She Rides

We all didn’t start on a bike and not all of us have had that moment when everything clicks together and you go, "yeah riding my bike rocks". Queue She Rides, a twelve-session program custom built to suit their participants, those in need of on-bike confidence and who want to have fun and connect with other women.

Lindy Turnbull, along with Michael Crummy were selected to develop this Cycling Australia pilot riding initiative for mountain biking in their local area with the support of WSMTB.

Week One of She Rides – MTB Western Sydney/Lower Blue Mountains was launched with inspirational words by Member for Blue Mountains Roza Sage and WSMTB Committee Member Ray Rice. Kath Bicknell from Flow Mountain Bike Magazine dropped by emanating encouragement and enthusiasm for all women on bikes and with everyone rolling away from week one with huge smiles it is a positive sign of things to come.

Blackman Bicycles joined the team for Week Two with everyone getting their hands dirty removing wheels, putting on dropped chains and learning how to fix a flat tyre amongst their She Rides – MTB friends.

From what we have seen so far the participants are enjoying the positive and supportive environment in which the She Rides – MTB Western Sydney/Lower Blue Mountains team are delivering their program. With ten more weeks to deliver there looks to be plenty more fun to be had and hopefully soon that connection will be make where nothing makes her feel like riding does.

SCUM XC Round 2

Words by: Belinda Althaus

Dawn light in Nowra. Photo: Bel Althaus

SCUM put on another day full of mountain biking fun, holding round 2 of the XC series this time at Butterfly track. 57 competitors all up contended the tight and twisty track, and with perfect weather, the racing was bound to be fast and furious.

Elite men and Elite women started the race first along with other categories completing 4 laps, with the novice and junior categories following. Seven men contended the elite men’s race of 5 laps, however only 4 finished. Callum Carson made great lap times finishing the total race in 1:32:50 sec, however he was chased right to the end with Glen Sinnot coming in only 15 seconds later. Two other riders followed in what were still very respectful times.

The Elite women’s race was held over 4 laps, and started with 3 women. Belinda Althaus came back for the challenge after the 3hr Enduro which was held in March and took out the women’s elite race with consistent lap times. She finished the race in 1 hr 31min 1 sec. Unfortunately the other two elite women pulled out after three laps.

Womans Elite star Bel Althaus. Photo: CrummyMTB

The Expert Men’s race was hotly contested with a line-up of 15 riders. These guys raced furiously over four laps as well, and skilled local Kane Barrett showed some of the younger guys how to race, finishing the race in 1:17:11secs, 29secs ahead of local teenager Liam Dooley. David Bell and Andrew Mein followed in 1:18min, and 1:22min respectively. Great race guys!

Local riders Nicole Fellows and Jennifer Thompson raced for the Expert women’s race over 3 laps, however Jennifer succumbed to a minor fall in the last lap and with other previous injuries couldn’t make up the time against Nicole. Both women raced well, and it’s good to see women out having a go. Masters Males also contended three laps, with Nicholas Smee, Brad stein and David Stuart taking the podium spots, with local fat bike rider Greg Lewis following not far behind. Not bad times for these guys either. 


Super Masters Males had a great turnout with 11 riders, and the racing was tight with little time between finishes. Ross Winley and Anthony Rigney battled it out, with Anthony missing out on first place by 1 sec!! Michael Smith came in third in just under 1 min after the leaders. These guys could give many a run for their money…

Some of the SCUM XC Rnd 2 racers. Photo: SCUM

A few juniors contested the under 13, under 15 and under 17 races. Alastair Urquhart was the only rider in the Under 13 but still did a great job. The Under 15’s completed two laps and the under 17’s completed 3. These young ones had some great times, and it will be interesting to see their development in a few years.
Natalie Sleeman was the only veteran female, but raced well over three laps, and William Brook, Russell Rodrigues and Glen Aldridge raced Veterans men’s over three laps too with impressive lap times that would have contested many of the expert men’s times.
All up it was a superb turnout from the riders on what is a challenging track with plenty of climbing that creeps up on you ever so slowly. A great effort from the team at SCUM, and the race was friendly and fun. Finally the mud-flickers did what the kids do, having fun racing against each other and just getting out there and having a go, great to see!
Next round of the XC series is a youth orientated event, however is open to all ages. This will be held on the 22 June at Coondoo track. Rego from 7.45am with racing starting from 8.45 am for the mud-flickers and 9.15am for all other age groups. Hope to see you there!

Fly6 Review

There has been heaps of chatter about the Fly6 over the last few months and we were keen to check one out. So when a friend received his production model we were upfront and asked to put it through its paces.

With small, light HD video cameras becoming more popular and cheaper, we are increasingly recording our rides. The Fly6 offers features including; HD 720 looping video recording, Nanotechnology water resistance all in a neat tail-light and that is just the start of it. But basically the Fly6 is a rear light for your bicycle with an integrated video camera.

Some of the Features

The Fly6 is a POV camera, the HD 720 resolution and 130 degree wide angle lens works well for general daylight usage, capturing suitable details in most situations. The looping video feature ensures the Micro SD card is being updated with the latest footage. A single two-second hold of the on/off button turns the unit on; the camera begins taking footage straight away.

Nanotechnology surface science has been applied to the Fly6 but you’ll probably just have to take their word for it. Essentially nanotech is applied at molecular level and in this case the internal and external surfaces have been treated with hydrophobic film, so that it repels water. In testing we rode on wet surfaces and through misty conditions with minimal adverse effects.

The majority of the face of the Fly6 resembles a rear light with plenty of LEDs outputting an acceptable claimed 15 Lumens. Don’t look directly at the Fly6 when it is on though as it is blinding at short range. You can cycle through the two flashing options and four dimming settings using one of the two simple buttons. When turning the product on it defaults to an undimmed light setting, which we used most of the time, cycling it through to the minimum setting, just the circling LEDs around the camera, if others were riding close.

We found the Fly6 had a user-friendly setup and USB recharging. We added it to all our rides and why not, it was simple to fit and so easy to operate. Just set and forget, of course if you want some of the footage copy it off the card before your next ride. And the incident protection function is designed to turn the Fly6 off after an hour, saving the your footage.

Initially we stumbled with the .AVI files the footage is saved as, but we new this might be a problem after reading the nifty little instruction booklet. Then the camera struggled both low light and high contrast conditions, often when a taillight becomes an absolute a necessity. And at night, it isn’t effective as a camera and the LEDs flare significantly in the image. But many cameras find these conditions difficult. 

We can see the Fly6 as part of any club, shop or social bunch ride leaders essential equipment. We can also see it used by those who train or commute regularly on road, or for those looking to capture any action behind them without the bulkiness of other POV cameras.

Realistically the Fly6 does everything that it claims, and does it all with negligible fuss. It is a smart looking package that is easy to operate, producing decent quality footage and to what we think is a reasonable price bracket. Simply put, the Fly6 is your buddy who is always looking out for you.

Short Circuit Cancer

Words and photos by: Jason Pilgrim

Kevin, Jason, Michelle and David make up The Global Kaizen Group

Short Circuit Cancer is a charity run by Brent Collier, a good friend of mine, Exercise Physiologist and dual brain cancer survivor. He works tirelessly in the Fight Back Against Cancer. The Short Circuit Cancer MTB Bike event is a 6hr mountain bike race held for the last 4 years at Heathcote National Park. Solo, teams and kids events are all apart of the day with loads of sponsors like Fraser Cycles, Scott bikes and many others. Brent and his Short Circuit Team along with major sponsor Toyota do an amazing job, with last years event raising more than 60k for Cancer research! Yesterday's event had approx 1500 riders in wet, muddy conditions after a week of rain. Everyone persevered in the often hilly but fun course, with loads of kids activities, expo area and festivities keeping everyone entertained all day. The weather was perfect all day, despite the weather mans predictions and already close to 50k has been raised with a load of other money, collections and donations still needing to be counted. Our team sponsored by The Global Kaizen Group consisted of myself, ex dual Olympic silver medallist Michelle Ferris, David Rankine and Kevin Nelson. Together we completed just over 200km of riding as a team which was a great effort in the tough muddy conditions. A great family day of fun for an amazing cause and I would recommend everyone gets involved in the 2015 event.

SCUM's Andrew Fellows 3hr Day Enduro

Words by: Belinda Althaus



SCUM held its first event for the 2014 year on 22 March with a 3 + 3 hr Enduro at Butterfly track.  This even was a memorial event for the late Andrew Fellows who was an active member of SCUM in the early days. 

The event was a combination of a 3hr day Enduro, and a 3hr evening Enduro, with an hour split in between. For the first event there was a decent turnout. It’s hoped with a new event committee, rejuvenation of the trails from dedicated trail builders; they anticipate a XC race every 1-2 months. 

The field consisted of 27 soloists- male and females, 6 pairs consisting of male, females and mixed as well as 2 trio teams and a bunch of kids getting out there and having a go.  The Fat bikes were also well represented with a local team “3 Fat Ladies” made up of Greg Lewis, Adrian Whitehead and Simon Finlay flattening out the trail. It was going to be tight racing amongst all teams.

The other fat bike representing was ridden by soloist Marty Strozik from Newcastle, who placed second overall completing 9 laps in 3.17hrs.  Douglas Pollock completed a neat 9 laps in 3.06hrs ahead of Marty and local Scott Barrett wrapping up the solos men.  With his first lap time of 19.04, Douglas also clinched the quickest lap of the day but it was only just with Mark Astley (Team Smoff) riding a lap time of 19.19.  Solo ladies also rode well, with the clear winner out of the 4 contenders being Liz Smith who completing 7 laps in 2.45hrs. This was ahead of Danielle Cardile and Lyn Pavlich competing 4 and 3 laps each respectively. 

The race, which was supposed to commence at 1pm started about 20mins late and this, would prove a surprise to one particular rider, as you will read later.  I rode as part of Team Smoff (representing ADCC) with Mark Astley.  We started the race of well with Mark taking the first laps.  We had decided it was wise to ride two laps and then swap over, to avoid any warming up/down issues.  Towards the end of the first lap, Mark came through in 3^rd place behind Douglas and Marty. The second lap rolled around and it was my turn to roll. Ahead of me was Fat Bike rider Marty Strozik who provided a good pacing option around the track, and proved to me that tyre width has no barriers!  I managed to hold consistent lap times, and by the end of lap 4 we had moved into second place overall.  Racing was tense amongst the field, but our team’s consistent laps kept us in a good position.  As I was coming into the finishing straight of lap 8, I knew we were still within the time frame to head out for a 9^th lap to hold our position.  Coming into the transition, I noticed that Mark wasn’t there to handover to!  In the midst of the day’s events, he was unawares to the fact that the race had started late. It was only after lead rider Douglas Pollock had headed out for his 9^th lap with a handful of minutes to spare before the 3 hr time lapsed did he realise that we still had time for another lap. The rush was on then for Mark to get his bike back out of the car and get back into kit before my return.  Credit to Mark for achieving what was likely the quickest kit-up time ever. With minimal delay he was on his bike, minus a few details and managed to nearly make up a 2min gap between him and Douglas.  All round it was a great ride by Team Smoff, we only missing out 1^st place overall by 11 seconds.  We rode the race to finish 1^st in mixed pairs, and 1^st in pairs overall, and 2^nd overall on the 3hr Day Enduro.  Next time we will just make sure our timings are confirmed. 

Thanks to SCUM for holding a great event.  I hope the evening Enduro was as much fun for the riders that participated.  I certainly look forward to racing around some of the other local tracks around this great South Coast region.