More Mountain Biking Videos

Its a great chat with Gary about his origins in cycling, discovering off-road cycling and all the players in those heady early days. The interview goes on to talk about the 29er and the future of cycling in general; particularly as US roadways continue to become clogged with cars.

The interview makes for some good background listening and you can find it here on WJCU’s site

Mountain Biking is already an accepted use of National Parks within NSW, but only on Firetrails and access roads, while enjoying singletrack in the parks is currently illegal. Singletrack in NPWS parks still gets a work out though, with plenty of riders ignoring the sanction and delving onto these trails; often causing some bad blood with trail managers and other users.

As part of the proposal, NPWS has released a discussion paper around Mountain Biking which you can read here, and it’s perhaps surprisingly supportive of Mountain Biking, its benefits to health and wellbeing, its role in park usage and advantages for the sustainability of these reserves.

NPWS has also been running a number of consultation workshops to gauge feedback from Mountain Bikers and other park users on the subject. They are unfortunately all complete now except for the final in Port Macquarie (Tuesday 19 October 6-8pm, Port Macquarie Golf Club) but there is still plenty of opportunity to be involved on their site.

Simply go to https://mountainbiking.discussions.nsw.gov.au/ and read the summary on each part of the proposal before adding your thoughts about each section. It doesn’t take long and just requires a little thought on each matter and a constructive comment. Remember, this is massive that NPWS is even considering our opinions, so they are looking for quality feedback about how Mountain Bikers can be included and meshed with all other park uses… Old complaints about how we have possibly been ignored in the past or arguing with other comments is just going to be ignored and make us look a bit juvenile – NPWS is also unlikely to build a ski lift in the Lane Cove National Park either, but we can see about that for next time perhaps?!

Submissions close in a week (Monday 23rd of October 2010) so get in now and have your say before it’s too late – no letters to write, no ‘dear sirs’ or hard-core formatting required – simply read and comment, and remember that our strength is in our numbers, so just by commenting you are advancing the cause!

Firstly, the team has now signed on to ride Giant bikes this season with the team being kitted out on the manufacturer’s 2011 top-line race bikes and in particular, the sweet 2011 Anthem X0 carbon models for the rougher courses and enduros. Troy Glennan will be hitting the trails on the brand’s 29er models too.

Rockstar team manager Dwight Woodford said the move to Giant was an easy one because “they provide an excellent level of race support at events and are just so pro-active in the general race scene, both on and off road… Its made all the more easy when you are just dealing with such nice people!”

Perhaps bigger news is that the team has now signed Josh Carlson to the team to take care of duties both at home and overseas in the XC and Enduro formats. Josh comes to Rockstar from Giant’s own race team and was with Specialized just a few month’s beforehand. Carlson finished third in the 2010 National Championships and took out the Capital Punishment 50km race earlier this year.

“Josh brings a super-high level of enthusiasm to a team which already has a massive level of depth which is really exciting. His strength lies in XC which means we’ll also be able to really take Rockstar into those areas”

And the new additions of Carlson and Giant Bicycles is already paying dividends with the team finishing second overall in the 2010 Scott 24 last weekend and Carlson already proving his value by bringing in both the fastest day and night laps over some highly vaunted riders.

Douglas said of her win that she would consider retirement now with two Australian titles and a Worlds Championship, but that we should also ‘ask her again in a week’ and paid tribute to the other competitors in the women’s event, her husband and support Norm and her own solid preparation in taking the victory. She said that the last three hours were a mental battle to keep on the bike as “it was so brutal, my mind was saying you know you need to do it but I really don’t want to.”

He’s been long known now as ‘Mr Consistency’, but fellow Aussie Jason English seemed to surprise no-one but himself in taking his second consecutive World Solo Championship. English took the lead of the race on lap 6 after watching Canada’s Cory Wallace roar off into the distance initially. Wallace suffered 2 flats out on course though – one taking 8 minutes off his lap and the next taking twenty with both certainly putting a dent in his mental game. He crossed the line 45 minutes and 18 seconds after English and 2 minutes or so before Team Ay-Up’s Andy Fellows.

Of huge note is the effort of young Aussie Victorian Scott Chancellor out on track as he raced as to as high as 2nd place throughout the night and eventually finishing 4th after his 22 laps. He is certainly a huge contender for future world titles, really only just missing out on a podium this time.

And in the singlespeeds I have to ask again where Brett Bellchambers gets his strength from? Taking out the men’s Singlespeed World title and finishing 7th overall is a huge accomplishment. With the depth of talent at a race like this, it goes without saying that Bellchambers would be giving the rest of the world a huge shunt if the playing was (mind the pun) more evenly geared. Right behind Brett though was his ‘young Padawan’ Ed McDonald and experienced Southern Highlander Brendan Den.

The singlespeed row was one of the more relaxed places to be in the paddock with the crew from the Mal Adjusted Team (including Bellchambers, McDonald and Women’s singlespeed winner Bec Parkes’ support teams) donning beards, downing beers and generally keeping us all amused and awake throughout the night. Bec took to the final lap with a can of Coopers in her bottle cage to celebrate taking the Women’s Singlespeed title.

And so another World Championship comes to a close and the first outside of North America too as I wonder where they will be next year, will Jess Douglas retire (I doubt it’s possible she could) and will English make it 3 in a row?

24 Hours of Adrenalin - World Solo Championships

Great news! OzDirtCast will be covering the upcoming World 24 Hours of Adrenalin from Mt Stromlo, Canberra this October 9th and 10th.

We’ll be the official video-bloggers from the event and updating the world every hour or so with the latest from the race. The leaders, the challengers, the characters will all be available, for free, on our front page from just after race start October 9th!

Their will also be profiles on all the top riders so you can follow find out what these guys and girls are all about.

This being the first time the World 24 Hours of Adrenalin will be held outside of North America, it’s going to be a tight race with riders from around the coming to take on our Aussie champions.

All the action starts at approximately 12:30pm AEST (GMT+11) from Saturday October 9th until midday on the 10th.

The recent debut in Monterey following Sea Otter packed the 1000 seat cinema – read about it here

“Follow Me’ is out through Anthill Films in May (2010)

Just get you revved up for the impending full launch of OzDirtCast, we’ve got some awesome footage from last years’ Mountain Bike & Trials World Championship from Mt Stromlo, Canberra, Australia.

Some awesome action cut to some bad-ass French electropop called D.A.N.C.E. by Justice!!

Buy it here: http://itunes.apple.com/au/artist/justice/id145072812#

Family members are now on their way to South Africa following Williamson’s team-mate Shaun Lewis being unable to wake him Tuesday morning for the next leg of the gruelling Cape epic. Williamson (26) was taken to hospital, but was unable to be resuscitated despite the best efforts of doctors and was pronounced dead at 6:47am local time.

The cause of death has yet to be determined and James’ blog shows he was finding the race enjoyable despite the challenges he faced along with the other participants. It is yet to be decided whether a post-mortem to ascertain a cause of death will take place here or in South Africa.

James has been described as “an incredibly friendly guy and giving guy” by Enduro magazine’s publisher, Adam McLeod who also said that the tenacious champion’s death had “come as a devastating shock that would keenly be felt amongst fellow riders”

We agree.. James Williamson will be sadly missed as a competitor in the enduro scene, Mountain Bike journalist and leader in the cycling community. Our hearts go out to his family from all Australian Mountain Bikers along with our deepest condolences