Jetblack Wild Wombat postponed to 2020

This we week we unfortunately had to make the tough decision to postpone ‘our’ Jetblack Wild Wombat. We have done so with the full support by Eurobodalla Shire Council and Destination NSW and we would like to thank them and all our event partners for their continued support.

The Jetblack Wild Wombat was created from a rich history of an Australian 12-hour event, which we organised for 10 years and an Austrian 4 and 8 hour race, which we put on in our home country from 2012 until 2014.

For this year we tried to come up with a new event; we had found this beautiful new home for the race at Batemans Bay in the Eurobodalla, so close to town and with an incredibly enthusiastic team from the local council who are so active behind the scenes to get more trails and adventure sports in the region.

The original event centre at the botanic garden in 2018 was so pretty and yet logistically quite challenging with limited phone reception and open to the public with car and foot traffic across the race course. So born was the idea in 2019 to truly showcase all the assets of the beautiful area with an event centre on the beach, a neutral ride to the Dam Loop and a timed stage that participants were meant to do as many times as they wanted, at their own time and with a flexible timing system that allowed riders of various categories and ages to race together (an idea similar and derived from our superflow races).

Knowledge is power and enthusiasm pulls the switch

We are now starting to put together the picture of why we didn’t get enough rider numbers, which led to the decision to re-think the event and postpone it to next year. Less than 2 weeks out from the race we had such little registrations that it was impossible to put the logistics, operations and supplies in place at the high standard that we set for our events. We had to contain not only our risk but that of the many suppliers, local partners and supporters lined up.

So many processes and business have been gearing up for the event, including the many engaged local businesses providing accommodation and experience offers that we had to contain the risk. The local bike shops Batemans Bay Cycles and Moruya Bicycles were ready to be on the ground too.

The few participants who had entered already received a full refund. 

We will no doubt talk to many of our Rocky Trail racers in the coming weeks and months and seek more feedback. It’s always tough to make such a call and we are really thankful for the guidance, advice and support by the teams from Destination NSW as well as Eurobodalla Shire Council. The new date penciled in with these major partners is 1+2 August 2020 and we will return to Batemans Bay with a different event format.

We must admit that we truly fell in love with the Eurobodalla ourselves and we see the tremendous potential for more mountain biking and adventure trails. We want to enthusiastically support a region that is so supportive of mountain biking and we plan to return with an event that’s made up of our Rocky Trail DNA. We will always listen to rider feedback, never stop exploring, learning and growing with our racers and adapt accordingly. We have been running events for over a decade now and want to keep our professional reputation of keeping things serious enough, casual enough, clockwork enough, and fun.

So, for now, it’s back to the drawing board for us and we have a big 2020 ahead of us – we’d like to thank our two new event managers Jo Parker and Bob Morris for their support and wise encouragement over the last few days, our amazing crew for always having our back and standing right alongside us and our sponsors and supporters who we so proudly promote and represent.

See you soon out on those rocky trails.

Juliane & Martin Wisata