The OXFAM TRAILWALKER is over and it is time to start training for the scott. A gentle recovery ride will be needed today to try and loosen the muscles in my legs followed by a marathon session of stretching. Everything is SO tight!
Tomorrow morning will be the start of some real k’s.
Some said it was ambitious. Some said I was foolish. Some said it couldn’t be done.
They were right.
Backing up from a 100km charity hike for 32 consecutive hours straight into a 3 hour mtb enduro was a little optimistic.
So due to the oxfam trail walker I couldn’t make the HMBA club enduro.
A 4 hour enduro on my home track (Awaba)….. how could I say no? Especially since the Scott is only a fortnight after, meaning this is going to be the perfect shakedown opportunity. I don’t know that the Mrs was all that impressed given that I had only hours earlier floated the idea of a late september holiday in Byron…….
With the Scott coming around in a hurry, I decided I would need to do something about my battery situation. After doing the whole DIY light thing, my biggest achiles heel is my charger. It puts out a lazy 500mA and so would take most of the night to charge one of my batteries. Since it will only take me 3 hours or so to drain one, it was clear that more batteries would not only mean longer run times, but a way to totally bypass the charging tent altogether.
Enter Dealextreme.
Crammed full of shonky Chinese knockoff products, it is also a good source of 18650 lithium batteries at good prices and free postage. Combined with a turbo ferret batter holder x2, I can merrily run 2000 lumens all through the night. Now if I run out of batteries, it will be a clear sign that I should stop riding until the sun comes up.
It is now the day after the three ring circus. A 50km point to point race in the forests of Wingello.
Dr_Rob and I headed down the night before and stayed in a small little hotel in Bowral, where we snuck our bikes into the hotel room and crashed out after the 3.5 hour drive to get there.
The following morning involved a Mc Breakfast and the 30 minute commute to the event site .
This was the first race I have done which has used electronic timing. I have long been heard questioning (some would say whinging) why triathalon and running has RFID timing yet mountain biking still relies on some long suffering volunteers to sit at a timing table writing down riders numbers as they come past. Thankully wild horizons have seen the light and incorporated timing chips onto your event number plate and from what I could tell, it seemed to work extremely well.
It was cold at the race start. Rob and I were seeking out sunlight wherever possible, but as we queued for the start, we were forced into the shade and I spent the next 10 minutes shivering and wishing the event would hurry up and get under way. I had set a goal of beating 3 hours before leaving home. This seemed fairly likely given the terrain we were likely to encounter and I was secretly hoping that I might come close to 2 hours 30 minutes.
Off the start, it became apparent that the self seeding process had gone astray somewhere. There were fat guys spinning along in granny ring on level fire trail ahead of me everywhere. I decided to put the hammer down and get past as many as possible early on so that I wouldn’t be stuck behind if the trail ever became technical. It was fast and smooth fire trail riding and I spent most of the blue lap in the big ring jamming along with the suspension locked out.
I was through the first lap in a little over 15 minutes and feeling pretty good. The red lap started with more of the same. Some long gradual fire road climbs and some long fire road descents. Every fire road descent featured a plethora of waterbars that made for some very intersting jumps as you approached loose gravel corners with speeds boardering on 50kph. I had a few motocross moments with everything locked up and sliding towards the edge of a ravine in the loose gravel. This quickly taught me not to be on the outside line of the fire trails.
About 10 k’s into the red lap is the “wall”. It was briefly mentioned during the riders meeting that most people would walk it and I had heard a few people muttering about it around the start-line. It is aptly named! When i reached it, there was a long procession of people already dismounted and walking. I dropped a fist full of gears and started mashing, determined that I was going to give it my best shot of reaching the top still on the bike. Everyone walking their bike were exceptionally courteous and chorus of ‘rider up’ crys went out as the walkers parted allowing me a clear shot up the middle. I huffed and I puffed and buoyed by the hoots and cries of encouragement, somehow made it to the top. I had passed about 15 guys up the hill and was felling pretty chuffed with myself. At that point, I looked down to realize that the bike had failed to shift out of the middle ring and so I had done it without the aid of granny gear – woot!
Tactically, it was probably a mistake to climb the “wall” as it soon became evident that I had run head long into my maximum heart rate and that it wasn’t going to be coming down any time soon. The course headed into single track immediately. Normally this is my forte but it was all I could do to suck in enough oxygen to keep turning the pedals at this point. I let two riders through who I was holding up and tried to minimize my time loss while getting my heart rate back under control.
I can’t really remember many details of the red lap. I ended up sitting on the wheel of a guy from Woolongong (riding a Scott Scale) and having a bit of a chat. Our pace was fairly evenly matched so I was happy enough to follow along so that I didn’t overcook myself. There were some lovely, windy, flowing single track sections before the final fire-road slog, into the wind, towards transition.
The final yellow loop is all fire-road I thought to myself – “This should be pretty easy”
For the first couple of k’s, this was pretty correct until we dropped down into a ravine, crossed a little creek and then spent the next 10 minutes climbing back out. By this stage, it was becoming painfully apparent to me that cramps were a very real possibility. I had obviously pushed a little too hard in the early sections and so was forced to sit and spin up the heart breaking climbs while I watched Dr_Rob pass me then disappear into the distance while he swore and cursed at the hill, his 2×9 drivetrain, rocks, sticks, trees and his imaginary friend that was his traveling companion by this point in the race.
With 6 k’s until home, the scenery opened out from thick, impenetrable scrub into rolling farmland. A couple of riders caught me on some of the gentle uphills and with about 5 k’s to go and asked how much time had elapsed. To my disbelief, it had only been 2 hours 14 minutes. This gave me renewed enthusiasm and I decided that I was going to go all out for the last 5 k’s as there was no point saving the legs from this point. Luckily for me, it was mostly a gentle 2-3% downhill gradient with a tail wind on the way home. I cranked as hard as I could in the big ring and gapped the riders who had caught me and flew over the line to finish in 2:24:25.3
To say I was ecstatic with the outcome would be an understatement. I finished 13th in the open males and 43rd outright. A big thumbsup goes to the event organizers who ran a seamless event and to the other competitors who made it an enjoyable and courteous race. I will be back next year and 2:10 will be in my sights.
the unknown rider 