OnTheGo Canberra 100 MTB Marathon - 9 December - Rotorburn thread

[Shutup and Ride]

Shutup and Ride

hi all,

As a casual observer possibly tipical of your entrant to these events-

If your a trailbuilder, great! we love you and all your work.
If your a passionate trail builder, my thoughts would be that you love seeing people out and about on the trails that youve created.
As a trail builder with a financial interest in your trails, then youre probably going to try anything to lock another promoter out, and sadly its pretty clear that this is whats happening.

As Capone indicated, this is ACT land and if it has been reservd for this event then another promoter should not meddle in this. Last i saw it was a free market open to competition.

I'm looking forward to both of these events but i am a little put off by the action of the kowalskis in this instance. prove your passionate and not about the profit, or else something stinks.

Guys / Girls,

I thought we all rode bikes to get away from day to day Bullsh*t ? Let's ride for the fun and growth of the sport, and not for the politics - Which seems to be most peoples passion here. I honestly didn't even know there were forums on Mountain Biking until now. I've been too busy working my butt off so I can enjoy Mountain Biking for what it is.

We all appreciate the trails the Kowalski Crewzz have built. Congratulations, there's plenty of you around the world. Your no different. The trails should be built for the sport and to bring more people into the trails, and also into the sport. Which promotes the sport, which is what MTB needs.

There is obviously now a COMMERCIAL conflict, which is so far away from why we ride bikes, and your going against everything you stand for which is more people involved in the sport.

I say good on OnTheGo and iAdventure for creating an event that is going to promote Canberra, Mountain Biking and the people involved.

The more time people spend carrying on like teenagers about being territorial and stubborn and blocked to competition, is the less time you could be enjoying life, and what makes mountain biking great.

We are a "have a go" country!

Shutup & Ride -

 

[railit1]

Like Gavin9, I'm a casual observer, and in fact I have never ridden in Canberra. And i had never heard of onthego before this. But I certainly share Gavin9's and Capone's sentiments. By the sounds of it the local volunteers are very passionate and have put in a huge amount of their time to build trails on public land. This is a situation reflected right round the country, and like most volunteer efforts undertaken by local communities, it's brilliant! However if the trails are built on public land, and there is no license or lease agreement between the land manager and the volunteers, then there is absolutely no ownership.

If onthego have applied for and received an event permit from the land manager, then that's all they are required to do from the perspective of gaining permission. The land manager can stipulate all kinds of conditions in that permit for the event to be approved - ie/ event fee, trail maintenance pre and post event, capping numbers to prevent excessive damage etc etc. They could even stipulate consultation with the local volunteer trail builders (very doubtful.....)
I work for a land management agency and assess event permits on a regular basis (inc MTB events) and this is how it works in Vic anyway, can't see it being much different in the ACT.

Congratulations to the local volunteers on building what sound like great trails, it's the dedication of you, and many others, who ensure we can ride and race at so many great locations. However some of the the posts in here from locals certainly don't portray a friendly riding community, and crucifying an event on a public forum is just rude.

Let's hope onthego run a good event, and put something back into the trail network and community like they say they will.

 

[Shutup and Ride]

Like Gavin9, I'm a casual observer, and in fact I have never ridden in Canberra. And i had never heard of onthego before this. But I certainly share Gavin9's and Capone's sentiments. By the sounds of it the local volunteers are very passionate and have put in a huge amount of their time to build trails on public land. This is a situation reflected right round the country, and like most volunteer efforts undertaken by local communities, it's brilliant! However if the trails are built on public land, and there is no license or lease agreement between the land manager and the volunteers, then there is absolutely no ownership.

If onthego have applied for and received an event permit from the land manager, then that's all they are required to do from the perspective of gaining permission. The land manager can stipulate all kinds of conditions in that permit for the event to be approved - ie/ event fee, trail maintenance pre and post event, capping numbers to prevent excessive damage etc etc. They could even stipulate consultation with the local volunteer trail builders (very doubtful.....)
I work for a land management agency and assess event permits on a regular basis (inc MTB events) and this is how it works in Vic anyway, can't see it being much different in the ACT.

Congratulations to the local volunteers on building what sound like great trails, it's the dedication of you, and many others, who ensure we can ride and race at so many great locations. However some of the the posts in here from locals certainly don't portray a friendly riding community, and crucifying an event on a public forum is just rude.

Let's hope onthego run a good event, and put something back into the trail network and community like they say they will.

OnTheGo does support the community already, with them running their own charity, junior mountain bike development teams, support with numerous nation wide charities, along with events like this where they can help. Their brand is a true representation of what it is to be a human.

 

[POMinOZ]

Karma chameleon

OnTheGo does support the community already, with them running their own charity, junior mountain bike development teams, support with numerous nation wide charities, along with events like this where they can help. Their brand is a true representation of what it is to be a human.

Great to see that OTG support the community. Be even greater to see them support the efforts of the dedicated volunteers who have built the trails that will enable them to run this event. (Let's face it, the trails aren't going to groom themselves after a few hundred riders have hoofed round them and OTG have packed up and left are they).

Subsidised race entry to volunteers on the Kowalski email list? That'd go a long way to making those volunteers feel both included and rewarded for their efforts.

Yaay, eace:: that's the spirit.

POM.

 

[Kowalski Brothers]

re: comments

I am concerned about a comment made recently - specifically that I have made demands to take down press releases and for sponsors to withdraw sponsorship. I'd like to clear that up now.

I have made no demands to any group or person.

I'd also like to add that we have never attempted to 'lock out' private promoters, in fact we enjoy excellent relations with AROC and Chocolate Foot, both of whom have recently run events on trails in East Kowen and Sparrow Hill. We even designed the course for the Single Track Mind event and put in some new track ahead of the event. Sure, we'll use that again... it's great.

I reserve the right to remain concerned about an event being announced in the manner it was… without the courtesy of consultation (AROC and Chocolate Foot did this). I also reserve the right to be concerned about an event that is fundamentally identical (same format, same trails) to an event we run as this risks diminishing both. If a new event is coming to town, I'd rather see something unique... something that takes me somewhere new and unexpected. That would make my bucket list.

Thanks

Alan Vogt
Kowalski Brothers

P.S. We are building a lot of new track at present so we do not know what the final course will be. Once done, we'll be able to tell you whether it is a single loop, overlapping loop or fruit loop.

 

[pharmaboy]

Not going to weigh in on the argument, but rotorburn should not be here for protagonists to register a user name for the first time in july, simply to post in this particular thread -it looks like spam, not discussion

 

[dragonfly]

Not going to weigh in on the argument, but rotorburn should not be here for protagonists to register a user name for the first time in july, simply to post in this particular thread -it looks like spam, not discussion

Hmmm, I see what you mean. Clearly it's been done for a reason - esp. when you read what the Kowalskis have to say about the whole mis-information being fed to us by Blackheart. Not good :crazy:

 

[wilddemon]

Not going to weigh in on the argument, but rotorburn should not be here for protagonists to register a user name for the first time in july, simply to post in this particular thread -it looks like spam, not discussion

yeah agreed. Some of the "members" (shutupandride et al) could easily be interpreted as representing OTG or iAdventure, which would be disadvantageous to OTG and iAdventure: this is not the sort of behaviour or dialogue expected from a commercial enterprise or their agents. Leave the needling to Joe Blogs in his lounge room. If the new users aren't affiliated with OTG or iAdventure their misrepresentation isn't going to do these companies any favours. Further, there's been a couple of posts making claims about sending emails and approaching sponsors etc. If you are going to make these claims in a public forum and possibly insinuate certain groups of doing so then let's see what proof you've got and allow each of us to draw our own conclusions.

I'll reiterate my stance: if there's a market for more races then I'm all for it. I feel it would have been respectful, and almost certainly mutually beneficial, of iAdventure to liaise with the Kowalski crew in planning this event.

 

[Dazzo]

I don't think the OTG promoters have done anything wrong at all, especially from a legal point of view of gaining the required permissions to access the ACT land. More events, riders, trail advocacy and funding for further development of the sport are all positive things. KB's behaviour seems to me somewhat 'school yard bully' like. Having said that, I don't think anything less of them, since they appear to be trying to protect their vested interest. These types of forums are always going to leave both party's reputation smeared, when tossing mud - some will always stick, which is an unfortunate tragedy since I’m sure they don’t represent the genuine good nature of either group. Step away from your keyboards KB and OTG!

 

[Antsonline]

Should any of the this be referenced to 'On The Go'? My reading of this is that its iAdventures race, that is merely sponsored / named by On the Go.
I feel sorry for them if this is the case, as their name is being associated with what some would think is bad / poor etiquete by iAdventure.

KB build great trails. I suppose a risk of that is that everyone wants to use them for their race.
iAdventure want to run a race, and have legally followed every rule.

What is not ideal, is that iAdventure billed the race (from a while ago) as something completely different (a 2 day 'event') and then changed it to be almost (but not identical) the same as the KB Classic.
More races = good. But, I certainly wouldnt be doing both races. Too similar.

On a seperate, but related, note - iAdventure have now twice promoted this '2 day' type race - claiming to have the best MTB riders in Australia on both occasions, with almost unbeleivable prizer purses and have now twice cancelled it (the first event of this type was to be held in Port Mac earlier in the year).
Would there not come a point where people get sceptical of their races / claims?

 

[kerbs]

Subsidised race entry to volunteers on the Kowalski email list? That'd go a long way to making those volunteers feel both included and rewarded for their efforts.

Yaay, eace:: that's the spirit.

POM.

Hi Pom,

We have made an offer along these lines which is currently sitting with DM. If you're one of the vollies, you'll know who i'm talking about. Cheers.

 

[wilddemon]

Hi Pom,

We have made an offer along these lines which is currently sitting with DM. If you're one of the vollies, you'll know who i'm talking about. Cheers.

Well, that's an extension of the olive branch to some extent. Nice one.