The MTB Thread
What’s to lose? I’ve had an average bikes for years ie $1500 new Merida and Giant and always good for a ride around the shell grit trails on the Bellarine and a surf check. The missus the same. I’ll open myself up to ridicule but prior to that had a $400 Huffy from Kmart did the the job, admiddedly wasn’t crashing berms jumps etc. Rode that Merida to work 200 days a year as well.Plenty of onshore days when it’s a great option to get out and about. Seems to be quite a few options about second hand as I’m observing a massive trend toward electric assistance with some of the older crew and the other recreational riders. And good on them for continuing to get out and about. Truthfully like surf craft as you evolve so will your machine. Happy Trails…
fellow MTBr's how has the last couple of months treated your pieces of dirt? Have had the majority of recent races (MTB rogaine) cancelled due to track degradation. currently in SE QLD Kooralbyn, Mt Joyce, Goolman, hiddenvale all closed and needing a fair bit of repair.. local trails Nerang and Border trails bared up reasonablly well.
Too many dry spells in the wet season up here for good digging conditions, but may has been good.
sweet. where are you again Mitchvg? - alot of our trails are still drying out..
When I lived on the east coast i hated mountains when walking to the bus stop or train station but loved all the tracks for mtb's..i lived in a very hilly area without much traffic so could skate and bomb steep long hills at night coming home from work, straight through round a bouts without traffic coming. But moving here everything's flat pretty much...no such thing as mountain bike tracks in much of coastal WA. Maybe there is in the hilly areas inland but nothing near the coast.
Anyway its something i miss now.
WA has good weather for mountain biking, its sunny ninety percent of the time.
Mitchvg, looks like Smithfield. Rainforest and red dirt?
Spicy run out after the drop, hey Mitch?
Dirt looks good, like a clay tennis court. Way different to what we get here.
I've been building an uptrack when the surf is flat on weekends. Not much excitement or allure in building up tracks but it's gotta be done as the current ones are old downhill tracks and are straight lines and rutted out, crying out for rehab. So I've been benching and back filling the climbs, building switchbacks, and linking nice parts of bushland, a cabbage palm here, a large moss-covered rock there.
Drove past these the other day and pulled over to grab them. Not sure what I can use them on but it's good to have a stockpile. Fully treated, 100mm dia, three or so metres long. Ended up with three car loads.
Pretty sure those posts are over $20 each at Bunnings.
Nice score.
Reminds me of Rodney Rude describing his love of doing stock take at his work. He used to take a fuck of a load of stock!
Uphill track rehab= only for the true believers. How long before a track or section of is named after you?
What would be your preferred name for the track?
Nettle’s descent?
Stuart’s shoot?
Fuck…just realised that I’m talking about MTB like my non surfer friends talk about surfing ie want to be interested in my passion but no real understanding.
“Did you have a nice swim today ?” It’s not swimming mate, it’s surfing.
Anyway….Fo you MTB riders have “handles” like the pilots at Top Gun?
Do you become a bunch of Mavericks and Icemen when you hit the mountain?
Do crew get unknowingly gifted nicknames like in surfing where crew don’t realise that they’re known amongst others in the lineup by names such as Punching Bag, Sea Hag and Criminal?
Do you critique each other’s styles and courage?
Not really. But then most of the guys I ride with are, like me, of limited ability.
Spose it's like the playground, you find the kids of equal social standing and hang with them.
No nicknames either, though our group does have an informal nickname that relates more to drinking than riding. There's another crew around here, a bit older, some gun riders too, and they also have an informal nickname that relates to their crotchety and curmugeonly countenance.
Haha yeah there's more group nicknames than anything. But yeah those posts might be good water bars for the DH tracks. Cut some grooves in for traction. Water is the biggest problem up here, not Smithfield but not far from there. I've given up on proper drainage right now. I'm just gonna let the river (water rut) flow and make sure it ends up in the creek at the bottom, not on the road. But yeah I try and build a few crucial features like catch berms and water diversions, then leave the rest pretty raw. Even though we have amazing soil and annual rainfall, it's hard to rely just on the rain to make proper dirt jumps and high walled berms, etc. Fine drizzle has a very fine line between being not enough to soak freshly dug up dirt, to quickly oversaturating the mud and not having it stick or pack.
The awesome thing about sand tracks though Stu is they get better in the wet! I'd be careful of building a climb across/ up a descent. It only takes a few riders to ride the decent again and rip a big line down your benches.
Oh and GS. WA is going nuts with good, new MTB parks
Deck pulled off an Austinmer reno and straight into a new wall ride. Not my work, and I haven't ridden it yet either, though it looks very inviting. It's on a brand new, almost-finished trail, that's fast and tight and black all the way - doesn't even have B lines built into it.
that looks epic. Wall rides are kinda all or nothing.. need speed..
I attempted the newish - downhill line at Nerang - Taipan, and tried to pull up on one of the drops to berm, but couldn't in time and slowly, went over the bars, and crashed into the berm then slid down all the way to the bottom. to the joy of two 15 groms watching.. Stoked. at least it was muddy... ...
I've been meaning to start a mountain biking thread for a while and now is as good a time as any.