Archive for July, 2010
31 July, 2010 @ 7:48 am | Comments (0)
On one of those rare sunny Sundays in June Grant Byrne & I headed out with the plan of filming Camden South, AKA The Kessel Run. This has to be the narrowest strip of bush – ever - to support an MTB track. 5-to-15 metre wide vacant bushland between the Nepean River and some farm acreage, heading from Camden South towards the South Western Freeway.
That such a tiny parcel of real estate can support a fast flowing bike track, speaks volumes about the smart design of the trail builders, whoever they were. What surprises me is that someone found it (to reach the area you have to cross a narrow creek) and then went and hacked a rideable trail… a determined bunch. Primarily though the actuality of the track on this land speaks to the appalling lack of council-provided areas to ride, which means people have been forced to get creative. Luckily we’ve gotten the benefit in this case. I’m pleased to say that this lack should be addressed somewhat when the first of the Mt Annan Botanical Gardens XC tracks open up in August.
Anyway, Grant & I arrived at Elizabeth Reserve about 9:30 am and rode up the Nepean Cycleway so I could get some photos for the website and test out the video camera rig.
I usually set the video camera up on a Gorillapod (http://joby.com) atop the helmet – acting as an effective - if fairly weighty – HD helmet cam (after an hour I’m hanging out for a neck brace). The Gorillapod has a standard camera mount so the camera can be turned easily to face forward or back but sometimes it seems a little high to get the best shots, so if the track is not too rough I’ll often carry the camera in one hand using the other to steer, while I film from the side or the back or, twisting the arm to face the rear, film the front. Precarious but effective. Doesn’t work on steep inclines or downhills where you need the strength and stability of both arms just to keep you upright.
For this shoot I decided to try something different.
First I set up the recently purchased pocket video (Creative Vado HD) on the seat bag in an old iPod case. I clipped this to the rear belt-loop normally used for rear lights. This would allow me to film Grant as I rode in front. Seemed safe enough.
Then I mounted a Gorillapod on my handlebars with a roll of duct tape to secure it. I’d capture Grant riding the trail ahead.
We started off and it was just so easy: For the first time, I could see the viewfinder mounted in front and angle the camera up & down & side-to-side and it only took a bit of adjustment to get both cams lined up. I reviewed a bit of the rear facing Vado and it seemed OK too… Things were going so well I held the SLR still camera in one hand and shot stills from that: 3 cams going at once – a directors dream. With two viewfinders I was a bit distracted though and nearly collected a couple of mid-morning walkers. It wasn’t the last time that day I would put life and limb in danger.
But all that was on level concrete. Things would change when I left the relative ease of a flat, even cycleway.
After a bit of back slapping – weren’t we doing well, we’d discovered this great filming method! - we headed across the park to the bridge onto the dirt trail.
Reality bites. As soon as we crossed the creek, the reasons why cameras are rarely mounted on handlebars became apparent. Despite good forks and in-camera stabilization, just the bumps of the initial dirt trail – even before the rocks started - overwhelmed the image and it looked like I was like filming from the top of a jackhammer. Similar results from the seatbag cam.
Interesting output but barely usable, I thought as I reviewed the initial shots. My earlier self-congratulations melted away like a blown tyre and I appreciated again the invention of Hollywood’s exceptional Steadicam technology.
We did stop for some pans and ride-by-shootings and other insert stuff, but I was not really confident of being able to put anything together. Along the way we chatted to a couple or regulars whom we showed Grants handiwork –up a couple of sawn logs that had fallen across the track - and they talked about the way the track had changed over the last couple of years since Grant & others had been maintaining it.
By the end of the track, though, I was convinced I had little of substance in the can but we were still lapping up the day and Grant suggested we try riding back country trails to get to Mt Annan which was about 3Km away as the crow flies but took us an hour. That’s a separate story and perhaps the trespassing, shotgun-toting farmer, train hopping and entry-without-paying shall go undocumented at this point but we did have a good time and wore ourselves out in the doing which reflected the good day we had.
I’ve begun cutting the Camden video and have managed to squeeze 3.5 watchable minutes of Jittercam so will put it up with a great music track – ‘Honesty’ from Attack! Attack! - and hope you don’t notice the migraine-inducing images.
22 July, 2010 @ 11:32 pm | Comments (1)
Hands up who takes Lotto? I do from time to time. It’s a family legacy but I don’t really have the same urge as the rest of the clan. My Dad got us into the habit us with stories of what he would do with the winnings if we hit the jackpot. “We’ll take all the kids – and their kids – to Disneyland.” “Then pay of the mortgage”, he’d sometimes add.
At least he had his priorities in order.
A couple of years ago my Uncle actually won $65,000 on a scratchy while he – a Kiwi - was in Oz, and he vowed to keep to the family tradition, taking his son and daughter their spouses and kids (8 in all) on the hallowed trip, just 6 months later.
Dreams rarely live up to the reality (hey, except for dreams of riding great single-track!) and 6 months later it didn’t end as happily as anyone had hoped.
Well, at least the thought was there. It hasn’t stopped Dad from continuing to spout the same story. “We know where he went wrong and darn it, we won’t make the same mistakes!”.
Heaven help our close-knit family if it actually happens.
So the other day I’m in the city foraging for supplies (read: buying breakfast cereal for work) and was regaled by a small built and smartly dressed guy – could have been a jockey – handing out brochures to unsuspecting wayfarers like myself.
The barely scanned pamphlet went into one of the bags…something about FREE ENTRY, which could have been anything but the word FREE still gets the hormones going. If only it didn’t come with so many NOT REALLY FREE strings attached.
Unpacking the food booty at work I caught sight of the aforementioned handout. “FREE ENTRY to Greyhound Racing”. Ahhhh. I forget this marginalized sport exists except when visiting Mum & Dad and they are watching the TAB channel. A rare day at the horse races can be fun but Greyhound Racing seems like it belongs in some black & white gritty movie from the 60’s.
Commuting home on the bike, I got to thinking about how Australians are gambling mad. Why don’t we gamble on MTB? Does anyone, anywhere? Is it because the sport is so small? I looked up gambling statistics and found there’s a bit of money in it… In NSW Sports Gaming is worth 1.5B out of nearly 4.5B Australia-wide…. Now wouldn’t we like to see just 0.1% of that go towards MTB? $4.5M could do heaps.
Sadly, sports other than horseracing account for just 6.5% of those billions, but some of the sports listed in the TAB are not that well known in Australia either. You can bet on all these:
AFL, American Football, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Cricket, Cycling (road), Golf, League, Motor Sport, Netball, Rugby Union, Soccer,
Tennis, Politics – party of the next AU PM/Vic Prem/NSW Prem!!! Who’d have thought you could gamble on those?
But even if we could slip MTB into the list, there’s the hint of corruption when you start to talk big bets.
Nikolay Davydenko, major tennis player in ATP Ranking was at the center of a match-fixing investigation in 2007. That touched off a wider scandal in tennis in which at least a dozen ranked players said they had been asked to throw matches or had heard of similar approaches to others.
Tennis’s major governing bodies commissioned a report, which recommended that 45 matches played in the previous five years be investigated further because betting patterns gave a “strong indication” that gamblers were profiting from inside information. As a result, they set up a Tennis Integrity Unit.
The ATP cleared Davydenko of fixing the 2007 match even though they were unable to review the phone records of Davydenko’s wife and brother, which were first withheld and then destroyed.
“A lot of money is being able to be made outside of what’s happening on the court,” said one Australian player. “Sometimes that has a little bit of a negative influence. But luckily enough, I think it doesn’t happen that often.”
Proposition bets, Parlays, Progressive Parlays, Teasers Run Luck, Future wagers, Head-to-Head, Totalizator bets… all these betting types (list from Wikipedia) sound to me as hard to understand and therefore as risky as the CDO’s in the recent GFC…
So, would gambling work with MTB? If they opened up betting on MTB races – say the next World Cup, here or somewhere in the world – would you bet?
How would it change your thoughts about the sport? And how would it change the MTB Racing industry? Would the relatively down to earth and laid-back style of our top MTB riders alter?
Would the clubs be in a better position if there was more money from these events? Or would we lose something important?
Would it maybe broaden the audience? Would Australians start to get into MTB?
Or should we not worry… with the internet already making it even easier for gambling is it actually inevitable?
All this talk of gambling…my adrenaline is popping so now I’m off to buy a Lotto
15 July, 2010 @ 11:48 pm | Comments (0)
http://www.australiancyclist.com.au/
The Law Forgets About Cyclists
Evan Evans letter (AC May-June 2010) about law-breaking cyclists and registration plates needs further discussion.
Law-breaking among cyclists is ubiquitous and almost unavoidable - for instance every time you ride up to a bike rack placed on a footpath, you break the law. Our road rules seek to limit the danger posed by motorized transport by prescribing a coherent patter of behaviour for drivers, and our success (at lobbyists) at gaining legislative parity with motorists has resulted in us being in the same category as the driver of a Hummer or a truck. But is this valid?
Cyclists, because they do not pose the same sorts of risks as motorists, often ignore those rules that they feel do not apply to them The best example I know of is turning left (on the red) at a set of traffic lights. Rarely is this legal, but commonly, for cyclists, it can be a perfectly safe maneuver. Stopping at a stop sign is another. Stopping is not necessary for a cyclist to ascertain the prudence of proceeding, but stop you must. The law does not recognize that, as the most vulnerable road user, cyclists employ a precautionary principle in their road use (and their law-breaking) that dictates what they will do based on safety.
Recently my council has deiced to make my quiet street (a crescent) one way. But 75% of my cycle journeys will now involve me cycling the wrong way down the street to get to [where I need to go]. Why must a law-abiding cyclist set off in the wrong direction just because that’s where a car needs to go?
Cyclists are so often the unfortunate by-catch of legislation designed to control cars that they lose faith in the laws themselves. Stupid delays at traffic lights that turn red even when no-one is coming, timing intervals that go from green to amber to red before a cyclist can get through an intersection, inadvertent exclusions in suburban traffic schemes, eccentric edge and surface treatments that play havoc with your line…
Until cyclists and their unique requirements and abilities are recognized and accommodated in the law, cyclists will continue to selectively ignore those laws they see as irrelevant. If the law can elucidate these qualities, then compliance will follow as a natural progression. But compliance without relevance will not occur.
And rego plates? Forget it. Doesn’t even work with cars (just try reporting one…)
Paul Anderson, Bowden SA
8 July, 2010 @ 11:20 pm | Comments (0)
Got an email from Flynny and have updated the Description in the Hassans Trail page… here for your edification.
(Sounds even better….)
Hassans Walls is the name of the escarpment cliff on the south side of Lithgow, which has what’s billed as the Blue Mountains highest (1130M), most expansive views. From the Lookout you can see Mt Wilson, Mt York, Mt Tarana and Mt Blaxland and the whole Hartley Valley below. To the south are the Kanimbla and Megalong Valleys and Mt Bindo (1363 m). It’s pretty good, I guess, though I’ve seen more spectacular vistas at Faulconbridge and Mt Banks. The trail starts about 500M short of the top where there’s a lookout building-come picnic spot and several walking trails to the cliff edges. Plenty of signs around to warn you off (I figure they must have lost a few by accident and perhaps a few taking “the quick way out”…).
The trailhead is a gated track with a no-vehicles sign (OK for bikes) that heads up another ridge before going down the Lithgow side of Hassans Hill.
Small area for a bit of parking next to the gate. It was a glorious Saturday and I didn’t see anyone else there so assume it doesn’t get too busy. I could have ridden up the Hassan’s Hill Road but decided I would have to do that wherever the car was parked (and in the end I rode up twice).
500M past the gates is a huge turning circle – helicopter landing pad size – and then a trail split: the first of many along the way. The first trail I rode is called Channel 6. To find the actual start you take the left fork and then right into single trail before the DH trail starts. Paralleling the road, Channel 6 heads to a line of power poles and down a fast firetrail to a couple of comms dishes atop a small bunker (the Channel 6 Transmission Towers maybe?). At that point the trail stops in a very tight turning circle (Telstra minivan size) unless you want to go near-vertical down a rocky decline…. But if you’re still sane, then backtrack about 20 M before the dishes to discover a technical but very rideable narrow singletrack through bush, with good views of the Lithgow through the trees.
Unfortunately the trail’s not that long and within 5-10 mins I was at street level… and sticking close to the hill I rode around and back up the hill to try out the second trail, The Downhill.
From the top, same start, but this time you head left at the fork and keep left, following the trail till you get to another firetrail downhill veering right…or – off to the side – a man-made jump that looks like it’s part of a loop… but is actually the start of a really, really great DH singletrack that heads down and across a much longer valley.
Someone’s done some great work here, forming beautiful berms – about 20 of them, going down the side of the valley. Stunning track reminding me of a well-maintained Ourimbah. After these beautiful berms it gets a bit technical here and there so take it easy. Really memorable though. Crossing the saddle of the valley it flattens out for about 200M then hits a much steeper section. The day I went it was dry and dusty and I walked a few bits that were fairly slippery. But downhillers looking for a superfast singletrack will eat it up. The record, according to Flynny who works at the local bike shop (Insane Cycles) is 2 minutes & 48 seconds. The rest of us mere mortals might take between 5 and 10…
Has to be one of the best in Sydney, and rightfully so, since it’s Flynny says been used for years to host state, national and international DH races.
Just one point. If you hear gunshots, don’t worry. I was casually sliding down a dusty section and heard a series of bangs, thinking, “Shit!” Deliverance Day: the rednecks are up here taking pot shots at anything that moves…
Pays not to jump to conclusions: Though the gunshots got louder as I descended, I could hear voices and eventually heard someone in an official voice say, “Ok the next round I want you to shoot…”. Turns out there’s a gun club situated near the trail, with a saddle between. Saw a few cars parked but don’t see the range itself. The DH trail (Gun Club track) does in fact cross down behind the local shooting range and technically you are not suppose to ride it while they are shooting.
From there on down the trail flattens out and you head more west towards the road and then round the streets (keep hugging the hill) and up again.
All up maybe a 15-20 minute ride on the down and 30-35 mins up. But they tell me there are approximately 14 more tracks to explore (all starting as firetrail then becoming singletrack, which are usually short and technical – a DH paradise..?)…including the Hartley Valley Road which is apparently a great ride up as well…
Spring & Autumn the best times of year.
[When I get the chance to head back I’ll update the maps & the gpx to highlight some of the other trails…]
1 July, 2010 @ 12:06 am | Comments (1)
I went to a Bike Expo at Rosehill Racecourse quite a few years ago, and that was pretty good, with bike manufacturers showing their wares (and a few giving demo rides); BMX riders doing stunts, MTB videos, showbags and & interesting stuff to buy & try. Small, but plenty to see.
But apart from that and a couple of stalls in Martin Place in 2006 and some stands at the UCI Masters, Sydney riders have had no bike expo where we can drool over the latest international bike technology.
Yet some of the greatest cities in the world have bike shows : The New York Bike Show, the Paris Cycle Show, The Cycle Show in London…Taipei International Bike Show, , ExpoCycle in Montreal… Interbike in Las Vegas…Eurocycle in Germany, Velo Park in Moscow, The San Francisco Bike Expo… They have them in Italy, Seattle, Milwaukee, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vancouver, Finland, and many other far less outdoor-oriented places.
But Sydney? Bike rider market is so ignored you’d think we were a part of the Gaming industry…but even THEY have an expo*.
This is how hard it is: Two years ago the Bike Week crew in Sydney tried to organize a Bike Expo to run in parallel with their Festival. Trailflix were even asked if we wanted to set up a stand – but due to wholesale lack of interest by the bike manufacturers, suppliers and retailers, they couldn’t get enough interest to fill a 2-car garage let alone a tiny corner in a small convention centre at Olympic Park!
So why would you want to head along to a bike show?
Well, apart from the very obvious Melbourne and Brisbane have one and Sydney has missed out AGAIN:
1. The list of events is appealing…
Bike Demos, Competitions, Exhibitions, Races, BMX stunts, a Marketplace, Demo riding, Trial tracks, Biker athletes, and new Technology…
2. The Exhibitors are ones at the top of the industry
- Giant, Jet Black, Shimano, Schwalbe, BMC, Cannondale, Garman, Bicycle Parts Superstore, Vaude…over 130 others…
3. And there are presentations by…
- SRAM, Shimano, Bike Sportz and one on Bike and Rider Aerodynamics…
Enough to keep your head out of the sports page for a few minutes maybe?
As the GM of Ausbike said in his welcome letter in the brochure:
“The bike industry is on a huge growth curve…it’s a multi-billion dollar business in Australia…trade expos get everyone involved,…raise the profile of our industry…and give everyone a chance to look at the next trends…”
I note the Sydney Expo Centre has The Boat Show, The Travel Expo, The Fitness and Health Expo, Kiosk Self Service Expo and The Baby Boomers and Lifestyle Retirees Expo for Gods sake…how come we can’t get a little old Bike Expo?
Look up what you’re missing at www.ausbike.com.au/
*Check out the Australasian Gaming Expo…