Author: Ben

The arrival of Mick Gillies in our outback midst has added further fuel to my current obsession with dirt road touring. Mick is in the middle (both literally and phyiscally) of his Australian cycle tour. He has tackled some awesome country on his Long Haul Trucker (LHT) and the rig seems to have handled both the sand and corrigations with aplomb. L-Dub and I decided to see how the LHT would hold up on some of Centralia’s most rugged, red dirt (#ahem#) ‘roads’, dragging Mick out to the oft visited Mantaru last weekend.. The LHT drilled it no worries and we spent an evening by the fire discussing remote cycling routes.

The term ‘radventure’ has being playing through my mind constantly.. So many possible ‘red earth’ missions! Owen Springs, Boggy Hole, Kaltukatjara, the list goes on! Timmy Stredwick has modified my Steamroller to run panniers and Epic Eric is whipping me up set full set of bags for the 1×1. Radventure looms!

To keep the palette wet, Sammy and I rolled out to Tapiya on a (mini) ‘Red Earth’ Mission yesterday. Tapiya could be discribed as ‘hill’ I guess, but the description ‘big pile of rocks’ seems to fit better. There is a road of sorts to Tapiya, but you would need a seroius four wheel drive to traverse it. Deep sand and corrigations the whole way. Sammy and I tackled the first five or six kilometers of the track on our bikes before the constant stutter and regular dismount and push action got too much. We bailed for what Sam described as a ‘back route’… Continue reading “The ‘Red Earth’ Missions”

We rolled into Mutitjulu early saturday morning with a ute tray full of BMXs.. but being a long weekend, most of the Community had headed to Alice Springs for the Agricultural Show. I didn’t think there would be a kid left in town and was more than a little sceptical about the attendance prospects of our second Bottles and Chains Community Bicycle Workshop. I need not have worried as within minutes of our arrival about twenty kids rocked up, ready to help re-assemble and repair any bicycles at hand. Continue reading “BnC Community Bicycle Workshop II”

Inspiration for the Critical Mass’ers? Yep. A bee in the bonnet of Cog Cafe’s Damo prior to the ’10 Aussie Singlespeed Nats?? Yep also. Timmy got me onto this link. The blurb for the ‘Stereo Bike Film’ reads as follows:

“Last summer in a rented garage on the outskirts of Queens, NY something incredible was happening. A group of imaginative tinkerers from Trinidad were working late into the nights creating something nobody had ever seen before: enormous stereo systems jury rigged onto ordinary bmx bikes. Traveling together, each behind the handlebars of his or her own massive homemade creation, they treat the neighborhood to an outrageous impromptu music and dance party on wheels. Directed by Randall Stevens, Made In Queens is a film celebrating America’s first stereobike crew”.

It’s funny. Had you told me two years ago that the first B’n’C Community Bicycle Workshop would be held in a remote Aboriginal Coummnity I would not have believed you.

Spool the tape back 24mths.. Mischa and I were having a sunday morning coffee at a South Hobart cafe when the discussion turned to community bicycle workshops. We talked about renting a space, restoring discarded bicycles, creating a bicycle library of velo-loaners and offering a free labour to those needing assistance in getting their pushies running again. Due to all the usual bullshit we wade through daily in our lives (working long hours to pay for stuff we dont really need and booze mostly), Mischa and I let this beautiful plan slide into the realm of ‘one-day’.

So how did a section of Mischa and my dream come into fruition in the Northern Territory? I dunno really, it kinda just happened. Jacob from Mission Australia offered me a trailer filled with new tires, tubes and some basic kit. Some friends offered me their labour and I had some tools. Between us we could work out which way to turn a wrench.

We set up shop in the dirt in front the Rec Centre in Mutitjulu. No advertising, no fanfare, just us and 10 or so broken-down bicycles.  It was amazing, within minutes about 20 kids were helping. Within the hour about 40 people had rocked-up with long forgotten frames and a willingness to learn. We worked all day. We worked hard. We shared our knowledge and the community shared theirs. One young fella showed me how to run a chain through a derailleur (I’m a pure-bred singlespeeder, derailleurs are alien to me) and I taught him how to use a chain breaker.

I dont know how many bikes we worked on, but it was lots. LOTS and LOTS. Kids were zooming around on bikes left, right and centre. The day was a total sucess. We’ll run another next month. B’n’C out.

I decided to take a different tact this week. Instead to riding out to Mantaru, I thought accompany Mish in the 4WD, and start cycling from the campsite.. Continue reading “Return to Mantaru”

Lost Coast Trailer from Eric Parsons on Vimeo.
Ok, so I’m a tad into ‘adventure’ biking. Fk, well you know I love Surly’s and any ride (bike or destination) out of the ordinary is fully my bag. Imagine the Correy Brothers stole Dave Killicks kayak and were marooned on Macquarie Island with bikes. Yep. Thats what THIS is.
(p.s. – they’re riding singlespeed. fixed next trip)

Has Liam (2nd from the left) turned?

Central Australia is an awe inspiring region. Difficult to tackle on a bicycle but possible. The arrival of winter has opened up a window of opportunity for some serious back-country epics but water is a limiting factor. Any off road touring mission is restricted in distance by how much water you can carry. I’ve been scanning the internet for cargo solutions to increase my bikes water carrying capacity. The 16′ wheel of the Bob trailer is too small to handle the soft conditions, the two wheeled Y-Frame trailer is too wide for singletrack (and the 20′ wheels again are too small), but I think I’ve found a solution.. the Extrawheel. 

Anyway, I’ve kinda steered away from where I was headed with this post.. I’m not trying to endorse any products or write an advert, instead I wanted to link up some amazing sites I came across during my search.

The first inspiring site I came across was ‘Salt‘. Salt is a movie produced by Cinematographer, Murray Fredericks who annually rides across the salt pan of Lake Eyre on his Surly Pugsly to capture some of the most beautiful landscape images you’ll ever see. Do yourselves a favour and watch the movie trailer. Liam and Mischa, I think you two will especially appreciate the the work undertaken in capturing these frames. Unbelieveable.

The ‘Canning Stock Route Adventure’ also inspired. The trip undertaken by this Polish cyclist crosses landscapes similar to what I face out here. The images on this site are captured with all the skill of your Grandma with a point and shoot camera but they still rock my world.  This boy also drags an Extrawheel trailer along with him for the ride.

The final site is ‘bikepacking.net’. This site is dedicated to overnight and multiday offroad adventures (mainly in the US). I spent hours pouring over images of remote trails and high mountain singletrack. So fkn inspiring!

Now, who wants to load up the bike and come for a ride?

I’d been inspired Jim Fitzpatrick’s book ‘The Bicycle and the Bush’. Stories of overland cycle journeys in the 1890s had me pumped. Tweed cycling suits, swags and singlespeeds, the stock routes and camel pads of Central Australia, I was sold and winter had arrived. Time for some remote area, off-road cycle-touring yo!

Continue reading “Mantaru – Remote Area Cycle Touring!”

Six hours is a long time. Footy matches are played and won in six hours. Think of  a six hour enduro, how do you feel at the end? Is it a long time to be in the saddle?? It takes six hours to drive from Hobart to Queenstown and back. Six hours is one hour and twenty eight minutes short of your entire working day. Six hours can feel like forever.

Now imagine that you’ve crashed your bike and in the fall you are impailed on a 45cm long wooden stake. It enters your body between the top of your right leg and the bottom of your buttock, passing though your bowel and groin before exiting through your loins on the front left hand side of your body. This would hurt. Pain like nothing we could ever imagine.  Think in terms of those six hours now, could you take six hours with a stick through your most sensitive of parts? I couldn’t, but Matt Yates did.

Twenty two kilometers into the second days stage of the ‘Anaconda MTB Enduro’, Matt attempted to ride up a short, rocky pinch when he lost his balance, lifted the front wheel and fell backwards onto a Mulga Bush. Mulga is notorious amoungst four wheel drivers, it is a particularly hard wood with sharp pointed branches that can punture even the hardiest of offroad tires. Matt landed on one of these Mulga ‘spikes’ from a height of one meter, his full one hundred and five kilogram weight driving down on the bush. It lodged in his body exactly as I described above. I was standing less than two meters away and heard his skin ‘pop’ as the wood pierced his skin.  Matt screamed and I did too. Fuck. It was the worst thing I have ever seen out on my bike.

For a second Matt thought he had been knackered by his seat, but I could see the stake through his body and told him not to move. I was seriously scared. This was serious. I had to do something. I pulled out my first aid kit and sat next to him. Fuck!? What do I do? Another rider (Nina) stopped to see if we were ok. I told her no. Definately not ok. She took a quick look at Matt’s injury and soon was as white and sweaty as both Matt and I. The stake had ‘plugged’ the wound and none too much blood was kicking about. Nothing in the first aid kit was going to help, we needed professionals. I called the Race Organiser (Rapid Ascent), described the injury, where we were and asked that a helicopter come extract Matt NOW. 

Matt had crashed on a remote section of singletrack twenty kilometers from Alice Springs. The nearest four wheel drive access track was four kilometers (?) away. Now you would think that a guy with a stick stuck diagonally through him would warrant immediate attention, for fucks sake there are major arteries down there! But, nope, the Rapid Ascent guys sent us a Check Point Marshall first.. That took fifty minutes. The Marshall showed up, didn’t really look at Matt’s injury (he had to look three times before he would believe that the stick was through Matt and not just his knicks), before calling a First Aid Officer to the scene. I was getting pissed off, a First Aid Officer? Fuck no. We NEED a helicopter with Paramedics. I asked the Marshall to make the call, he wouldn’t do it stating that the First Aid Officer would handle it. A First Aid Officer arrived on the scene two hours after the accident first happened. She had a stretcher with her and a small bag of tricks, none of which were suitable for fixing a problem this big. I now asked her to call for a helicopter. She at least called the Ambo’s asking for assistance and the ‘possibility’ of helicopter extraction, but as she did not press home the severity of the situation the Ambo’s sent a terrestrial crew out in a four wheel drive. Fuck.

By this stage Matt was complaining that he couldn’t feel his left leg, his testicles and of sharp pain that he rated 8/10. I was starting to freak, I work as a Park Ranger and we train for these sort of circumstances, I knew that we should be putting him in a helicopter as time is of the essence and NOT fucking about trying to put a one hundred and five kilogram man on a stretcher and attempt to carry him four kilometers (?) over rough and tight singletrack. But no-one listened.

Ok, so we’re going to carry him out? I asked the Marshall to call for more people to be sent up and help with extraction as with only four people we could only carry Matt five to ten meters at a time before we had to set him down and rest. The Marshall said ‘No, the Ambo’s are coming and they’ll take care of it’. Ok, how ’bout we call the Ambo’s and make sure they have sent two big blokes and not two little women? Nope. The Marshall didn’t make the call.  I was beside myself with anger but I tried to remain calm externally so not as to freak Matt out.

The Ambo’s arrived on the scene at the four hour mark. One big guy and one tiny little chick. They pumped Matt full of morphine and then helped us carry Matt then remaining distance back to the vehicles. It was unbelievably hard. We had to go slow so that the stake didn’t saw at Matt’s insides and to ensure we didn’t drop him or bump the stake. It took another hour and a half to get Matt to the ambulance (which had a flat tire from a mulga spike recieved in the rough traverse in). Once there, the Ambo’s debated how the fuck they would drive Matt to hospital in the four wheel drive as the motion of the vehicle would cause the stake to move and possibly cause more damage. The male Ambo said he wished he had a helicopter… Unbelievably they drove Matt to hospital (a half hour drive) over some of the worst four wheel drive tracks you have ever seen. The pain he went through must have been HUGE!

Matt went straight into surgery. The doctors operated for five hours to remove the stake. It had missed his major artery by two millimeters, had it of been hit, Matt would have been dead in minutes. They pain in Matt’s left leg was caused by blood flow being blocked by the stake. Matt was within minutes of losing his leg.

I am totally gobsmaked at how this event was handled by Rapid Ascent, given I told race organisers about the serverity of the indicent at 10:20am, that we didn’t have Ambulance Officers on the scene until 2:30pm (it may have been later).

I can’t make it any clearer, Matt’s life was at stake. He could have died.