Author: Mischa
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Hobart’s getting a new mountain bike park on the eastern shore, you’d better be bloody stoked! The Glenorchy MTB Park is a great facility with some awesome trails, and host a lot of excellent events (08 SS Nats anyone?). The new park is rumoured to be bigger and better, and now it’s time for you to have your input!
Here’s what Frenchy’s got to say on the PedalBite forums:
As many of you know, there is a new mountain bike park planned for the Meehan Range on the Eastern Shore. The park has been in the planning stages for the last year or so, and has finally reached a stage where we need to present the proposal to the riding community for their thoughts. I have prepared a draft plan and will be presenting this and discussing the proposed site. This will also allow me to take feedback from people, so this is your chance to put your ideas forward. At the meeting I will also be compiling a mailing list so you can be kept up to date on the project. A volunteer register will also be compiled. I encourage everyone to get along and get involved in what will be biggest mountain bike project ever in Tasmania. Meeting dates are as follows:
VENUE: Rosny Library meeting room 1
DATE: Wednesday February 6
TIME: 6:00PM- 7:00PMI will provide drinks and snack food,
see you all there,Frenchy
Go check out the full thread here: http://pedalbite.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11130
Get involved and help get this park up and running and kicking arse. A massive amount of work goes into projects like this, so the more people who show their appreciation, the better! We’re damn lucky there are people out there building these parks and trails for us to ride.
Developing a Visual Language Engaged with Contemporary Dissent and Critical Opinion
(Edited with details…whoops!)
Ok suckers, a lot of you Hobart heads no doubt know local artist/musician/beardy guy Jamin. He does some mad street art, is involved in the Die Laughing collective, plays good tunes on his guitar, and generally gets about in good ways. He’s having his masters exhibition opening next Friday (hence the amazing post title) and everyone should get along and check it out. Jamin’s work is top notch, with a great political edge. Plenty of politicians and celebs being put on the spot and having the piss taken out of them.
Friday 8th February 2008 at 5.30pm @ Plimsoll Gallery, Tasmanian School of Art, Hunter Street, Hobart.
Support your local art scene. Get amongst it!
Not dead!
We’re still alive and kicking, sorry about the lack of updates. I hope everyone had a good Australia day, celebrating a bit of genocide. BnC HQ is locked down pretty tight at the moment, with the SS Nats planning fully underway. That shit is going to be off the hook. If you’re thinking about coming down for it, grab some flights now. They’ll be plenty cheap, and it’s free to take your bike with Virgin. Can’t got wrong!
I ate shit on Monday, riding the ol’ mountain bike. As is usually the way, I spent a good few hours hitting up great trails without a worry, then decided to hop up a driveway (not even a gutter) and ended up sliding a few metres on the footpath, leaving a bloody trail behind me. Bugger. Ah well, skin grows back!
Poster and more details for the SS Nats are coming very soon, so stay tuned to the website. We love you all!
2008 Australian Singlespeed Nationals!
Advanced registrations have closed.
Anything sent after today won’t arrive in time! You can register on the Saturday morning, download the itinerary for all the details.
FRIDAY NIGHT RIDE
The One Gear, More Beer crew are doing a ride on Friday arvo for the early birds, followed by food and drinking. Starts at 4pm and leaves from Salamanca Lawns (the starting location for BnC’s infamous Silo Runs). The itinerary has been updated with details (ctrl-refresh if you still get the old one when you click the link)!
Click below to download the map.
Or view it on…
That’s right folks, the 2008 Australian Singlespeed Nationals are on like Donkey Kong! The Devil’s Isle is the venue and Hobart is going to sweat beer for two days in April. It’s a weekend of bikes, BBQs, parties and debauchery. It’s all about having a good time, hanging out with a good bunch of people and getting a little loose for the weekend. You don’t need to be a race-warrior, you don’t need to own a singlespeed bike, and you sure as hell don’t need to take anything seriously. Sign up, throw down, join in and rock out.
You’ll be guaranteed to have a shitload of fun with a heap of good crew, there will be bands to keep it kicking, 16″ BMX racing to test your skills, a ROLLER DERBY to get your legs spinning, spot prizes for best costume, nudity, loose antics and anything else we feel like.
We’ve even got a VOODOO singlespeed bike to give away to the winner (or who ever impresses us the most), thanks to Treadlies bike shop down in Kingston. Go and tell them how radical they are!
Date
APRIL 19 & 20 (Saturday/Sunday)Location
Hobart, TasmaniaParty Venue
The Brisbane HotelRace Venue
Glenorchy Mountain Bike Park
Click to download the flyer! Spread the word, tell your friends!
Virgin Blue, Qantas and Jetstar offer flights into Hobart. The airport is 20 minutes from the city centre.
The TT-Line sails twice a day and offers passenger and car transport from Melbourne to Devonport (3 hour drive to Hobart).
The Glenorchy Mountain Bike Park is approximately 15 minutes drive from the centre of Hobart. It’s an easy ride from the city and we’ll have a guide to take you there if you want to ride out!
To get there follow the Brooker Highway for approximately 5km. After the second roundabout take the next left at Elwick Road. Proceed through the roundabout, at the end of Elwick Road, onto Eady Street and follow Eady Street as it swings round to the next roundabout. Go left at this roundabout (Tolosa Road) and proceed to the end of the road.
There are Tolosa Park signs from Elwick road and the Bike Park is situated just behind Tolosa Park.
The Brisbane Hotel is at 3 Brisbane Street. From the Hobart Mall travel up Elizabeth Street for 3 blocks then turn right into Brisbane. The pub’s at the end of the second block. Don’t stress, there will be a map in the itinerary, and we’ll be guiding everyone around anyway! This info’s just in case you loose us.
Anywhere you want! You can try for a room at The Brisbane Hotel (get in fast!) by calling them on (03) 6234 4920.
Other options are:
The New Sydney – (03) 6234 4516
The Pickled Frog – (03) 6234 7977
Central City Backpackers – (03) 6224 2404
All are close to the city/venues and will probably give you a cheaper rate if you grab some mates and book as a group.
We’ll be having a BBQ and some other random shit for lunch on both days (including vegan, ya hippies!). The Brisbane Hotel do a bunch of kick arse counter meals (including vegan) for bloody cheap and there will be time on Saturday put aside so that everyone can eat. There should be a special 08ASSN dish that’ll fill you up and sex your tastebuds for super cheap too.
If you’re arriving early and want to sample some other places, follow Elizabeth Street up until you reach the North Hobart main strip, there are plenty of food places there. Or go in the opposite direction down the the wharf/Salamanca Place and grab some fish’n’chips and other assorted stuff.
You’ll need your bike (no gears!) and a helmet. Anything else is optional but we’d suggest gloves, your wallet, clean underwear and clothing suitable for any weather (or something revealing and a little creepy, whatever!). Use your head, bring the important stuff.
You can ride anything so long as it’s pedal powered and only has a single working gear. Keep in mind that the race itself will be on an XC course so you’ll need to be able to ride (or push) it around some dirt. A SS mountain bike is the obvious choice but cruisers, lowriders, BMXs, fixed gear track bikes, clown bikes, tall bikes, SS conversions, 1980 full-rigid Repco conversions and anything else with one gear will will be ridiculous and highly encouraged.
You can modify a geared bike so that the gears don’t work (and be able to prove it), but that’s kinda boring.
Don’t worry stress too much though. Bring anything you want and we’ll figure out how to make it singlespeed on the day. Cutting cables is fun!
If you’re a local, or arrive early, head to the Tip Shop at McRobbies Gully in South Hobart (follow the signs to the tip), find the roughest looking bike you can, rip the derailleurs off, paint it black and ride custom!
For more information or a good time, call Mischa on 0438 599 147 or e-mail info@bottlesandchains.com.
Join the mailing list for updates and information!
Tahune MTB Marathon
That’s right, we’re taking the soft option! Bottles And Chains are entering a rolling gang into the 50km leg of the Tahune MTB Marathon (technically it’s called the Macquarie Accounting Challenge, but no one knows what you’re talking about if you call it that). Everyone else is probably doing the 100km leg, but heavy beer consumption over the last few years has resulted in lower peak fitness for the BnC crew, so that would likely kill us all. Much better to do 50km and still be able to walk during the following month. That said, a bar-stool recovery program holds some promise of rehabilitation.
If you want to come along and join us you should go and register. We’re not going to be doing it in a stressful manner (not if I have anything to say about it) and no one will laugh at you if you fall off (much). Registration closes today! So yeah, do it now or you’ll miss out and you’ll have to sit at home on a Sunday and spend all day recovering from your hangover on the couch eating chips and watching DVDs, when you could quite easily be out in the wilderness getting dirty and sweaty and feeling like you’re about to die!
Live fast, die old
Andy linked up to the kids at Cycle Jerks today, and because I’m always impressed by a cheesy punk rock reference I felt the need to spread it further (given how our readership is so massive and all, ha!). They’re a bunch of nuts from Denver, Colorado and their blog has a bunch of videos and other suitably random and good shit on it. “Full of racing, blood and beer. What the fuck else is there?”. Sounds good. They also have a radical logo, suitably ripped off.
So yeah, don’t get off the internet quite yet, go look at their website. If you’re from Hobart, don’t buy a t-shirt or I’ll be forced to wrassle the shit outa ya.
I thought hipsters were a type of jeans?
A wise man once said “Get off the internet and ride your bikes.” Actually, it’s probably been said a bunch of times. Smart words regardless of who uttered them first and how many times they’ve been repeated. That said, the internet can be handy for plenty of things, even if most of them are better and more enjoyable when actually done out in the real world. Looking at beautiful bikes and old-school bike magazines seems to lack a little texture when they’re being blasted at your eyes through a computer screen. Music’s a little richer when it’s coming through an amplifier rather than your tinny PC speakers. That new component looks great in the online store, but the photo’s got nothing on the first test ride. And the best YouTube footage pales in comparison to the feeling you get when you’re out on your bike with your mates.
It’s all too easy to get caught up in the shit-talk and bullshit that mindlessly repeats itself every hour of every day on the internet. Naturally, when it stems from this website I wholeheartedly approve of it and suggest you quit all other activities so that you may dedicate your life to BnC, the refresh button and the ol’ comment posting link. But most of the time you need to step back and ask yourself if this shit really concerns you, or if you might be spending a little too much time worrying about words and websites and fashion trends that can be ignored simply by closing your browser, or visiting another website. The internet is a forum for the world and just like any public space, it’s got its full share of morons and idiots. Do yourself a favour and avoid getting caught up in the shit-creek, ’cause who wants to paddle through that when there’s perfectly good singletrack up the bank and over the hill?
Ignore the trends, forget the hipsters, get off the internet and ride your bikes.
No grave but the sea
The Sea Shepherd crew are at it again, with two of their crew being held on a Japanese whaling ship in Antarctic waters. They’re a great organisation whose direct-action protests actually target the guilty parties, which is all too rare these days (although there’s nothing quite like a bit of black bloc molotov cocktail action). Go read!
In bicycle news, clouds have been gathering and the forecast seems to be for another alleycat some time soon. We’ll let you know when we find out more.
There’s also been some chatter regarding the 2008 Single Speed Nationals in Tasmania, so hopefully we’ll see more info surfacing on that!
The photos from the now-infamous Christmas Alleycat have been provided to us in an unmarked manilla envelope, obviously shot by an unknown contributor with a high powered telephoto lens. We’re all being watched! While the race report has yet to materialise (I take full responsibility, but if you want to know what happens at these things you should just show up! Haha), the photos and results will finally be online…shortly.
We’ve also got some plans for official BnC jerseys (and skin suits?) in the pipeline, so we’re going to be needing your feedback! For starters, if anyone can recommend a jersey manufacturer who make good quality gear with low minimum unit requirements, let us know!
Stay tuned, this party’s only just getting started!
Hit the dirt
We’re off for some mountain bike action tomorrow morning and everyone’s invited! We’ll be meeting at Treadlies Bike Shop in Kingston (south of Hobart) at 10am on Saturday Jan 5 (that’s tomorrow). We’ll be heading out through Peter Murrell Reserve to the Tinderbox Hills and about the general Kingston/Blackmans Bay/Howden area. I’m not super familiar with trails down that way, but the riding I’ve done down there has been a shitload of fun.
If you want more info drop us an e-mail!
Ben says to bring your boardshorts!