Anthony Seiver looks at why regulating mountain bike riding in national parks is necessary and ultimately in the best interests of the sport.

The regulation of mountain biking riding in national parks triggers condemnation from some riders and acceptance from others. Those who condemn the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) feel that there should be no or few controls on mountain biking in national parks because it is public space and they believe that it has no impacts. More reasonable riders accept that NPWS has to regulate mountain biking to find the balance between conservation, public safety and our right to enjoy our sport. The Royal National Park to the south of Sydney provides examples of good and bad regulation. I have closely observed mountain bike regulation in the Royal and my attitude has changed from condemning NPWS' heavy-handed imposition of mountain bike regulation in 2001 to an acceptance of its need. This article outlines the reasons for my shift in attitude by identifying why and how mountain bike riding in national parks should be regulated.

There will be some gumf about these lights soon. In the mean time, peruse some pictures:

This is a very quick description of how I managed to get the cadence sensor from a Garmin Edge mounted on a Cannondale Rush.

The problem with the Rush is that the rear wheel 'hangs' from a swing arm that is higher than most. Definitely higher than the designers of the Garmin sensor intended.

There were two possible options to solve this problem:

1. Disassemble the sensor, mount the main body somewhere else, then extend the wiring between it and the wheel sensor and mount that on the rear arm.
2. Create some kind of mount that hangs under the rear arm and holds the sensor in the location it was intended.

Although several articles can be found that describe success with the first option, the latter sounded a little easier and less prone to bad mistakes - if you don't get the measurements quiet right you've just ruined 20c worth of aluminium, not a costly sensor.

Well what an event. There was quite a lot of reference to 109Km this year, even from Huw at the presentation. I thought is was harder than last year, probably for two reasons, 1. it WAS harder and 2. I think in hindsight I might not have been as well prepared as last year.

This year we stayed in a nice big house "Inverard". The crew (Craig, Jemima, Christine, Will, Sergio, Sharon, Dwight and Justin) had arrived by dinner time Saturday night. I had decided at 7:00pm that the chain issue had to be fixed so off to the boys at legend cycles for a new middle sprocket. While I was away dinner was being prepared. A rather large amount of pasta was cooked up for the eight hungry mouths. Huge logistics doing 3 courses for 8 people!!! There was a stack of yummy food full of carbs and sugar. Couple of beers along the way to add to the carb loading. 500ml cans I might add. We were all asleep by about 10:30pm.

I'd been thinking about night riding for some time, and having bought an el-cheapo set of halogen riding lights to try it out was liking it a lot. The el-cheapo lights consisted of 5W+10W beams fixed to the bars and that could be switched independently. While OK for fire trail this didn't seem adequate for technical stuff so went looking for more powerful sets.

Not happy with the pricing of available offerings, and thinking things could be built up a lot cheaper a bit of a mission followed. What you read here are the results, and on the whole, am very pleased how things worked out.

This is a fairly lengthy article, it's split into several pages:

• Page 1 - Intro (this page!)
• Page 2 - Electronics
• Page 3 - Hardware
• Page 4 - Batteries & Final Touches
• Page 5 - Performance & Wrap

So it's 8:30 on a sunny, spring, Sunday morning and you'd usually be about to hit your favourite trail with a few mates. But what if the weather the last few weeks has been nothing but abismal? And what if your favourite trail is just a soggy bog and closed? Sure you could ride an alternate but, as I found out last weekend, there's options available to help maintain our friends the trails on days like this.

Read on to find out what happened when I joined the rangers from Warringah Council at an organised maintenance day...

While the act of replacing your cogs and chainrings is simple, knowing when to do so isn't. What constitutes a worn sprocket is measured in mere 100ths of an inch - not easy to see at a glance. Even worse, the consequences of doing the wrong thing in the drivetrain department can be very hazardous indeed. Luckily, all potential ugliness can be avoided with a little preventive maintenance.

Well, the 2006 Polaris Challenge is done and dusted and it was certainly dusty. It's the 10th Polaris Challenge in Australia, and was the best that I have been to (albeit only my third)

The location this year was Delegate, right on the NSW/VIC border. Huw tells us they actually had to officially declare the Black-Allen line for the event as no-one had bothered before...

The Cannonball Run, Kosciusko, Cascade Hut and back.

The day (Sunday) started out with a bit of rain but cleared up during the day. By 9.00am, all the men and children raring to go (there were about 6 adults and 7 boys under the age of 18 in our group). I was still hesitating, after being told in no uncertain terms by Colin "not to do it", but I signed up anyhow, kitted up in my full body armour and headed out for the skills session...

Justin and I rode the trail from Mundaring to Brookton Highway on the 16th Jan 2004 (a total of about 45km on the trail, and then 25km on the Brookton Highway to Kelmscott station).

We left at 8am and the first 10km was a breeze. However, not long after leaving Mundaring Weir we encountered the pea gravel, and from about 12km to 35km it was pretty hard going, especially in the heat. We had to get off and walk a lot, especially on the hills. We thought the profile map was a bit misleading. This was meant to be the "easy" section, but even the hills weren't as difficult to deal with as the gravel.