Time flies and it is over a month now since we wrapped the Welly Enduro Series. We had over 500 entries across the five events, and raised near on $8,000 for the various track projects.

A big thanks to The Yeastie Boys for sponsoring the series, Placemakers Evan's Bay for helping out with their mega bbq trailer and Floyd's Cafe for keeping our volunteers well fed. A special thanks to everyone who helped out with the races, whether it be timing, marshalling, registration, driving or general helping. We do rely on the good will of volunteers to ensure that we can run these events, so a massive thanks to all of you.

• Full series Results

2. Welly Racers Heading Overseas

The international race season is already well under way.

It was great to see National and Oceania Champ and club member, Sarah Atkin getting back into the swing of World Cup racing in the mud at Cairns. Sarah qualified in 12th and improved to 11th in her race run. She is running as a privateer this year and is aiming to make the World Champs, and hopefully a few of the europe based races along the way. Sarah is fundraising, so if you can spare a few buck head over to her Give a little site and help her get to world champs.

Also heading to Europe after putting in some hard yards in our paid trail crew in Polhill (and smashing out a couple of firsts in the WES) is Brynn Dickerson. Brynn has been picked up by the Devinci development team - Gypsy Racing. He is now on his way to Europe to hit up the IXS Cups, European World Cup races and other selected events.

On the Enduro side of things, Rosara Joesph has got herself a slick new Enduro sled and will be heading off shortly to tackle some EWS rounds and other races. 

Best of luck to Sarah, Rosara and Bryn.

3. Big changes in Polhill

WCC has initiated some improvements for the park area at the bottom of Transient/Serendipity. Once the works are finished, the area will be safer for all users and there will be an all weather surfaced track leading to the entrance of Transient.

The club's employed trail crew has been making steady progress on the new uphill on the other side of the valley, Clinical. This track is about 60% complete. Now that works has finished on Serendipity, the work of our hired trail crew will be supplemented by volunteer digs. Keep tabs on the BTB facebook page for these that will be run every second Sunday.

4. South Coast Kids Track Opening

Stop press: Due to the weather forecast, this has been postponed till June 7th at 2pm.

This Saturday the 7th of June from 2pm, the SoCK track is combining their offical opening with a planting work party. After the planting is done, the track will be opened with some fun races kids vs parents. The Placemakers Evan's Bay BBQ trailer will be on site, so bring some gold coins.

The track recently recieved a coating of gravel, with WCC and Trail Fund supplying the money for the materials and local parents and club members suppling the labour. This should ensure that the track is good to go year round.

For more information on the Opening / Native Tree Planing Work Party - check out the SoCK Track Facebook page.

5.Wellington- The Coolest little MTB Capital in the World!

Mountain Biking Proposal to Wellington City Council Economic Development

Wellington is mountain biking’s best kept secret. There is a great opportunity to market Wellington as a MTB destination and deliver significant economic growth to the city and region. In recent months a group of Wellington mountain bikers (including club representatives) have held meetings to discuss this- a bold vision supported by a business plan that identified both marketing and track/infrastructure development was identified.

Last week, the core committee (John Hutchings, Matt Farrar, Anthony Edmonds, Ash Burgess and Ben Wilde) proposed that Wellington City Council invest $60k out of the economic development fund to develop a comprehensive business plan (there was a news article about this in the DomPost ).This funding will pay for a dedicated project manager/business plan writer to lead the development of the plan and an independent economic research specialist to validate benefits proposed. It is anticipated that investment identified in the plan will not just be funded by WCC. Support will be sought from key central Government agencies (for example the Toursim Growth Partnership), Greater Wellington Regional Council, Hutt City Council, educational institutions, Wellington businesses and sponsors and the mountain bike community.
We look forward to spreading the word to the world about our great little city we call home!

John Hutchings will be the project leader and will update on progress with the application via club newsletters. For any queries or more information in meantime please contact John, john.hutchings@paradise.net.nz

6. AGM Dates and Membership 2014/2015

This year's AGM will be held Thursday 7th of August at 6pm. Club will be shouting drinks and pizza. As per tradition, there will be a bike movie after the AGM. More details to come closer to the date.

The committee has decided that memberships for next season will remain at the same rate with $30 for membership, and $15 extra for the Long Gully car pass. Next year we will also start offering a family membership. This will cover a family living at the same address for a rate of $60. Just a reminder that all club memberships are due 1 July and are valid through to 30 June.

7. It pays to be a member

On Saturday we were advised by Hutt police that they had recovered a bike with a club membership sticker on it. Dan our memberships guy checked our records and we were able to reunite Kerry with his bike. As they say, membership has it's rewards.