[hotlaksa]

Myself and Sparky Marky dropped in on the Fat Tyre Festival at Melrose in the mid north of South Australia on the weekend. It's about 350km north of Adelaide.

It is a big weekend of MTB riding [ no racing ] around the town, on a heap of fresh, purpose built single track. This was the second year of the event. It's run by Bicycle SA and has funding from the state government. Nice trails and friendly folks.

https://www.bikesa.asn.au/index.php

My SJ 120 Expert prior to it's first big group ride.

Marky getting setup

Marky climbing in the pack

A nice view over the town of Melrose.
The highest peak is directly behind the town.
It's called, strangely enough, " Mt Remarkable " because...... it is!
The summit is at about 1000m.

I managed to get one photo of a guy stacking on a fast downhill section called "Hellrose". He was OK except for a bit of a bruisd ego.

After a taste of the single track, we had lunch at the pub with the wives and kids: very relaxing. We'll be back next year for sure

The following day i went on a solo ride for on the Western side of the range up towards a rock escarpment called The Battery. The climb was nasty: loose, rocky and powdery dust. Yeah.. it's steeper than it looks....

The summit is about 850m above sea level. I ran out of time and only got to about 500m [ from 50m at the campsite ] but the views to the summit were sensational.

As were the views over the Gulf

A view of the trail back to camp towards Mt Cavern / Mambray Creek.

Back at camp, we had to defend our food from being raided by the locals.

On our last night, Teppinyaki Marky cooked up a feast in the wok, which was washed down with a few cold Coopers.

All in all, a great weekend.

Our next big adventure will be in 3 weeks when we race in the Dirty Weekend 12 HR race here in the Adelaide Hills.

As a team of unremarkable underachievers, we aim to have fun and ride like crazy people! Can't wait!!

 

[ozlongboarder]

Thanks for showing those pics, its another place to add to the list of places to ride.

 

[slaw]

Great pics. Thanks for sharing. Been there years ago on a touring bike, but didn't stray from the main roads then. The hills sure looked tempting though and these photos show some of the treasure in there.

 

[hotlaksa]

Run to the Hills!

Yeah, we barely scratched the surafce of the riding opportunities in Mt Remarkable National Park.
There is also Wirrabra State forest about 25 minute south of this location which has some good riding i hear.
Unfortunately, as with most NP, the trails shown in the second half of the post are technically illegal, so shame on me!

We filled out a survey handed out to all the campers and made it quite clear that we thought it was unfair, and that we didn't pose an environmental risk to the flora / fauna.
It's remoteness, and the lack of human activity make it perfect for biking.

The new single trail around Melrose is a bit of a test case ofr trial building within National Parks.
Lets hope it has more sucess the the "trial" in Royal National Park south of Sydney.

 

[WOY]

Hey hotlaksa thanks for the photos. It looks like a fun event.

Matter of interest what kind of a turn out did was there during the event?

 

[hotlaksa]

Lots of different folks came to Melrose

WOY,

hard to say on numbers, we were there for only the saturday morning ride.
There were rides all afternoon, and all day sunday.
There were a heap of people camped there also.
I would guess at 200 or so?? But i'd only be guessing.
I met folks form Adelaide, Melbourne, Port Lincoln, and Broken Hil, so there was a pretty good mix.
We''ll go back for the whole weekend next year.

 

[WOY]

Thanks for that, I remember reading something about it a couple of years ago. It is just a bit too far to go for a weekend unless I plan something around it. I just wish there is something like that around Sydney. BTW thats is a great turn out.

 

[carbonboy]

melrose

they also plan on having over 200kms of purpose built mountain bike trails built by 2010.

 

[Panacea]

Looks like it was alot of fun

How dry is it though eh? please god let us have some substantial rain soon!