Perth Mountain Bike Club

Yes, I know—What The? We here at the PMBC Committee were shattered to hear the news after all our hard work to secure and then build a track for this event, but all is not lost. It is not anybodies fault—no need to blame anyone—just an unfortunate situation that needs to be dealt with. So here is the story. The Bridgetown shire, who have endorsed this event and supports what we are doing; just realised that the race location (even though located on private land) is not zoned properly to host such an event. We have the Public Liability Insurance (MTBA issued a special document for the event—A Big Thanks to John Carney & MTBA!), but the problem is land use and zoning. I could not believe it when I heard it myself, but this is Private land and we have the full approval of the landowner—no matter the zoning needs to be taken care of. Now the shire will grant the appropriate zoning, but it takes a few months of red-tape and bureaucratic stuff before such a zone can be officially granted. There fore, the Bridgetown race needs to be postponed.

That brings us to our next issue. Nannup State Champs is scheduled for 1 Nov, and we the PMBC Committee were hoping for a brand-new track for the event. I’m not too sure how keen DEC is to grant us that track (I applied back in beginning of Feb and still have heard nothing—but still there’s a lot of time to go?). We will continue to explore that possibility and it can be a fall back plan if our A) and then B) plans both fall apart. A) plan = postpone Bridgetown to 1st Nov and use that event for the State Champs. B) plan = Bridgetown doesn’t get up at all this year??? (Hopefully it will). So we will be continuing to push for the new track at Nannup (if not used for 2009 State Champs it will be available for future events at Nannup). If both A) & B) fall apart then there’s C) plan = use the existing track at Nannup for Nov 1st State Champs.

Finally, what happens to State Round 2? Well the only place that we could possibly gain all the necessary approvals on such extremely short notice is the Goat-farm, so this is where PMBC will host State Rd 2—If we get the approvals from DEC (shouldn’t be that hard since it is a dedicated Mtb Park). We will put some work into the track and try to make this a great event, so I personally would like to say SORRY for all the screw-ups with the calendar for the 2009 race season thus far.

Hopefully this latest crisis doesn’t mess up too many peoples’ plans/ schedules—PMBC sincerely apologises for all the inconveniences.