Pie Eater 100: Part 5 (the finale)

continued from part 4:

Down and down we went, getting massive air over water bars while worrying about where the hell this was going to take us. After what seemed like an age, we saw house lights on our right hand side. Then more houses and our hearts sunk as we had accidentally picked up Lieberts lane and had come down the wrong side of the ridge line. There was no way we were pushing our way back up that hill again, so the call was made to head home via the road.

We road another 15k’s along tarmac and then we were in Kurri and Brad showed off some of his local trails to get us back to Weston. What a change from the Watagans. This suff was hard and fast and oh so flat, we took turn after turn and I was thoroughly lost. I know we passed a train station in the middle of no-where, and there was some kind of old smelter or something, but other than that, we could have been on the moon for all I knew.

Eventually, we crossed some train tracks and popped out at a set of traffic lights in downtown Weston. Brad and I had both found our second wind and could have happily kept riding however dinner was calling and my trip to NZ was getting dauntingly close. So we rolled into chateua de Mertens and feasted on the BBQ goodness that awaited us. Scott was sitting by the fire and the Rocky the dog was happily chewing on the old Racing Ralph that had let me down at the Dirtworks earlier this year.

I ate, I showered, then said my goodbyes and hi-tailed it home having completed half the set course. Brad the crazy bastard had AK heading out for leg 2 of the ride the following day. Scott quickly ruled himself out citing irreconcilable differences with his saddle. Utlimately, I would guesstimate we covered 160k’s although that is pretty rough once the cycle computer stopped working.

So some additional exploration is going to be required to ensure we don’t miss any turns when this ‘event’ is next held. It was gutting to miss riding Killingworth and completing the trifecta of race circuits.

This ride was truly and adventure. Self supported through some seriously difficult terrain. No idea about how the day was going to turn out, or even, if you were going to make the distance. It was one of the best rides I have ever been on and I can’t wait to do it all again!

Disclaimer: I haven’t posted a GPS log of where we road as I don’t know the exact legalities of all the places we went through. I don’t think anything was of concern, but it is better not to publicly advertise it in case I am wrong. If anybody wants an email copy, let me know on pi11wizaard@gmail.com

THE END

Link to Part 1

Link to Part 2

Link to Part 3

Link to Part 4

Pie eater 100: Part 4

continued from part 3….

I had to stop at this point too as I was starting to hit the wall. I inhaled yet more food (god I was sick of eating by this point) and then soldiered on with the thought of the Oak Milk Bar at Freemans waterhole drawing me onwards.

With the sun having set, something had come over B-rad. It was like it had awakened the monster inside him and he was riding away from me. He was just standing and smashing anything that resembled a hill and I was grovelling along trying desperately to hold his wheel.

Somewhere in the dark, we missed a turn off and popped out on the ashphalt road prematurely, so we rolled along the black top into Freemans waterhole where we stopped for yet more food. Caffeine and a sausage roll were inhaled and then we were back at it again.

We picked up yet more single trail that paralleled the main road and followed it unti we reached the paint ball field. Here, we turned off and followed a fire road looking for a branch that would lead off to Killingworth and our third XC track for the day.

The fire road started climbing and we plodded along looking for this side branch. We climbed and climbed and looked and looked but this side branch was no-where to be found. We realized that we had missed it, but having climbed so far already, we didn’t really want to double back in order to try and  pick it up. Clearly this wouldn’t have happened if we still had Scott’s Trail Divining Banana Compass to lead us through the dark.

Our hand was forced, Killingworth clearly wasn’t going to be successful. So we figured our fire trail would climb up to the sugarloaf ridge line and we could follow it across to the old rail corridor, thereby linking up the abandoned tunnels under the hills and take it all the way back to Weston.

Well, we climbed, then we climbed some more, then we climbed some more and every time you thought ‘this can’t possibly go on any longer’, it would pinch and climb yet more steeply. By this stage, we were off the bikes and pushing and even that was almost more than I had left. You would crest a climb only to look up and have your lights illuminate yet another near vertical climb up towards the clouds.

It was now around 2000hrs so we had been riding for 13 hours. AK called Brad on the phone to see how our day had gone and was stunned to hear that we were still out there in the cold on the side of Newcastles biggest hill.

At a T-intersection, there was a decision to be made as to whether we continued climbing on the left branch or followed what appeared to be a descent on the right branch. We knew we were aiming for the ridgeline so figured the climb on the left branch was the most likely choice.

After an age, we finally reached a plateu and then before we knew it we were descending. A little at first, but soon after, it became hair raisingly quick (particularly with only a single bar light on low) and it began to dawn on us that we were descending far to much for this to be the right track.

To be continued….

To Part 5

Link to Part 1

Link to Part 2

Link to Part 3

HMBA rd 5

What a great day. I am so relieved we didn’t make a decision about whether to race or not until the last possible moment. If we had to make a call on saturday night, we probably would have cancelled the round but with a gorgeous sunrise and the track damp and sticky, running the event was really worthwhile.

I actually finished an A grade race (and didn’t come last whatsmore) and managed 4th (from 6) in my grade. I was stronger than i had expected and had a great proxy battle with the 3rd place rider ahead where we where the gap was yo-yoing but I just didnt have it in me to close the gap.

The story of the day is Dr_Rob winning B grade on the single speed. B-rad was grinning like a madman with single speed pride. I am amazed at the form Dr_Rob is showing at the moment and it won’t be long before HMBA has its first (and possibly last ever) A grade single speed rider. Congratulations mate!

Also a big pat on the back is in order for Tim, Mark and Stu who ran things flawlessly at transition in the absence of the usual faces.

29er DIY Ghetto tubeless rim conversion

I think I will call this conversion ‘the sans kit’.

Why? Because it was done without rim strips!

First off, my rims had a plastic spoke cover strip in situ already. I left this in place.

Next I used electrical tape and ran three loops – one on each side of the rim and a final loop up the middle. I was extremely careful to ensure the tape went partway up the sidewall but didn’t interfere with the bead hook. I ran the tap directly over the valve hole.

I next made use of some liquid latex that I had laying around from my DIY tyre sealant and painted two thin layers of latex over the top of the tape. Again, i was extremely careful to ensure I didn’t get a big blob of it under the bead hook that would interfere with the tyre sealing against the rim.

I had a couple of spare mavic tubless valve kits from a previous ebay order which I used for the valves. While the latex was still wet, I poked the valve straight through the electrical tape and snugged it up tightly. Hopefully the liquid latex will dry and seal the rubber valve base against the tape. It certainly looked very promising while I was doing it.

I left the latex to dry for 10 minutes or so and then mounted up the tyre. The tyre i chose for the first experiment was a maxxis Ardent 2.25 folding bead tyre for the front. I have heard good reports and it looks like a nice compromise between rolling resistance and cornering grip. It certainly looks so much faster than the Kenda surprise (read: Nevegals) that came on it.

I was very disconcerted when I tried to fit the tyre to the wheel – The bead was quite loose and I could comfortably get the tyre on by hand. In fact, It was close to being described as a ‘loose’ fit.

I added 100mls of sealant – since I had some ‘true blue tyre goo’ from a swag bag at a race, it was my sealant of choice.

Somewhat foolishly, i decided to have a go with a track pump to see if i could inflate it. I pumped like a madman – nothing. Not even close. Next I tried laying the tyre on its side and swirling to get the sealant to contact the tyre bead ( i repeated on both sides). Then I pumped like a madman again. Sealant was bubbling out everywhere, but before I knew it, I had pressure! I actually aired up a loose fitting 29er tyre with a freaking track pump! Especially since I didn’t need to resort to the soapy water trick. Incredible!

So I pumped it up to 60 psi and left the tyre on its side to seal one of the beads, I turned it about 15 minutes later and repeated several times. There was quite a bit of bubbling of sealant around the bead at first, but with each turn, the amount of air leaks decreased until there was no more. 8 hours later and the tyre is still as hard as a rock…. WIN!

So onto the small block 8. Track pump – no success. Car compressor (37L/min) – no success. Garage compressor (lots L/min) – no success. Small block 8’s are not meant to be tubeless….

The Pie Eater 100: Part 3

Continued from part 2…

After bottoming out in Martinsville, we took the main road through to Cooranbong. It was now about 1600hrs and we found a general store that was open and we trudged in like refugees and our eyes lit up with the sheer enormity of choice available. Everywhere Brad looked, he would let out an “Ooooohhhhhhh” and then turn and find something else that took his fancy and then say it again. We filled our bottles from the taps, ate our fill and then wearily climbed back onto the bikes. At least that was the hard part over as 10 k’s in the Watagans feels like 20k’s anywhere else.

We rolled along a backroad in Cooranbong and then Brad took a sneaky side road that led into a gap between properties used for livestock passage in the ye olde days. This turned out to be some great, flat and fast riding and we were smoking along. Another couple of sneaky access trails and turn offs and we were entering a section of trail called ‘Bangalow’ which is also some kind of wildlife preserve.

Brad and I had motored on ahead seeing who could climb up the ridiculous pinch climbs so we stopped for a break. We caught our breath and then Gaz caught up and we chatted away for a while before I realized “where’s Scott?” I decided to double back as we had ridden some sketchy descents and was starting to get worried. Thankfully I saw Scott coming the other way however he was covered in dirt and had leaves and sticks coming out of his helmet so he had obviously hit the ground pretty hard. On the worst of the descents, he had washed out and stunned himself when he hit the ground and he wasn’t quite sure how long he had been sitting there before he got back on the bike. He seemed coherent enough and said he had o injuries other than pride but it was a close call none the less.

We motored along through Bangalow, popped out the other side and we were at Awaba…. Hallelujah! That sounded like a massive achievement having ridden from Ourimbah to Awaba, then it dawned on me that Weston is still a hell of along way away. We sat down in the car park at Awaba as Gaz had pre-arranged a rendezvu and a ride home. My speedo showed 101 kms so Gaz had done his first century and certainly done it the hard way.

We watched the sun set while we chatted and put our lights on. I had no idea how much longer we were going to be riding for so elected to only mount the bar light. I would use it until it died and then mount the helmet light if needed so that I could effectively double my run time.

We set off to complete our lap of Awaba and then move on to Killingworth although we elected to run the Blue loop since the climb on the red loop just wasn’t appealing after 100k’s in the legs. It was at this time I noticed my speedo had stopped working. I was checking the wheel sensor and scratching my head and it wasn’t until many kilometres later I realized it was the Magicshine light causing interference with my wireless cycle computer. Alas, I now knew I wasn’t going to be able to get a final tally on the overall k’s for the day.

We snuck out of Awaba on Frogmouth rd and then followed Jenkins trail and Becks Rd out towards Freeman’s Waterhole. At this point, Scott was running on fumes and knew he wasn’t going to be able to finish the ride. Admirably, he elected to ride back to Weston on the asphalt rather than call in a lift home. So we parted company at the junction with another sneaky B-rad single track.

to be continued….

To Part 4

Link to Part 1

Link to Part 2

Anybody want some Infinit?

I was just tidying up the house and came across a full bag of infinit nutrition lemon/lime formula. Since racing a 12 hour and a 24 hour with it as my sole drink choice, I can’t even look at it anymore. I thought it was going to be the answer to my hydration issues but I found it doesn’t help hydration much if you can’t bear to drink anymore of it.

Anyone local want to swing by and take it off my hands? Otherwise I can take it to a club round if that is easier (not that it is looking like there will be one this month 😦 )

The Pie Eater 100: Part 2

continued from part 1…

Red Hill Road was a serious climb as we gained around 350 meters in only a couple of kilometres. Brad was running 32×18 on the 29er single speed and was in the hurt box right from the get-go. He had to be motoring up the hill to stay on top of the gear so we quickly gapped Scott and Gaz. You could tell Gaz was behind us somewhere as there was an unholy coughing fit going on that sounded like a 3^rd world smoker with tuberculosis. I commented on it and Brad just smiled and said that Gaz was sounding good today…. eek!

We rolled across the top of the ridgeline and then linked up to a section of the great north walk. This was a magic bit of trail. There were a few hike a bike sections but there was also some of the prettiest and best flowing single track around. Soon after it widened out slowly and began descending and it just went on and on. I didn’t think it was ever going to stop.  We popped out and rejoined Bumble Hill Rd(?) just as a group of roadies were passing and they were rather surprised (“where the hell did you guys come from?”).

At the bottom of the hill, we reached our first optional re-supply point. There was a small convenience store at a petrol station but we were all still right for supplies and elected to keep on rolling.

There was no way to do the next section on single tracks so far as we were aware and rode the tar and gravel roads through the valley and then stopped for a break at the bottom of the next big climb. This was of similar height to Red Hill Road, but was a little less steep and with some conversation to pass the time while we suffered, it was soon behind us.

B-rad and Scott at our first rest break.

Now we were up into the Watagan Mountains ‘proper’ and some sweet single track beckoned. By this point Scott and Gaz were starting to feel the heat of the day and the unrelenting hills and while there was miles and miles of motorbike trail to ride on, the going was extremely tough. The general lay of the land for the next 10 k’s was a gradually climb, but it undulated with some steep pinches and descents so the call was made to ride uphill on the fire road and then pick up single track branches wherever the trail started to point downhill.

This gave us the best of both worlds and some of the single track was the best I have ever ridden. Undualating, technical, bermed, jumps everywhere – basically nirvana.

By the time we reached the pines campground, it was mid afternoon and we were all suffering. We stopped for lunch and my bag of twisties was summarily inhaled along with whatever else I could easily lay my hands upon including bananas, snickers and more chips. Unfortunately, the water here wasn’t suitable for drinking and the call was made to get water from Muir’s lookout as we had road-tested that water on an unsuspecting Landon a couple of weeks earlier. As far as we knew, he was still alive.

So we rolled the fire road to Muirs and then continued along Nationals and other various tracks which was essentially a 400 meter descent over a couple of kilometres. Just brilliant riding, words fail to describe what a fantastic piece of riding this is.

To be continued……

To part 3

The Pie Eater 100 report: Part 1

The Pie Eater 100 report : Part 1

What is the Pie Eater 100?

I guess you could just describe it as a rather large social ride. The plan was to complete 100 miles a day for each day of the weekend taking in as much single track as possible and linking Ourimbah, Awaba and Killingworth in the process. Then crashing overnight at Brads house in Weston before continuing the second day on some of Brads local trails.

With a NZ trip looming on the Sunday, I could only do Day one and I decided it would make the most sense logistically if I crashed in Sunny Weston on the Friday night so that I could hop a lift with the other riders out to the starting point.

Soon after arriving and having a fantastic dinner, I realized I had no food for the following day so I made a B-line for Kurri Bi-lo at 9pm. Let us just say there were some interesting locals out. I think every psychotic methadone patient in Kurri was in attendance with my favourite being a gentleman I mentally named “twitchy”. Twitchy was clearly on the lookout for the ‘fuzz’ and was as skinny as a beanpole, covered in tats and shuffled along like a man old before his time.

My choices of food were interesting, chips, twisties, muesli bars, bananas, mini snickers bars, fruit sticks (you know those things that are like fruit flavoured musk sticks and are essentially sugar in stick form). No energy gels and protein bars to be found in Kurri Kurri my friend J

Temps were in the single digits overnight and it was freaking cold packing the car in the morning. I put on arm and leg warmers along with a merino under layer hoping it would be enough to keep me warm until the sun gained some heat.

Where was the starting point I hear you ask?

Ourimbah at 0700 hours saw four intrepid soles front the starting line, Obviously there was B-rad (aka ‘QZ13’; aka ‘the pie eater from Weston’) and myself, however Gaz (aka Gazpics) and Scott (aka ‘ebuk’;, aka ‘Scott on the Scott at the Scott’; aka ‘the ninja’) were the only ones stupid… I mean brave enough to give it a go. There had been many fine excuses including groin injuries, apathy, working and house moving to which we all thumbed out noses.

We started off with a lap of the Ourimbah track where Scott employed an interesting banana holster. We decided he would be our navigator for the day, we would just ride in whichever direction the banana pointed.

It quickly became apparent that one of my bottle cages on my bike is all but useless as I reached down for a drink to find the bottle gone. I hadn’t even ridden a kilometre yet! Thankfully Scott picked it up so I stashed it in my pack.

I don’t think I have ever ridden Ourimbah at a social pace before and it was quite hard to wind back the pace enough as muscle memory just wanted to take over down the roller coaster. The lap was uneventful however I did get so see the mythical Ourimbah pump track and roll a few laps.

Lap complete, the hard work was about to begin as we were heading for Awaba and the only way to link it up via dirt was to tackle Red-hill road.

To Part 2

Digging in the rain

Since I had some time on my hands and was already filthy from riding Proud Mary around in the rain, a little bit of Awaba trail work was called for.

I spent about 5 hours benching at a particularly off camber and unappealing corner at the bottom of a steep descent. With the aid of the club wheelbarrow, I collected all the dirt from the benching and have started making the berm to end all berms. It isn’t very high at the moment, perhaps knee height, but there is a ridiculous amount of benching to go and if I collect all the tailings and dump them at that corner, it is going to become quite an entertaining spot.

There was a rock in the middle of the trail that protrudes quite a way so I figured I would dig it out. After close to an hour of slogging away and a hole a meter deep on all sides and still no end in site, i left well enough along and will probably have to just smash the top of the rock and leave the rest of it buried. Thank god for sandstone.

Anyways, here is a little walk through video featuring the immovable rock and the start of the berm on the right hand side.

ps: The leech count was fairly meagre today. I think I only have four or five marks on my legs, although one did start walking up my arm when I got home and was throwing my socks in the washing machine – sneaky little bugger.

First ride on the single speed

My shiny new bike is now filthy and muddy. Foot rub has taken some of the paint off the crank arms and cable rub has marked the paint aswell. In short, it isn’t new any longer.

Since I am still on annual leave, I took the single speed for a maiden voyage in the pouring rain. There was a section of trail near awaba that I wanted to check out after briefly visiting it with B-rad during the Pie Eater 100. It was a hoot, my biggest complaint about the whole mornings ride was the amount of mud I got in my eyes from the Nevegals. My lord they can throw some clay around!

The bike was faultless and the full rigid didn’t take too much getting used to. In fact, it was just like being a kid again since I started out mountain biking on full rigid steel frames in the early 90’s. Halfway through the ride I stopped and inverted the stem and rolled the handlebars forward a little to try and lengthen the cockpit a little, it seems a KHS medium frame is a relatively small medium. This small change made a world of difference and now the bike has gone from feeling far to upright, to fitting like a glove.

The big wheels do a great job of smoothing out trail chatter and go a little way towards compensating for the lack of suspension. In fact, I think i might call this bike ‘Proud Mary” after the CCR song which gets stuck on repeat in my head while riding this bike.

With the weather not really looking like improving, there is a small chance I might be running single speed at the next club round to save the drive train on the anthem….. we shall see.