The region’s mountain bike trails will receive a little more care and attention thanks to a partnership between a local bank and a South West bicycle shop.
The Busselton and Dunsborough Community Bank® branches of Bendigo Bank have come on board to support Dollars for Dirt, an initiative of Vasse’s Humble Bicycle Co. which will fund the maintenance of existing mountain bike trails and support the construction of new ones in the future.
Humble Bicycle Co. owners Rex Dubois and Nick McBeath started the business in 2018 after leaving their careers working in commerce and chemical engineering.
After a successful first year in business they introduced Dollars for Dirt, with $5 from every mountain bike sold going towards a fund to help local trails and mountain bike projects.
Mr Dubois said trails need constant maintenance and the opportunity for more mountain biking in the region was growing.
“We feel a responsibility that if we sell a mountain bike, that’s another person going out and using the trails, so we need to help keep the trails in good condition as well as push for more trails,” he said.
“It’s about building a sense of community and getting everyone involved.”
The Busselton and Dunsborough Community Bank® branches of Bendigo Bank have pledged to match dollar-for-dollar what is donated to the fund.
Branch manager Luke Pearce said the bank had the local community’s best interest in mind with every decision they made.
“We have an investment program that sees profits go back into local events, programs and infrastructure,” he said.
“This is a prime example of how our wonderful town can come together to achieve some really positive outcomes.”
“Financially, environmentally and educationally, Dollars for Dirt will have a positive effect on the regions.”
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Dollars for Dirt Program
I've never really understood being able to meditate and not think about anything but that is actually what it's like when you're riding as soon as you hop on a bike and start riding with a group of mates the instantly like you're 12 straight away you're just having such a great time. It's hard to explain but it's the same as you know people who go surfing, you're in that different state of mind to what you are in the rest of your life any kind of forget about everything else. We're Humble Bicycle Co the name humble sort of stems from our philosophy of not getting too big for your boots but takes up too seriously it's about us wanting to stay small and kind of true to what we started the shop. After not going broke in our first quarter, we decided to introduce a program called ‘dollars for dirt’, every time we sell a mountain bike five dollars from that bike goes into a fund to help basically local trails and local projects. Trails need maintenance you can't just put a trail in and then ride it ten years and never work on it so we kind of feel a responsibility that if we sell amount of bikes that's another person going out using trails. So, help try and keep trails in good condition and push for more trails so there's kind of more excitement and keep the whole thing building I suppose. As soon as we put out that first donation Bendigo got wind of it and our Branch Manager gave us a call and went ‘this is really cool we want to be involved’ and so what they offered is to dollar match everything that we donate they'll donate the same and so suddenly you know we're a small shop only sell so many bikes so it's great what we do but suddenly that donation became a whole lot bigger and were able to do much more exciting things. We love working with Bendigo we've had a really positive experience with them from day dot Bendigo with the only sort of banks that wanted to have anything to do with us basically from the get-go they are the only ones that would sit down and listen to our idea of what our dream was what we wanted from it really responsive the branch manager lives locally and say drops faster shop pretty regularly we're still working on him to get him on a bike and get it out of the trails but well we'll get there I think it was keep chipping away but it's nice to be able to just sit down and have a coffee and catch up and it's not always business talk just that face-to-face thing of when you're dropping your takings in you'll see the same person day in day out you have a problem and you call up and you're talking to that person you're not talking to someone on the other side of the country after pressing seven and three and being on hold for twenty minutes so it's a really good experience.
