Rocky Trail Entertainment will be taking over the South Coast holiday destination in and around Batemans Bay with their mountain bikers on the weekend of 1 December when the first Jetblack Wild Wombat mountain bike event will take place in Mogo with an event hub in the beautiful Eurobodalla Regional Botanic Garden on 1 December 2018.
The Jetblack Wild Wombat is a mountain bike (MTB) challenge in Australia with roots in Austria. Its founders are Juliane and Martin Wisata from Rocky Trail Entertainment, one of the major MTB events organisers in Australia. Having lived in Australia for 15 years and with her company heading into its second decade, Juliane Wisata said, “We took the ‘wild wombat’ to Austria in 2012 where we introduced the local riders there to the “Aussie-style” of racing singletrails. This typical Australian animal fit well as a mascot for our overseas events – it’s an easygoing and friendly mammal, which sometimes can be very stubborn and determined… just like us mountain bikers, we thought!”
The Wild Wombat has now returned to Australia with the Jetblack Wild Wombat race and event participants from all over NSW and the ACT will be joining in the action on the popular local mountain bike trail network in Mogo. The race combines a classic 12-hour racing format with a new ‘Wild Solo Challenge’ which lets all solo riders nominate a kilometer goal that will be tracked during the race in addition to the traditional age categories. The event also offers team entries of up to six riders for a truly social getaway with bikes and beaches in the Eurobodalla Shire on the NSW South Coast.
Race favourite Jason English joins ‘wild solo race’
One of the most successful Australian endurance racers, seven-time 24-hour World Champion, Jason English from Newcastle will be at the start at Mogo to set the bar for solo riders at the Jetblack Wild Wombat. “I’m intrigued by the new ‘wild solo challenge’ – I’m actually thinking 200km would be pretty hard to crack. It’s great do have a goal to aim for when training or racing, but of course it ishard to predict how many kilometers to do… especially on an unfamiliar track”, said English who is a teacher and will bring a whole group of six students to Mogo with him. “They will be racing in teams and learn about racing strategy, skill and nutritional requirements”, he explained and added that he was looking forward to racing somewhere that was new for him.
Race Director Martin Wisata said that they were launching the new challenge also with the social riders in mind. Traditionally these entered team classifications, however, the relay-style of racing meant that they could not spend much time together at all. “We want to enable groups of friends or couples to ride all day and into the night together and not worry about lap times or general or even category classifications too much, but help each other chase that kilometer goal”, Wisata explained.
A mountain bike getaway with the Rocky Trail Entertainment factor
For the visiting families there will be free kids races and activities in the playground of the Botanic Garden! A vibrant event centre awaits with a DJ scheduled to play a sunset session at the water’s edge of the dam! Spectator entry is free and they can expect a relaxed and fun atmosphere set against the back drop of a professionally timed and marshaled race. A race MC will lead through the programme together with special guest Mike Tomalaris from SBS Cycling Central!
The race track will be open for inspection from 12pm on the Friday with early rider registration between 4-7pm. On the Saturday sign-on will be from 8am with official proceedings and rider briefings from 9:30am. The mass race start is at 10am.
For more information, please contact Juliane Wisata on 0416 737 972 and via email to juliane@rockytrailentertainment.com
Links:
Event video:
Photos: OuterImage.com.au
Photos may be used for free in relation to this media release and for coverage about the Jetblack Wild Wombat event and with photo credits only. Click on images to download.
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