NEWS and INFORMATION

 

Welcome to www.cairnsmtb.com!

 

Monday 28 February - Did you lose something at the car park area at Smithfield on Saturday afternoon (26th)? Possibly two people in a white ute missing something? If it's you, contact us at info@cairnsmtb.com and we'll put you in touch with the kind person who picked up your gear...

 

Saturday 19 February - A request from the President, Mal Lindsay - would those people who use the parking area at the bottom of the Kuranda Downhill please refrain from (a) littering (b) loud noise and (c) wheelies in their shuttle vehicles. The locals are not impressed, and as you can expect, this only going to end in tears if it isn't stopped. We know it's not just Club members who use this area, and it's definitely not just Club members who are at fault, but let's set an example, okay? Currently we're having major problems getting access to our own area, without having other areas cut off as well...

Wednesday 16 February - Wanna race? How about a race meeting with $18,000 in cash and prizes? Quote from the email received... "Hoping you could help spread the word about the Redlynch Valley Estate Multisport Race in Cairns on Sunday 3rd April. With cash and prizes totalling $18,000 this has got to be one of the biggest races of it's kind in the state." So go here to download a pdf file with more information

Saturday 5 February - Anyone want a date? Have a look on the Calendar page, and start pencilling in your diary. Currently missing from the calendar is the Triple City Challenge - we've picked some dates but have to confer with Townsville and Mackay before we put them on here. Let's just say there aren't going to be too many free long weekends this year... We also do not as yet have the date for the Paluma Push. Keep an eye on the calendar page, it's likely to change without much notice.

 

Not much else happening - just waiting for it to dry up a bit. Or rain more and get it over with!

 

Monday 17 January - Not a whole lot happening, there will be a meeting shortly to put together the calendar for the year, so if you've got any specific requests, drop us an email and we'll be sure to add yours to the wishlist.

 

Normie spent a lot of time updating the Links page, so if there's anything you find on there that takes your fancy, thank Normie.

 

As a couple of people have found out, being smart in the Club forum doesn't get you anywhere...

 

Tuesday 21 December - As a followup to the Annual General Meeting, Damian Jones has agreed to fill the position of Race Director for the 2005 Club year. Welcome aboard, Damian - when is the next race? (Just kidding, there will be a meeting soon to nut out a calendar, watch this space!)

 

Wednesday 15 December - Our favourite spy at Channel 7, Rod Tindale, advises that "Channel Seven local news will be showing some big air action in the sports segment Thursday 16th Dec." Apparently featuring Sik Mik, so get the VCR ready!

 

Saturday 11 December - At the End-of-Year Cluster this afternoon, the presentation of trophies and awards took place, with Michael (Normie) Norman taking out Club Member of the Year and Luke McDonald Rider of the Year. The Club Encouragement Award went to Matthew Boyce (he's on crutches from a BMX accident - dangerous things, those!) and the Most Improved Rider went to Tyson Palmer, who unfortunately was not present to collect his trophy.

 

Matthew Boyce

Luke McDonald

Michael Norman

 

Congratulations to all who were nominated for these awards!

 

At the AGM, Mal, Gordon and Barbara were re-elected to their previous positions of President, Secretary and Treasurer, with the fourth position, Race Director, remaining unfilled pending further consultation with a couple of candidates.

 

The new Constitution and Rules were adopted unanimously by the meeting, and will now be submitted to the Office of Fair Trading for approval.

 

Unfortunately, due to access problems, the Attack of the Tribes meeting in January is now cancelled. We will spend the Wet Season jousting with the various authorities prior to the Club Championships or the NQ Sunshine Series, whichever comes first...

 

Sunday 5 December - Nominations are now closed for the Club Annual Awards, which will be presented next Saturday afternoon at the Club End-of-Year Cluster. Social rides commence at 3.00pm (no DH - XC & MTX only) followed by the AGM, followed by the presentation of trophies. All the Club Awards will be presented, and the trophies for the  Club Series, plus we expect to have the trophies for the NQ Sunshine Series. In case you are interested, the President, Secretary and Treasurer are all standing for re-election at the AGM, so don't think you are going to get roped into anything major.

 

As far as the awards are concerned, the nominees are (in alphabetical order):

 

 

And the winners are... to be announced at the Cluster. So there. Be there! Now I'm off to the engravers...

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Thursday 2 December - We need more nominations! Rider of the Year and Club Member of the Year nominations close this Saturday, and very few people have emailed us with their nominations. The awards will be based on the nominations received. Currently there is a clear leader in the Member voting, but not in the Rider category. info@cairnsmtb.com See below for the criteria.

 

Tuesday 23 November - Please don't forget the working bee this weekend. 9.00am at Smithfield to weatherproof the tracks before the Wet. 'Cos it's raining outside right now. Not much, but a couple of storms could do a fair bit of damage in a couple of hours.

 

Also please keep the nominations coming in for Rider of the Year and Club Member of the Year. All correspondence to info@cairnsmtb.com please!

 

Wednesday 17 November - Back to normality (or what passes for it around here!) The Club End of Year Cluster will be held at the Smithfield Mountain Bike Park commencing at 3.00pm on 11th December. Format will be fun riding on the XC and MTX tracks (no DH), followed by the Annual General Meeting, then the presentation of awards for the past Club season.

 

Notice of Meeting - Members of the Cairns Mountain Bike Club Inc are hereby notified that the Annual General Meeting of the Club will be held at the Smithfield Mountain Bike Park on the afternoon of Saturday 11th December. Business to be transacted: Adoption of new Club Constitution and Election of Officers (President, Secretary, Treasurer, Race Director). Unless notice is received in writing not less than 14 days prior to the AGM, no other business will be transacted at the meeting.

 

Two Awards will be decided by the members of the Club prior to the Cluster. These awards are the Club Rider of the Year and the Club Member of the Year. The criteria are as follows:

Rider of the Year: This is to be judged on (1) the riders' conduct both on and off their bike and (2) Consistent performance over more than one discipline (ie DH & MTX, XC & DH, XC, DH & MTX). (Current holder: Tracy Hannah)

Club Member of the Year: The criteria for this award is that (1) the Member be a diligent worker for and on behalf of the Club and (2) must have made a contribution to the Club outside racing. (Current holder: Mal Lindsay)

Nomination will be by email to info@cairnsmtb.com. Only financial members may be nominated. Only financial members may nominate. Nominations close on December 4th and will be decided by a simple tally of nominations received by email by the required date. In the event of a tie, the management committee will apply a deciding vote and no further correspondence will be entered into.

So get those votes coming in NOW!

Finally, there will be a working bee on Sunday, 28th November to "weatherproof" the Downhill track and parts of the Cross Country track before the Wet gets here. Please meet at 0900 at the container. With a reasonable number of willing bodies, you should be on your way home around lunch time.

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Sunday 14 November - The last word on the Nationals goes to Normie, his wrap-up of the whole weekend can be found on the Stories page. Click the button on the left and enjoy the story.

 

Saturday 13 November - The last of the Nationals pics - "Thrills, Spills and Faces in the Crowd" is now up. That's the lot - I've still got more pics, but my ISP will be haemorrhaging already and I'd hate to give him any more reasons to hit me, so there won't be any more pics posted. 508 should be enough, surely?

 

Friday 12 November - Would you believe Rod Pashley found the missing helmet? How lucky can you be? We don't plan on fixing the two punctures, however...

 

Since it's Friday, it must be the night for the DH pics. 158 of them on the website now, all ready for you to take a look at. The next segment, "Faces in the Crowd", will also include all the DH crash pics, so if you fell off anywhere near me, your turn at instant fame is about to come. www.gordong.com as usual.

 

Over the weekend we'll also be publishing on here Normie's Race Report, so stay tuned for that one too. Thought we'd stopped being busy since the event is over? Think again - there's another meeting on Tuesday night!

 

Thursday 11 November - Did anyone find a helmet following the XC on Saturday? I've received an email that says "We have managed to lose a red Bell cross country helmet somewhere between Cairns and Brisbane and the most likely time and place are on Saturday, on the cross country track just after the manned drinks station. This is where my lad got his second puncture." As if two punctures in a Nationals round isn't enough to have to deal with! If you know where the helmet ended up, please contact me at info@cairnsmtb.com

 

Speaking of XC - the photos are up at www.gordong.com My ISP is dead set going to annihilate me... What the heck, they're a Club sponsor. I will attempt to get the DH pics up tomorrow night, but there are nearly 300 of them, and they are not all going on the net. I'll have to do some pretty thorough sorting first to get that down to around the same numbers as the MTX and XC. Then, finally, there will be a few shots of "faces in the crowd" going up last. So if you think I might have caught you with a dumb look on your dial at any point during the weekend, be afraid. Be very afraid...

 

Wednesday 10 November - Nationals Round 1 MTX photos are now available at the usual place. If you're not sure where that is, try www.gordong.com It's taken the whole evening (6pm to 10.30pm) to get them ready and put them up, so that's all there is for today. XC tomorrow night, which leaves Friday night for the Downhill stuff.

 

Hopefully we'll have some race reports real soon. We just need someone to recover enough to write them.

 

Nice to see we headlined the Channel 7 News tonight! My VCR was set, was yours? Long section in Sports, and it was accurate, too. Nice one, Rod!

 

Tuesday 9 November - Geeze, we spend all that money on timing, and Microsoft Excel decides we don't really need two decimal places. Thank you, Mr Gates... Corrected results for the Downhill here for the shootout and here for all the results. With lots of decimals... No placing changes, of course - it was just the conversion from rtf to xls that was incorrect.

 

Photos will start going up in the usual place tomorrow night (Wednesday). Unless I get organised tonight (unlikely - it's a load of work). MTX, then XC, then DH.

 

Sunday 7 November - And your Elite winner is Nathan Rennie, followed by Mick Hannah, Jared Rando, Dennis Beare and Chris Kovarik. In U19 Men, it was Amiel Cavalier, Ayden Eves, Wyn Masters, Ezra Bartholdt and Hugh Mansfield. Elite Women went to Emma McNaughton from Tracy Hannah, Claire Whiteman, Lea Harley and Teagan Walker.

 

Saturday 6 November - Day two of the Nationals belonged to the Cross Country riders. Lovely weather (probably didn't get much above 32C), not a cloud in the sky (who needs shade?), heaps of dust (can't remember the last time it rained) and a reasonable size field of riders. Great performances from everyone just to be out there, I certainly wouldn't do it!

 

Too many classes to list the results - full results and times here in PDF format

 

On to the Downhill! 117 entries so far for tomorrow...

 

Friday 5 November - Posted at late pm. Very late pm. The MTX has been run and won, and here's the results:

 

Junior: 1st Ezra Bartholdt, 2nd Kodie Hay, 3rd Darren Pokoj and 4th Wyn Masters

 

Sport: 1st Wayne Hannah, 2nd Chook Jones, 3rd Darren Graham and 4th Austen Buckley

 

Elite Men: 1st Michael Robinson, 2nd Chris Kovarik, 3rd Dennis Beare and 4th Nathan Rennie

 

Wayne won Sport after getting involved in a huge crash in the impromptu jump competition at the half-time break, while Nathan miscued the corner leading towards the big double, waited till he got his breath back and then treated the crowd to a back flip over the big double! Unfortunately most of the photographers were looking in the other direction... The Junior category was just as hard fought as any other, with lots of running carrying bikes from the last corner to the finish line.

 

A great night was had by all, even when one of the light towers had a temporary failure it waited until all the riders had gone past before turning itself off. Full results will be published on the MTBA website, but we'll see if we can get them up here faster! Photos eventually, maybe tomorrow night. Maybe not :)

 

Cross Country tomorrow...

 

Friday 5 November - And so it begins... We'll try to get as much information up on this site as quickly as we can. For sure the results will be posted after each day, but I'm not sure about photos. I'll be at the track from dawn until dark on Saturday and Sunday, we can't communicate from there very well (heck, some of the track is so far back in the tropical rainforest that the last person the locals saw was Captain Cook!) but we'll see what we can do. Watch this space!

 

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