Rocky Trail GP Glenrock - Round 3

Ever since Glenrock was introduced as a round of the GP Series it has been a standout event and better still it has been a solid three months plus since we broke our clavicle. It was time to ride.

Our aim for Glenrock was to take it easy, slowly testing the body, seeing what might hurt. After a nice warm-up ride up the hill from Merewether we had time to catch up with some of our 40 odd JetBlack MTB Racing team-mates, our extended MTB family and sign-in at race registration.

We gathered at the back of the start bunch determined not to fuss with any first lap madness. The usual fun of the conga-line was had as we caterpillared our way around the chosen route.

Half way round the lap we bombed down a firetrail and instantly found ourselves at the bottom of the valley. From experience there is only one way we take back to the top, Snakes and Ladders, a singletrack grind back up most of the ascent.

It didn’t take long for us to get distracted though. A guy on a massive +20kg big-travel bike tried to zip past me with his dropper post down but he topped out at 25kph…. Oh, damn, an e-bike. Haha, this one isn’t getting away.

I stuck with the e-bike for a lap, wasn’t too hard on the single track and firetrails initially. The trail was busy with riders, which also was to my advantage. As soon as it opened up on a climb though, the 250W of seemingly endless power got away from me. 

What was nice this round was to ride with so many different people. Not racing meant we were riding at a pace to on-trail socialize and enjoy the scenery a little more. 

After a couple of hours on-bike the legs were starting to say this was their longest ride in months and at 3hrs we hit the limit.  Our legs cracked and all power was gone, a quick mental calculation and there was still three laps still to go, if that.

We ended up doing just on the 4hrs of riding for our first big race back. The shoulder feels pretty good, no issues there and it was nice to put our legs through some serious testing. Our legs are toasted.

An 8^thplace in our Category is just a start. Looking forward to some SuperFlow and more GPs soon.

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Muddy Trails of Glenrock

Welcome back! It's 2018 and the racing season kicked off with Rocky Trail Entertainment's Grand Prix Round 1 at Glenrock, within the city of Newcastle. This is not the first time Rocky Trail have used the Glenrock trails, previous blogs here 2017, 2016. The lushly forested, well defined trails are always a hit with riders. A huge range surfaces were on offer this year with an overnight storm. The initial single track was particularly muddy, which transitioned into a dry, if not a little dusty section as well!

After placing on the GC Series podium the last three years running, we're back to do it again, racing with the JetBlack MTB team. It isn't going to come easy though, a quick scour of the Glenrock lineup  and particular our category was brimming with suitably fast names. Martin, head honcho of RTE, got us started well down the main access fire-trail, much further than previous years. With over 300 riders attending, this was one of the biggest GPs EVER! As per usual it was going to be important to be in the first group come the singletrack, a good early position to start from.

It was a hectic start but the open fire trail was suitably long enough to place on the back of the front group. Conditions on this first lap were slick but manageable in the rainforest section, most of the remaining trail was grippy if not dry. Eventually we found the wheel of team mate Michael Brown, which helped maintain pace and consistency. For some though these first few laps saw more action than they would have liked, a couple of local lads in separate encounters were off the bike, one with a broken frame, the other a possible collar-bone.

From gnarly downhill sections to the granny gear switchback climbs Glenrock has it all. RTE chose to remove some of the climbing from yesteryear, in place a smooth fire-trail back to transition. Everything was working well, our Pivot 429 had a service during the week, with the rear shock getting much of the attention. Slickonium grease from DIYMTB had the shock working a treat, evening out the trail. We have also been running our own nutrition over the last couple of years, finding what works for us. You can check out some of our previous reviews here. Anyway, it felt like we got our nutrition right again this round using High 5 products. Thanks to our team mates and family for the bottle hand-offs.

Over fifty JetBlack MTB Racing team riders were at Glenrock, providing a friendly atmosphere for all. It is great to have on-trail moral support and the transition expertise of a large team. JetBlack MTB Racing continues to be partnered with The Odd Spoke, Natural Balance and Rocky Trail Entertainment. Which allows us to ride how we like! In the results the team was well represented across all categories and delivered some top results for this event, good signs for 2018 and the GP Series. You'll see us at another event shortly!

Full results here.

Stolling on Stromlo

There is no doubt we have a thing for Stromlo, it probably all kicked off ten years ago with our first attempt at 24hrs solo. Over the last ten years the mountain has taken shape, from bare dust bowl to an all inclusive cycling hotspot. We still visit Stromlo on a regular basis, albeit once or twice a year, for an event or two.

It is our first outing to Stromlo this year and much has changed, the houses and units are now verging in the parks fence-line, and the hillside shrubbery seems more dense. Again we are back for another round of the Rocky Trail Entertainment Grand Prix Series, the final round for 2017.

With so many kilometres of trails and a variety of ways to gat around there had been much talk of the chosen route. No matter what, our experience told us there were gong to be rocks and the standard hard-pack of Stromlo dirt. This time Rocky Trail had setup a different event centre, in the carpark and transition from the trails was via the path to the jump-park. We then exited back out onto the trails by going through the tunnel under the DH track.

It has been another massive year with the JetBlack MTB Racing team and like all the Grand Prix's previous this year, we were going to litter the hillside with our bright stripes. Things were heating up too in the GC and Age Group/Team stakes for many, as this was the last chance to gather valuable points before the afternoons presentation. We were all excited to get out on the trails!

Rocky Trail continue to move forward from lessons learnt, and this year they had thrown in some significant fire-trail climbs. This allowed plenty of passing opportunities, nutrition ingestion and particularly open the field up off the start, reducing the first lap or two of conga lines during the single track sections. 


It was a heck of a line-up this round, the JetBlack MTB racing team had brought our own guns but what ever the lure, there were a number of national representatives present. And as such the start was pretty fast, we managed a number of snappy laps before settling into a comfortable pace.

Super happy to continue to ride our Pivot 429 Alloy, it has been dependable baring our poor maintenance routine prior to the Singleton round. Our change last year to Shimano's XT 11 speed with a 30t Hope N/W cog has been the the perfect drivetrain for just about every event we have ridden this bike. (We'll talk about our CX steed another time.) We are also touting Ascent Cycling Enterprises wheels, switching from Stan's alloy rims to Nextie carbon wrapped in Mitas tyres. With Ascent Cycling Enterprises now being based out of the greater Canberra region.


There were no surprises on the day that the 30-39 age category was the most competitive in the 4hr. This amass of speed-freaks has been a constant for every round of the Grand Prix this year, and this round we were pretty happy to place 7th. The particularly good news was that we had sufficient points in the series to take both 2nd in our Age Group AND 2nd for the General Classification. A definite step-up from both results in both 2016 and 2015. 

Rocky Trail Entertainment delivered a diverse repertoire of course for the Grand Prix this year. Many thanks to JetBlack MTB Racing team for the friendly atmosphere, on-trail support and transition expertise. JetBlack MTB Racing has partnered with The Odd Spoke, Natural Balance and Rocky Trail Entertainment, to allow us to ride how we like. The team was well represented across all categories and delivered some top results for this event and the series. You'll see us at another event shortly!

Full results for this Round here.

Our previous event wraps.

Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4.

Rocking, rolling, riding.

It all kicked off in Rocky Trail style and a unanimous vote, for the long uphill fire-trail start from behind the Shimano flag. While the sun was out it still remained a cool morning, riders from around NSW and the ACT chose to begin their day with the challenges of Ourimbah MTB trails.

Morgs from Shimano kept us company during the first couple of laps.

A quick sprint up the hill and we all slotted into the single-track without to many complaints. Around us we had many of our JetBlack MTB Racing team mates, no slouches on the bike in their own right and grouped up together they made formidable teams. As always a couple of stragglers were swept up in the mix of the first fast lap and many of the short fire-trail sections were perfect passing opportunities. It felt comfortable getting started with the team around us, some recently smoothed sections of trail were a great surprise.

Over the first few laps we kept up with Shimano's Morgs, and it was all going swimmingly till his bike started to seriously clatter. Morgs is fast and we had other some fast riders with us, both solo and teams. Morgs pulled over for a quick inspection for the source of the racket and unfortunately we didn't see him again. For us it wasn't smooth sailing either, a scraping sound began emanating from the back brake. We pushed on, an up hill fire-trail was the perfect spot to stop and have a look, it wasn't good but it wasn't seriously bad. Opting to not carry a multi-tool this race was the first sacrifice, and in this instance a little metal on metal rub would be the second. Something had to give and the rub would eventually stop. Back on the bike!

A couple of fast descents and we made it back to the general space we had been sitting before stopping. Transitions were smooth, the scraping was dyeing down and there were just enough spots out on the trail to eat and drink. No one was having a perfect run though, one of our fast competitors motioned us through, they seemed a little rattled and didn't hold our wheel. Our mind started to race, how many laps to go, what sort of effort was going to be needed to round this race off.

Thankfully there was plenty of positive vibes out on course, particularly from our JetBlack MTB Racing team mates. We even had a couple of team mates that weren't able to race, they still turned up radiating cheer for all as on-course marshals (see the video below). We held on to make it onto the podium, the second time in the GP series for this year. Whoop!

Ourimbah is one of our favourite trails to visit, made more special by a solid result in this, the third round of the Grand Prix Series. We've now got some nice points in both 4hr General Classification (GC) and Age Group. Thanks to our supporters and partners JetBlack MTB Racing with The Odd Spoke, Natural Balance and Rocky Trail Entertainment. 
Ascent Cycling Enterprises continue to stand true behind their great customer service, supporting our custom built wheels with Mitas tyres, a fast combination.

You can read the JetBlack MTB Racing team blog on AMB here. 

Get your 2018 Giro d'Italia Grupetto tour tickets here.

Riddles of Rydal

Drifting at pace through the slalom trees.

It had been ages, a really long time, since drinks at Rydal. Our last visit to the trails just west of Lithgow was back in 2011 and 2012 with Fi, Joe and the Chocolate Foot crew (Gumby included). My wrap-up of the trails read  "With almost all of it being the twisty, on-camber, but mostly off-camber, flowing, but with plenty of tighter corners, SINGLETRACK. It all wrapped up on a fairly flat ridge-line and made the most of the land available". And not to much has changed!

The JetBlack MTB racing crew were all in attendance, we had a good measure of 4hr and 7hr riders, both in teams and solo. A mass of shades, chairs and tables, our bikes littering the grass, and looking down through the transition area it was pretty similar for everyone else. A good number of riders turning up for this round, maybe not as many as Round 1 at Glenrock but still plenty of competition.

Pinchy rises.

After a mild start at Glenrock, there was plenty of room for improvement and with a short open section before the endless singletrack, it was more crucial than ever at Rydal. A flurry of cleat-clipping and some mud we were into the narrow trails. It didn't go as planned for everyone, the self-seeding and XC style sprint start, saw some spills.

Happy with the start, the pace was manageable through the trees. It wasn't long and a few neat passing manoeuvres later and I found myself on the rear wheel of master-pedal-turner, Garry James. We were making good time and it was pretty smooth sailing wheel-sitting, getting use to the trail again particularly the newer and newest sections.

Pop-it or drop it.

A couple of laps with Garry and I found myself on the front and with a bit of breathing room, room for speed! Must admit Rydal did suit us, we have local trails that are just as twisty, tight and turny. Smooth fast cornering and connecting those corners was key for us, riding with some of the pairs teams it was easy to sense the over-braking and hard acceleration on the out of the corners they were doing.

Back in the race there were a couple of nice flying laps, lap three being our fastest before it all settled down to mid twenty five minute laps, at about 20kph. While keep up with the four-hour pairs was fun we were also keeping an eye on our team-mates. In this instance, at Rydal, they weren't inchingly close and just in front of us, this time they were just behind. Yes it felt good to be running with the teams as a solo, even if they were team-mates, riding the seven hour and in a team of three.

No troubling trolls.

A surprise find on the trail was BigDog, aboard his do-it-all long-travel bike. Super easy to follow, we had a good chat and then lost contact winding amongst the trees after a fast transition. From there it was a matter of holding on to as much smoothness as possible, fatigue was setting in, edges were getting dull.

Smashing a couple more gels and we were into the last hour, several quick in-head calculations and we would be heading out for a final lap with minutes to spare. Our team-mates, team of three, Elton, Browny and Shad were hot on our tail and Elton had just closed the gap on the final climb, second last lap. Elton handed over to Browny, who went down the transition like a startled gazelle. But, little by little the gap between us reduced, till we had made it onto Browny's rear wheel. Some chess moves later and we are on that final climb, Browny punches it out of that last pinch and sprints up the firetrail. There is a moment when all plans were to go with Browny, sprint those last final hundred meters, our quads had other plans.

A good day walking away with something to put on the fridge.

It was great to race back at Rydal and get a solid result in the second round of the Grand Prix Series. Thanks to our supporters and partners JetBlack MTB Racing with The Odd Spoke, Natural Balance and Rocky Trail Entertainment. Our new Ascent Cycling Enterprises custom built wheels and Mitas tyres continue to handled everything with ease and helped us remain fast throughout.

Rocky Trail kicks at Glenrock

Glenrock was host to the first round of the Grand Prix Series for 2017 over the weekend. Plenty of competition in respective categories with the likes of locals Jason English and Andrew Lloyd present. 

JetBlack MTB Racing was just one of the teams present amongst all the riders, our kit colours toned down this year but you'll still see plenty of flashes of fluro through the trail.

With over twenty riders in the four hour competition is was great to see our junior and pairs riders placing well.

Our solos and teams in the seven hour also went well with solid performances including overall line honours and fastest lap of the day.

Our race was initially marred by a slow start from mid-pack, better self seeding would help next time.  Getting down the singletrack of Glenrock was a pleasure no matter what the pace, but over the first three laps or so it was hard to find some nice open and clear trail.

Once riders were better spaced out it was all froth and whoops, from the organic lines to the man-built obstacles. Every moment a rush, tyres screaming to hold the variety of terrain, our fastest laps were number 3 and 4.

Then the trail pointed up, switchbacking through the trees and past some of the most scenic views from the trail. The pain and agony bites deep as our thumb searches for another gear in an attempt to spin all the way to the top.

On lap seven it was evident there would be room for just one more, one a last effort particularly on the climb out. Once again it was great to race the Grand Prix Series, thanks to our supporters and partners JetBlack MTB Racing with The Odd Spoke, Natural Balance and Rocky Trail Entertainment. Our new Ascent Cycling Enterprises custom built wheels and Mitas tyres handled everything with ease and helped us remain fast throughout.

2017 Willo Enduro

Leading up to the Willo Enduro we were pretty excited. Over our summer we had managed a trip down to the Southern Highlands and ridden much of the trail with our crew. It had been in near perfect nick, fast, hard-packed and near dry.

Every time we had raced at Wingello previously, wether it was the local club or a larger event, it was always a great event on superb trails. The SHCC 5hr Enduro 2010 RIP Willo, STM Wingello 2011.

With all this in mind we had prepared a dutiful bike. Ok, truthfully there was little preparation, it was the same bike we commuted, chased roadies and trained on. Steel frame, 1x10 and some nice trimmings, a real road-hog.

That said it would have been easy to change out some tyres as the forecast worsened, rain in Sydney and on the coast. But in the spirit of adversity, skilfulness and adventure we stuck to our original bike and plan.

So it was we left rainy Sydney and headed south where the rain eased to patch showers. A left turn to Wingello and follow a small group of cars along the pine-tree lined forestry dirt road to the hub of the action, teaming with hundreds of keen riders.

Turning up for the Willo Enduro is a real who's-who of mountain biking, and the event was included as Round 1 of the National XCM Series. A quick glance at the sign-on board, Cooper, Henderson, McConnell, Blair and Kwan, just to name a few.

But for most it was a chance to catch up with friends, ride some sweet trails in a friendly atmosphere, sharing in the camaraderie that mountain biking brings.

Our race happened in multiple of stages, first there was the start, fast flat fire-trail, making our way close to the front of the pack before we entered the singletrack.

Then it was in this initial single track all our hard work on the start was undone, dropping our chain in a moment when we forgot to be hardtail-smooth.

The trail was slippery, especially now that the 75 and 50km riders were already out in front of us. Now that I dropped my chain, there were those 25km riders that passed me all conga-lined in front too.

On every fire-trail or open trail section we made it passed a few more riders, finding speed in space. We had to make every attempt to keep our bike on the trail, the lack of substantial knobs on our chosen tyres making grip in every corner very difficult.

After the initial stage the trail was littered with tail-end 50 and 75km riders who would graciously give a little room at opportune times. The trail conditions weren't improving but there was a good mixture of trail as we transited through the Wingello forest.

Thankfully the RFS was on hand to point us in the right direction at major intersections, in fact all the volunteers were helpful, from rego to presentations. The RFS helped us transition during the race from the traditional end of the Wingello trails back towards the aptly named the Wall, the KOM for the 75km riders. 

The Wall was followed by another tough ascent, but with the faint sound of tunes pumping from transition all energy was mustered to punch up the pinch and find ourselves on the return trail, making our way through the shelters and onto the final straight.

We were pretty happy to collect a podium spot for our efforts, thank to our supporters and partners JetBlack MTB Racing with The Odd Spoke, Natural Balance and Rocky Trail Entertainment. Our Ascent Cycling Enterprises custom built wheels handled a couple of close calls and helped us remain fast throughout.

You can read "the facts" by Ed McDonald here.

JetBlack 24

It was November and we are again considering the final big event for the year, the JetBlack 24. A running history of some tough conditions this event has seen us ride both successfully and less-successfully across a variety of categories. For this year we chose to compete as a team reeling back to a 6+6 in hope of some rest and recovery overnight, dialing the fun up to 11 during the day.

The hectic start for the teams in the 24hr and 6+6.

There were warm conditions again this year and hydration was going to play a key aspect of anyones ride.  A trail extension was added, only just completed the week of the event and this would see riders enjoy a couple more built features and then turn around to hurt badly on the winding climbs.

Open fire-trail start gets the first few teams into the single-track without serious conga.

Rocky Trail Entertainment had scored the National Solo 24hr Championships to be held in conjunction with the JetBlack 24hr. This saw some of the best endurance riders gravitate to Mt Annan from as far away as New Zealand and South Australia. But it wasn't just the specialists in attendance for the Nats but plenty of guys and girls giving solo 24 a go for the first time. It was great to be able to watch as top contenders Andrew Lloyd, Ed McDonald, Jason English, Liz Smith and Tory Thomas played their hands throughout the event.

24hr solo first-timer Kevlar.

For us in the 6+6 it seemed like we had picked the most competitive category with many teams including some serious XC and Marathon talent. We still laid down some decent lap times while hovering close to the top 5 teams in the category, many thanks to our team mates for the no stress transitions and chilled vibe while off the bike.

Team-mate Mick hands off to Shane in the 6+6.

The on-course atmosphere was very laid back, it was pretty sweet to be able to ride with so many top-level and representative riders. There is always plenty of passing opportunities and everyone was courteous, solos, teams, who-ever. 

Another great event by Rocky Trail, thanks to JetBlack MTB Racing team and our sponsors for all their support this year. 

We were able to relax overnight while the 24hr rides rolled through.

Full results here.

WSMTB XC Blue Gum Video

Bring you some of the action from WSMTB's round of XC racing at Blue Gum.