Australia’s Premier Mountain Bike Club.

Sunday was the first winter series race for the Fat Tyre Flyers. It was run at Chum Creek which is about 55minutes from Melbourne.
The club has decided to run with a new format of A, B, C, D classes for the winter series. This new format turned out to be a great change that suited everyone. Over the past few years this course has acquired a reputation to be one tough XC race, which to my understanding should be the foundation for all mountain biking racers. After all we are (mountain bike riders).

The winter’s series races have always had a laid-back atmosphere, *not for some*. Joel Read letting Steve know what is in store for him after the gun goes off…

True to all good events they had the coffee van awaiting your arrival allowing everyone to get their fix before heading out into the scrub and getting dirty.

Joel and Rohin practicing their podium results for the day.

Special thanks would have to go to Croydon Cycling Shop. Not only do they support the club with fantastic prizes, they lent a set of knicks to one rider who left his in the wash after a Wednesday night Yarra trails loop. He did offer to purchase them only to be told, “That is not necessary”.
The next gesture was lending out a $$$ bike to a rider who had the misfortune of a few broken spokes on his practise lap. Only to later confess that the true cause of his mechanical was that he had been feeding out the good paddock of late!!

This photo summarises the atmosphere for the day.

Ben Randal climbing hard to catch Scott Liston.

Rohin getting ready to take on the world.

At the end of the day it was sweaty smiles all round. The FTF definitely know how to put on a great day to cater for all levels of fitness. Check here for the next for the details of the next race, HMMMMM more sweat single track!!!!!!!!!

I didn't want to add this photo, but what the hell.

See you all at the next round.

Ciao

Garmin to head Tour team

To paraphrase:

The team thats going to be riding felt bikes at the tour, has locked in Garmin computers as its title sponsor....!

For the actual story, velosnooze has the good oil...

But its more just an excuse to post a picture of something I may have alluded to a few months back...


Felt's new AR-1

There is articles on it all over the interweb, go forth and seek!

News coming to hand...

After promises of some notable articles have fallen by the wayside, we apologies for the lack of content over the last week. Happily I can report that there is still plenty going on even as we head into winter.

Whilst I was on holiday last week, I got a call from someone in the bike industry, and now can confirm that we are in the final stages of discussions to add another name to our supporting companies over there on the right. We have even been offered the opportunity to become part of the design team for their products, so look out for whatever we may come up with! The company itself is in the final stages of getting a totally new product into the market place as well, so hopefully you may see it here first!

Our contact at Night lightning has also been busy! As well as organizing some great deals for riders, he himself has been out on his bike at the races, proving that the best companies are the ones that get out there on the ground with their customers! Racing around on nothing less than a Felt Virtue, he had a great time out there. Amusingly, he took his brand spanking Virtue out to the race, with his old bike as a spare in case he 'didn't like it' - needless to say, the old bike didn't get a run. Converted, you could say, and another happy customer!

And with some new stickers adorning our vehicles, a new camper trailer on the books, another great Epix in the making, and plenty to read about on the 24Solo riders heading for the worlds, things are alive and well!!

I'll get some pic's of our stickers this week for you!

Nightlightning sale.

Nightlightning have 2 of the current iBlaast lights in stock that they have discounted by $50.

Complete set including 720lm iBlaast 2.2ah (3hr) battery, smart charger, helmet mount and carry case. $500 delivered.

If you are looking at spending your hard earned cash on a new light look no further! This is product that has been tested by us and the Felt Enduro Team for three years.

We have no doubts you too will love riding with them.

If you wish to purchase a set or have any questions please email them to nightlighting at this address.

From Croydon we chose to ascend the mountain via Montrose, and up past the dam, and climbed our way up into the RJ Hamer Aboreum (sp?). There are some nasty long pinches up there, and climbing was the news of the hour. I'm ever afraid to mention the granny ring, and it got a fair workout on those climbs...!!



Bellie was even enthused enough to come down and do it again (or maybe we weren't fast enough) yet we all made it to the top together as is the 'rule' with any Epix. We don't attempt to be the quickest, but I hope we have a heap of fun together out there!

From Olinda, Matt made the hard call to pull the rip cord and make for home. After 6 or 7 hours, the lights had pretty well gone out, and he made the horrible decision to head for home before he headed away from home once again. With our constant ribbing about catching the train home, he manned up and with a mouthful of food, hit the highway to make his way home. I think with some careful planning he actually avoided all the uphills on the way home, yet still had a monster day!!

Grover, Bellie and myself continued on, and took some sneaky little trail for the next little while... We'll leave the discussion about that little section, but it was a great trail.


Plenty of features, both man made and otherwise.


Yep, still looks like an Epix. Authentic I like to call it. Gee, that looks like it 'stings' (hint hint...)



Grover battling the blackberries and 'wait-a-while' plants. No leeches though which was nice!

Regardless, we popped out at Emerald and after coming to the realization that we were going through Emerald (!!... thats a long way from home...!) on mountain bikes, we headed down Wellington Road to Lysterfield.

Rolling turns to hold Bellies wheel, the lights slowly started to shine on my dash as well, and it was a slow old ride for me once we made the Lysterfield Track. Pushing and pushing to make it before the end of the race, I was cooked and groveled all the way there.. The boys practically skull dragged me there, and when Rob offered me a can of coke, I was a new man. 3.5litres of water down, Jack gave me a refill (thanks pal!) and with a handful of gummybears, it was 10/10ths into the evening to make it home for a dinner date.


What we now can call 'chase the sun', as the event by the same name has changed.



Bellie givn'er


Twilight after a long day, the caffiene and the sugar starting to make itself known to me - thankfully!!


And here is Bellie softening the blow to the family that he may just be a little while longer before he gets home....!

And so with that, I can declare that the latest Epix in Melbourne has been surmised. 11.5 hours door to door, over 160km on the mountain bike, nearly 3000m vertical, and at least one very tired fellah...! I hope it entertained you for a spell, now perhaps you need to get back to work??

On a footnote, whilst these adventures do cost us money, they would not be possible at all without the continuing and valued support of Felt Bicycles, Ascend Sport nutritional products, Nightlightning lights, and GVRaceTech. Please consider the products that each of these companies offer when making decisions about your next purchases.

Thank you for reading, and we hope to have you back again soon.

Onto the second installment, we find that we are following the Mullum Mullum Creek. The fog was still making itself known, the temperatures were bloody cold, and we were having a great time!!

Bellie really finds....


..... that the secret to success....


... is repetition!!



We had all the trappings of a gen-u-ine Epix, complete with river crossings!


Heading towards the Eastlink Tunnel, we rode a bit of construction zone singletrack. It seems that they've let it fall into a bit of disrepair, but we gave it a good run through, offered some suggestions and improvments to the rent-a-cops and headed on our way.



Below was the entry to the new tunnel, and every man and his dog was trying to sneakily get past the blokes in the jackets.. I think they had seen just about all the tricks in the books, and there was one at every entrance that we tried to get into... Dammit! :)


In the very next photo, Grover managed to sink it to the second knuckle - impressive!!



Hey thats me! Lucky socks there! Niiice.... Never let me down, those bad boys!


And so after leaving the beloved Eastlink and its constructive mass, we headed via bitumen to Croydon, and the bakery for some well earned warm food. Grover was pretty happy to buy a bakery with sauce...


And we now know what fuels Bellie...


But I have to leave you today with a photo of Matt, whilst its out of sequence, this is the sight of a man looking up the next hill knowing that the dash is showing a full board of red lights and its all going to get pretty brutal from here....!



I thought I'd swipe Grovers GPS plot of the ride, as mine had a little knap for a while, making his more complete. For all the details including the map, the distance and the elevations - Click here

Till the next post and a whole lot more photos...! Enjoy the still winter days, and I know my Nightlightnings just keep keeping on, making me a happy little camper (with bloody cold toes!)

And for the record, its tuesday night and I'm still smashed....

Melbourne Epix

As many people who live in Melbourne would well know, there is a multitude of trails on offer in the east of Melbourne. Sometimes we'd do a big ride and really cover an area well, or perhaps join an area or two together. Jason and I decided on a whim that we should try and connect pretty much everything we knew together, and some that we didn't, and have a crack at doing in a day!

As we pieced together the ride, each time we would add a bit more, I become more and more amused at the meal we were carving off for ourselves, and people that I spoke to simply laughed and as usual, said we were mad. Happily enough, that sounded like the best reason to give it a crack. The ride we planned took in the best singletrack we knew in our town, it was a serious stretch to fit it all in, and it snugly wore the hat titled 'mental'.

All reasons enough to drag ones self from a very warm bed at 5.45am and into the fog.


Belting out Warrigal road in the fog and darkness with Matt Hoffmann was always dicey, but the streetlights climbing the hills looked like a chairlift heading into the fog. It was almost creepy. About halfway to the meeting point in Box Hill, and Jason called. After an emergency tooth extraction (he told the dentist 'use your pliers, or mine, but either way its coming out!!) on friday and a recovery from some long weeks and sickness all stacking up, he elected to sit this one out at the last moment, much to his chagrin.





Whilst it took less time than expected to get there (and we stood freezing for 25 minutes) Mr Bell elected to roll over and grab a few more... So whilst we waited for him to get himself organised, Grover rolled up. That would complete the 4, as many other riders were otherwise obligated to be racing at the Full Gas Enduro round at Lysterfield.






It didn't take long for the food to start, thankfully! The fog was determined to stick around and whilst it wasn't cold when riding, it was damn wet! Coming along the Eastern Freeway, we hit up all the trails we could find/knew on the way to Westerfolds Park.



The Virtue was killing it all day today. I've honestly never ridden a bike that was so capable of doing everything that we did. Most people may be able to say that for their 'current' bike, yet I can honestly say I've never ridden a bike that did everything so well. Whilst its not a 8" DH bike or a 19lbs hartail hillclimb weapon, it gets the job done efficiently with everything we threw at it! No complaints even with my fussy nature, it was just the legs that started to get a bit wafty later on...!



Heading towards the Mullum Creek, we happened across this little piece of history! Why don't we have this sort of stuff today? Read the little article on the link for more about this historical marvel, but its not far from the steepest bit of bitumen getting around!


The top of steep pinch!


Heading further outwards, we hit the Mullum in anger and found some great little pockets of singletrack. There is some great trails out that way, you just need to get over a few small obstacles along the way.




It wouldn't be an epix if there wasn't stairs/shouldered bike moments! Moments after this was taken, Matt was heard to thank his tour guide, calling him Ivan Milat. I think that he may have been getting a bit tired and emotional, but after 5 hours, weren't we all?!


There a dollar over there....


Trail connections, possibly out of sequence... Sorry :)


Rivers of singletrack unfolding out in them thar hills!


No learners.... Gold!
For a giggle, check out Grover's face :)


On the back of the 12 hour, with a limited amount of training, Bellie smashed it all day like it was a cake walk. Grover and I were actually rolling turns just to hold his wheel on some of the road sections!! Animal!


And with that, I must leave this post there, and you'll need to check back throughout the week for more...!!

Thanks.

Knackered...

"Knackered" meaning tired, exhausted, or broken in British and Irish slang is still commonly used in the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.

Thats me...

The photos will be uploaded tonight and the story will follow. But for now, some rest...

Bellie and Grover have both been gracious enough to hold off on the details, so I shall fill them in for you a little later on.