning from Port Augusta as I grappled with the ascent to the top of the Pass. It was memorable for so man

y reasons, the tail wind for 60km to Quorn, the sun bursting through the clouds of the morning, the exhilarating descent of Pichi Richi Pass, the steam train at the level crossing in the pass, the torturous ride across Spear Creek Rd where I could examine the convict cobblestone construction minutely at the snails pace I was forced to take. But all the while I was thinking "this is living, how lucky am I!" The obligatory coffee was consumed and the ride story was embellished on arrival back into Melrose.

Sunday arrived with a completely different story, The Adelaide Sevens Rugby tournament. Being a Kiwi I am by and large a tragic rugby lover and this was the first opportunity I have had in a long time to enjoy live rugby and I wasn't going to miss a minute of it. Leaving Melrose at 5am after the clocks were turned back I arrived in Gawler to a very quiet house, breakfast was soon fried and consumed, the train was caught and suddenly there we were at the beautiful Adelaide Oval surely one of the nicest grounds in the World.

7s is action packed from woe to go so there was never a dull moment right up until the final whistle, when New Zealand won its first Adelaide title. Now this is living, naturally we finished the day with a curry.

When you've pushed the limit and you're on the edge, you see the world in all it's beauty, are you living or just existing?