SS5 & SS6 Event Wrapup
Monday, 26 September 2011
The Mountain Devils MTBO club
travelled off down the NSW South Coast for races 5 & 6 of this year’s
Cranks Bike Super Series. The Glengarry Campus of The Scots College was the
Saturday destination, a new race location for the club.
After a week of hot, dry and
sunny weather, Kangaroo Valley seemed more like Scotland as participants wound
their way down through the ‘atmospheric’ mist and drizzle to the race
registration. Club Secretary, David West must have been quite pleased that his
much loved kilt could be worn again, looking quite appropriate in the
conditions!
Kangaroo Valley local, Jim
Anderson designed three challenging courses that made good use of the
relatively small area, requiring accurate map reading as well technical riding
skills. Despite some of the area’s
awesome scenery not being visible, the myriad of excellent single track gave
riders plenty to focus upon. Though billed as sprint courses, the varied terrain
ensured that all riders managed a good work out of mind and body!
Feedback on the venue was very
positive from all the riders I talked to, who appreciated the opportunity to
ride in an area that would not usually be accessible to them. The Mountain
Devils Club would particularly like to thank senior teacher at the School, Ian
Boyle for his efforts in allowing this to happen. Ian also joined in for a ride
and put his his ‘local knowledge’ from building many of the tracks to good use,
blitzing the long courses in 39 minutes!
The plan for Sunday was to move
onto Currambene Forest with contrasting longer and flatter courses. Putting the
markers out on Saturday night all looked good with trails and tracks in
pristine condition for some fast and free flowing riding! Unfortunately, 6am Sunday morning things
started to look very different with many of the Forest Trails resembling
streams as the rain lashed down.
Regrettably the decision had to
be made to cancel the event due to the concerns about safety, land management
and participant enjoyment. A decision that was not taken lightly given the time
and effort many of the entrants would have invested into travel for the weekend,
but in hindsight this was the right call.
My thanks to all who assisted Jim
and I with running these events, particularly Dave West, Nick Dellagiacoma and Michael
Roylance. Also a note of appreciation to Buzz and Anne Powell, who having spend
half of Saturday night putting out course markers then volunteered (?) to spend
a wet Sunday morning, walking around
again to collect them! Andy Halliday
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