Finishing what I started

Another hot day. low 30’s – hot and windy.

Picked up some more wood from the build stash and headed off to finish off my retaining wall/berm.

Forgot to put air in the wheelbarrow tyre  – it took quite some effort to get the wheelbarrow down the hillside.

Log roll overs are the mortal enemy of the laden wheelbarrow, it is like an eject button for whatever you are carrying. Who let me build one there anyway??

The building went quite well. No where near as much digging this time which meant I didn’t tire as quickly which made it much more enjoyable.

The retaining wall is sunk around 70cm into the ground and backfilled with rocks. There are two rows of 3mm steel cable anchored with star pickets to support the top of the wall. U nails keep the wire in the right place. The whole structure is really solid. It has a little bit of a backwards lean which is what I was aiming for so  that it would hold the dirt of the berm a little better.

The wood is joined together by galvanised steel strapping and nailed.

A heap of dirt and rocks filled the void between the embankment the sleepers and packed down really nicely. Once the top layer of dirt hardens, there shouldn’t really be any load applied to the wall as riders go by. The wall is just keeping all the dirt in place.

It isn’t the biggest berm ever made, but it should have a really nice shape and there is a really promising ‘hook’ at the bottom that should let you hold lots and lots of speed.

There is still another much smaller berm that I need to add slightly further uphill so there will be a series of three berms following the creek bed before you cross the bridge.

The dangers of being idle…

Four hours was all it took me this morning before I became bored with sitting still and needed to be doing something.

Lunch at a cafe with the Mrs soon turned into a mission to find a local bicycle co-op which I had heard whispers about. My objective was to find a once loved, long neglected bike and turn it into my very own pump track pony.

The co-op tured out to be a house in the middle of suburbia that was stewn wtih every sort of old bicycle imaginable. At the entrance way there were a couple of dozen long term loan/sale bikes and the rest of the assorted bits an pieces were in piles beneath plastic sheeting. I was free to rummage amongst the free section and in the end I came up with two bikes that I could foreseeably combine to produce a single serviceable bike.

With 30 minutes of spanner work, I had a single working bike and my entry ticket to the single speed brotherhood. The first time swung a leg over it, i ran into the fence four time as i wobbled my way out into the street. 20 inch wheels sure are lively. I couldn’t help but grin stupidly as I popped wheelies and jumped gutters like a 10 year old all over again.

As soon as I can locate a spoke wrench, I will give the rear wheel a bit of a tune (the spokes are as loose as a bowl of spaghetti at the moment) then take it out to awaba for some pump track goodness. Perhaps tomorrow or tuesday as I continue to finish my XC track modifications.

 

awaba pump track construction

 

 

No trail building today

Despite having the day off work, the weather is not going to allow trail building today. We have gone from 40+ temps to 20 degrees and constant rain. With all this rain, there is no way the access road will be passable in the outback and I refuse to walk in all the equipment I need so it will have to wait until the weekend. I was really looking forward to it aswell 😦

 

Sydney Spring Fat Tyre festival

My last race for the year and what a way to go out!

Friday was really hot in newcastle, saturday was bearable, today was unbearable. The temps easily reached 40 degree c with a howling westerly wind blowing hot air in from central Australia.

Thankfully I was smart enough to avoid signing up for this as a solo, instead I ran in a team “The Newie Cogheads”. A great group of guys and as it turns out, a pretty good race outfit.

Due to the insane heat and the resultant series of bad accidents from dehydrated and semi-conscious riders, the organizers thankfully decided to call the race short. So this year it was the 6.25 hours of power.

Of note, both former world solo 24 hour racers Gordo and Jason English turned up and slogged it our for the first 4 or 5 laps. After which, Gordo made a break and continued to power on and ultimately won by over a lap. It isn’t often you see someone lap Jason English in an enduro event, however today evidentially wasn’t his day. As Jen English mentioned to the Danbot, there is simply no way a solo rider can hope to replace all the fluid they were losing today while racing flat out. Something has to give. After winning the Highland Fling and this race today, Gordo is showing some amazing form.

So the Cogheads got a trophy and some schwag for our troubles and some memories of a day where I was able to drink 6 litres of fluid in 5 hours and still feel thirsty. Silliness. Good times though.

More trail building

I did a little freelance trail building this morning before the official build day started.

Since I really wanted to get some lumber in to build a retaining wall/berm and there was no way I was going to carry it all from the carpark several kilometers away, I needed to open up jenkins trail (access road) so that I could get my car down it without scratching all the paint off it due to the overgrowth. What I had estimated would take me an hour of slashing with the machete turned into a 3 hour epic mission. Thankfully, all went well and I managed to get the car all the way to the nearest access point despite the greasy conditions and the sub par car tyres.

I picked up some lumber and drove it back around to the start point then loaded the wheelbarrow up so that it was ridiculously overfull and struggled and cursed it the whole way to the build site.

I also installed my newest sign, so named after a long abandoned “medicinal” herb garden that we stumbled across while building.

 

While the rest of the build crew pushed through with some new trail, I spent several hours attempting to dig a hole in the rock littered watercourse so that I could get my little berm finished. Alas, there wasn’t enough hours in the day and it will have to be finished on tuesday ( I hope).  I still need to find some more long timber to help finish it off.

Again the leeches were vicious. I had 7 or 8 on my legs and they even manage to sneak inside your gloves while you aren’t looking.

After 10 hours digging, slashing and pushing wheelbarrows – I was spent. A single post build beer with the guys and I was ready for bed. Happy days.

More bricks wanted

This saturday is the next Awaba build day and there is a LOT of work needed to be done before the new trail network will be ready to open. I certainly think it is looking unlikely that it will be ready before The Vestral Virgin 10 hour in a few weeks time.

In readiness for this weekends digging, a way to armour the “chute”  was needed. Enter B-rad and a questionable source of Besa-blocks. We traveled to the site of said blocks and proceeded to liberate them from their mortar shackles and filled the ute with nearly 50 blocks.

At this point it became apparent that the ute could use some air in its tyres as it wandered all over the road and the look on B-rads face told me that the fact the car was staying on the road had little to do with the inputs he was giving it and more to do with luck.

 

Unhappy tyres

With 50 PSI now in the tyres (The cars load chart said to put 65 in it but B-rad was too chicken 🙂 )  we set off for the drop zone on the track. The access road is sketchy at best with lots of puddles, steep hills and bumpy descents. To sketchy it turns out for the  mazda as it suddenly lost all drive with us stuck in the middle of no-where, facing a 15k walk back to my car. Initially Brad thought the clutch had popped, so we wandered off to check out the track while we assessed our options.

 

 

The little Mazda that could no more

 

 

When we got back to the car, it entered our heads that it wasn’t the clutch at all, and was in fact the transfer casing. A quick shift to 2wd soon proved our theory, so we unloade most of the blocks and drove them to the drop zone in three passes to ensure we didn’t put any further undue stress on the old mazdas drive line.

 

old bricky

 

 

With the blocks now safely dropped off, we realized that there wouldn’t be enough bricks to armor more than 50% of the chute, and we were going to need to find a lot more from somewhere to finish the job.

 

Then we headed off to install my newest trail sign. So named after B-rad (aka the pie eater) who single handedly scratched in a techy linking section to offer something different to the standard XC trails currently on offer.

With that, bacon and egg roll’s and milkshakes were consumed at Freemans waterhole before realizing the day had slipped away and it was time to head for home.

With a bit of luck, we will get half a million people to the next build day and make some real progress!

 

Bike Finishes Race Without Rider Video

I hope someone gets a chuckle out of this like I did.

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HMBA rd 11

Too bloody hot.

Unlike the rest of the world, there is a very good reason why MTBing is a winter sport in Australia. With temps around 31 degrees c by 10:30 am, it was very hard work today.

In keeping with my recent form, I placed third in B grade again. There was never any chance of catching 2nd place, He is a strong road rider with a big motor and his mountain bike skills are increasing every day.

I was stating to cramp on the last lap since I couldn’t drink fast enough to keep my fluids up. With limited places to get your hands off the bars long enough to take a drink, I was glad I was only doing four laps.

Next weekend is a teams 8.25 hour race at Ourimbah and then the season is over.

I have tuesday off and a trip to gather up bessa blocks to armour some new parts of the track may be organized. I really enjoy a good working B, and since this one should be leech free, I am even more excited.

The highland fling

Had to work on saturday morning so forfeited my entry to the bundanoon dash since I couldnt’ get there in time.

 

Our trusty chariot for the commute

 

 

Staying in a hotel the night before is the business. No noisy camp grounds etc.

Sleepy little rural centres with big wide streets and a 70 year old pizza/pasta bars are fantastic. Perfect for pre race carbo loading. They are even better when they have been visited by the likes of Kamahl, Gough Whittlam and Slim Dusty

The hall of fame

Carbo loading

Paragon restaurant - downtown Goulburn

McDonalds for breakfast pre-event is the devils work. It will never ever be repeated again under any circumstances. Never.

Rego’ing the day before is fantastic – such a stress free race morning with race plates and transponders already affixed to the bikes. Just turn up for the briefing and ride.

Parking was amazing. I have never been to such a large event where everything went so smoothly. Well done wild horizons.

I couldn’t get excited about the race, from the time I got out of bed, it all seemed too hard. I could have gladly driven home rather than competing. It is the first time I have been apathetic about a race. If you had asked my 6 weeks ago, i was more excited about the Fling than the Scott.  I guess it is the end of season catching up with me.

As per usual, my  self seeding went astray and we were stuck in a mele of foot dabbers, hike a bikers and elbows out race ragers. Thankfully it sorted itself out by 25k mark.

Start line race face

Seeded well back in the pack

The fast riders took a wrong turn and climbed to the top of a big hill, before realizing their error. turning around and barging their way through the slower riders. Utter chaos.

Feeling ok to start with, overcast skies and cool temps.

Feeling like shite at 40k’s. Starting to overheat and completely forgot to drink. Stupid camel back. The last time I ever race with one of them – at least with biddon’s I can see how much I have drunk.

40-70k’s were not much fun. Cursing the ridiculous humidity. Cursing the never ending hills. Cursing my stupid legs for now refusing to be able to use anything but granny gear for climbing. Cursing granny gear for not being low enough since I now run a 11-32 rather than 11-34 cassette. I gave up on finishing sub 6 hours. There was no way.

Riding 100k’s with wet shoes isn’t fun. Hike a bikes through mid thigh deep creek beds is refreshing initially but demoralizing when they are timed to exactly match the distance it takes for your feet to dry out.

Re-lubing my chain at the last transition was a god send. Thank so much Lachy. It sounded DREADFUL after riding a creek crossing that was well over my bottom bracket and washing ALL the lube off my chain with no hope of re-lubing for the next 50k’s. Loud, and horendously inefficient.

Realizing that there was a really slim chance I might actually finish sub 6 hours at the last transition point. 25ish k’s in 48 minutes….. please god let it be flat, fast fire trail.

Nearly bonking 4k’s from home. Clamy, faint, confused… Gu gives false economy. You feel great for 30 minutes then it drops you in a heap. I had to eat a mars bar with 4 k’s to go just to be sure I was going to make it.

On my speedo, it showed 5 hours 58 minutes. There were a few timing anomalies that I think will work in my favour and a few that will go against me. I didn’t see what time I crossed the line so officially, I may or may not have actually broken 6 hours. But until I find out otherwise, I am claiming it! (update: 5:57 confirmed, woohooo!)

 

Me looking washed out at the finished.

 

 

Kudos to Dr Rob who did a u-turn and backtracked 10 k’s to help a rider who broke both wrists and lost consciousness. That is good MTB Karma.

 

Dr Rob having completed a "fling and a bit"

Gresho at the finish line

 

Stuart pondering the mechanics required to lower himself to the ground without cramping

 

 

 

Post ride beer is good. Free post ride pasta salad is a god send. Post ride beer and pasta with random people you just met after finishing is what this sport is all about. Thanks for the beer Graham and Craig.

Carbon neutral events are a great environmental concept. Way to go wild horizons.

This race is way harder than I had given it credit for. The track was really much tougher than a predominantly firetrail course has any right to be. On the last climb about 6 k’s from home I was cursing it and vowing never to do it ever again. Now I am planning how I can do it better. Stupid bikes, stupid suffering on bikes. Why do I do it to myself?

Track build day.

It is hard work being a track fairy. We kicked off around 7:30 and we were spent by 12:30. We managed to etch in another 500m or so of track through some of the deepeset, darkest, vine infested wilderness that Awaba had to throw at us.  There are some really beautiful spots out there and one creek crossing that is just gorgeous, the camera doesn’t really do it justice. I spent some time getting aquatinted with the mattock while benching in a section just prior to the creek crossing. Everyone went off ahead and after I gathered up my assortment of tools and headed off after them, I misplaced a footstep and proceeded to slip off a slimy log and fling myself out into the middle of the creek. Somehow I managed to only put one foot in the creek (to about waist deep) so had one dry and one wet sock for the rest of the morning. It was pretty hilarious but there was no-one there to witness it.

 

The creek I fell into

Random section of newly cleared trail

 

 

The leeches were out in record numbers. At one point we stopped working for a minute and looked down at the leaf litter and they were litterally everywhere! If you drew a square 1m x 1m , there would have been at least 20-30 of them per square meter all slowly marching towards us. Needless to say we got out of there real quick. It didn’t stop them getting us however. I think I had 7 or 8 bites at the end of the day. There were also three big fat striped leeches on my shin as I was getting changed for a ride  – they looked like my shin had sprouted a bunch of grapes. Everyone who went riding had blood red socks by then end of the ride as they just kept bleeding.

 

the joy of leeches

 

 

I have doodled on an outline of the track to show a rough estimate of where we worked today. The circled section is what we achieved today, while the first half of the yellow trail was built during the last build day. There are still some large bridges and solid digging needed before the yellow trail will be rideable.

The light blue section will be the return leg and will need to be completed before the trail is opened. The yellow and blue legs will probably add 2-3 kms of additional track length which will be a 30% increase to the overall track length. There is one MONSTER pinch climb on the blue trail which might need some kind of alternate route as it was hard enough walking up it, let alone riding it.

An inaccurate scribble of the trail building progress