I never thought I would one day be a mountain biker. Let alone a racer. There it is, I said it. … And yet, stumbling into this sport I somehow right away knew that I had found my calling and ‘my tribe’. Being out on my mountain bike gives me this sense of freedom. I love exploring new trails and at the same time know that I can go out on my home track, riding my lines and take a breather on my favourite spot among the trees. But when I am among other riders at an event, at a start line, I fill up my cup.
My name is Juliane and I am one of the founders of Rocky Trail Entertainment and here I want to tell you a bit about us and our events.
It started with a spark
Both Martin and I were at the start line of our very first Rocky Trail events! One of them was a Dual Slalom race with only six other racers, including our business ‘Godfather’ Steve Humphreys from the Western Sydney Club, we could participate ourselves too! It was a sunny day at Sydney Olympic Park way back in 2008 and we had a blast! There was a spark. The camaraderie among us, the belonging, the pride of putting yourself out there for a challenge, we knew we had to spread this excitement and source of life energy.
Since then we met a lot of people across all walks of life (and on all sorts of bikes!) who have helped shape our range of events. Our business has evolved to one of the major cycling events promoters in Australia and I can proudly state that I think it’s because we love being out there among the trees on the trails as much as our racers do. And – because all our race concepts have been and are ‘born’ out of our love for being out on the trails.
We both started as cross-country riders ourselves riding trails that we now pick for our cross-country and marathon events like the AMB100 or the Willo Marathon. We quickly fell for the idea of ‘enduro’ too. We kept seeing its developments overseas and the Superflow events especially reflect the way we love to ride together as a couple, but also with our group of friends. Ride, chat, get to a spot and then smash each other down, wait together at the bottom, share the stories, that berm section, that new line you found, the wildlife you spotted in the bush, the awesome views… and then continuing the ride.
The Rocky Trail spark
For each race we assemble a crew for you who looks out for you and who are there for you to have an awesome day out on the bike, adrenaline kicks and all.
When we then see the smiles on our racers’ faces and the glee in their eyes as they share their stories from out on track, of ‘that perfect line’, ‘that gnarly section’, ‘those burning legs’, ‘that final push to the line’…. those stories feed our spark that was ignited that day at Sydney Olympic Park and it is what drives us to travel, research, develop and improve concepts, to network, innovate and to expand.
We still compete ourselves, less so at our own events, because they demand our full attention. So Martin has been competing in many international and Australian stage races over the past decade and Juliane still likes to ride at club events and ‘her’ Diamonds in the Dirt Women’s event each year and hopes (now that their son is a bit bigger) to take part in more races again.
Because ultimately we will never stop exploring new trails to that we can deliver awesome races to nurture our Rocky Trail community and help grow the sport at the grassroots level too. You will feel that spark when you arrive at our event centre, that surge of positive energy you just give into and feel part of this crazy, fun, enthusiastic, passionate, talented and ambitious gang of #rockytrailracers – in four regions: NSW, the ACT, QLD and VIC.
See you out there on our rocky trails! – Juliane
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