SPORT Bike mania hits Dubbo
BEING allowed to exercise under COVID-19 restrictions has ticked all the right boxes for Olivia and George Murphy, junior members of the Dubbo Mountain Bike Club.
“Both George and Annie race in juniors and dirt masters. The kids love learning new skills and tricks,” their mum, Jenny Murphy said.
As a reasonable excuse to be outside, the club has seen a rise in interest in their trails and new bike owners getting out and about.
“I’ve seen so many people over at Dundy. I’ve seen a mother and a daughter, a couple of times now, and she keeps saying, ‘I love these trails, thank you’. That’s the great thing about it, seeing people come along who’ve never seen our trails before and think, ‘how good are these?’” Dubbo Mountain Bike club president Jason Billsborough said.
“Dundy” is a mountain bike trail built by volunteer members of the club in west
Dubbo near Dundullimal Homestead. The small crew of about 15 volunteers have built, and regularly maintain, roughly 40 kilometres of trail at Dundullimal, Mugga Hill and Geurie. All keen enthusiasts, they don’t close trails if they can avoid it.
After recent rains and to protect the trails from degrading while wet, they have needed to install fences or signs requesting people don’t use some trails until they dry out.
“Sadly, people are still riding around the fences. If people are getting on the trails too soon that will leave a deep impression. Eventually that will dry out, but what it leaves is in imprint that takes a bit more work to get off.
“In that imprint there’s a rut, and especially on corners it can put people off balance real quick especially when they’re riding at speed. It’s all cool, come along, but just be aware, the wet trails chop up real quick,” he said.
A post wet weather alternative is the Tracker Riley pathway.
“There’s plenty of path to ride after the wet weather. Most of our trails, depending on the rain and if we’ve got a fair amount of sunshine, do tend to dry out in a day or two at the most. Getting on a trail too early after rain can also create bogs and that exacerbates how much time it takes to repair the trail.”
Dubbo Mountain Bike Club has an interactive website and Facebook page with updates on trail conditions.
“We’ve had about 40 people request to join the Facebook page in the last few weeks, which is great,” Mr Billsborough said.
Dubbo mum Jenny Murphy with her kids Annie, Olivia and George Murphy enjoy one of Dubbo’s mountain bike trails built and maintained by volunteer members of the Dubbo Mountain Bike Club. PHOTO: SUPPLIED.
MOUNTAIN BIKE CLUB