Watch me wallaby speed mate.

Over the last few days, I had got to wondering what was up higher above the pie line at awaba. With all the greasy mud in the low lying areas during the club round, it would make sense to find an alternative route higher up the hillside. I had also heard whispers that “skids r4 kids” is at the same altitude as the top the S-bend climb and that there might be a possibility of following a contour that leads the whole way around the ridgeline and linking the two. So I went for a wander to check it out for myself.

Wallabies are fat lazy bastards but they are the perfect trail builders. If you follow a wallaby trail, they never go up or downhill, they always follow the contour line around. So much so, that I have often wondered about wallaby genetic lines. I am pretty sure you could tell what level a wallaby lives on the hill by tracing its genetic profile, since it would be quite possible for two wallabies living no further than 10m higher or lower than each other to never meet since it would require too much effort on their behalf to get to a different level.

So thinking like a wallaby, I picked up a trail a little higher than the current track and followed it. In fact, I followed it quite a long way. At times i had to do the must un-wallaby like thing and move up or down a level, but I was able to follow their trails across several watercourse crossings and quite a long way around the ridgeline. At this point, I felt sure I was going to be able to get all the way around to S-bend with bugger all effort on my behalf – just like a good wallaby would do it.

That is when it went pear shaped. Firstly it started with Lantana. A little bit at first but soon it was a freakin impenetrable mess of skin tearing hate sticks. “It will open out on the other side” I kept telling myself. Then the Lantana gave way to the palm trees. Not the lovely coconut dropping hammock poles you find on a tropical island., more the thorn covered death matrix you would find in satans garden. Convinced I would push through it in just a moment, I pushed on, stopping occasionally to dig thorns out of my arm or look for the ‘awaba cougar ‘as things rustled in the bushes. Soon the palm trees gave way to a mine field of moss covered rocks and tangled vines. Surely I must nearly be there…..

No, In fact, I was now at a waterfall where the watercourse below it was crazy steep and littered with boulders the size of a volkswagon. Sensing this might prove difficult terrain to build trail in (note the sarcasm), I beat a hasty retreat to lament what could have been. There may well be a way through that mess that could harbor a trail but it might take days and days of walking to find it and I don’t know that I have enough skin and blood to sustain me through such a quest. A couple of offsiders might prove useful for this one, maybe I will take the single speeders up there and tell them there is beer at S-bend, That should cut a trail in pretty quickly.

HMBA night race

I am currently in the process of organizing a night race at Awaba and it should be a lot of fun. I am hoping we can use it as a fund raiser for the Rescue Helicopter although I have to sort some paperwork first before I can advertise it as such. As soon as that is taken care, I will start advertising it everywhere and watch the people start flocking in. Seriously though, it will be in september (so that it isn’t so freakin cold) and will use a highly modified version of the yellow loop to try and make things a little different instead of riding the same old course all the time.

Why the yellow loop ? Well, I would like it to be a night where the rescue helicopter doesn’t actually have to attend and including the chute in a graded race at night may require multiple trips from the chopper.

B-rad is attempting to make this the unofficial single speed state titles, So i guess I am going to have to find somewhere on course for a beer stop. At this point, I am terming it a ‘single speed smackdown’ since I don’t have any form of credibility amongst single speeding circles and would probably be lynched for declaring any kind of state single speed title. I might leave that for B-rad to do amongst the grape vine so that I don’t make a douche of myself (more than this blog already does).

Notes to self:

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this weekends race. Mostly about where the hell that tree came from that jumped out in front of me and swatted me like a bug. But also the areas of my racing that I can improve upon. I think I have figured two key areas that I can dramatically improve.

1. I suck at hill climbing. I get there eventually, but I just can’t do it quickly. Too much weight and not enough power is the key here. There is some serious hill work coming up in my immediate future. The B grade racers who were being lapped by Cameron Ivory describe him as floating up the hill. They were pretty awestruck by the spectacle whereas anyone watching me would be hard pressed to describe my hill climbing efforts as anything other than lumbering. Now I never expect to be able to race outright against Cameron et al, but perhaps that might have something to do with point 2 than the inherent genetics involved.

2. I often psych myself out before I even get to the start line.  I always feel I was much fitter at the last race than I am for this one. So I figured some numbers might shed some light on how true that perception actually is. We ran the same course for HMBA round 3 vs rd 6. I DNF’d in round 3 after I talked myself out of completing a final lap. So for a 4 lap total, I was over 5 minutes faster for round 6. That comes as a bit of revelation to me as that’s a fair chunk of time and gets me a quite psyched to keep making inroads in my race against myself.

In other news, my shoulder continues to hurt – particularly with abduction against resistance which has me self diagnosed as a supraspinatus injury. It is certainly better than it was yesterday afternoon, but there is clearly something ‘not right’ in there that I want checked out.  I am booked in at the physio for wednesday to get  a proper diagnosis and some advice about how to approach my recovery.

HMBA XC club round 6

Well, what an awesome days racing. I think the club is really starting to hit its stride with club events. Good music on the PA, steak sandwiches on the BBQ and a reasonable turnout for a chilly morning following a week of intermittent rain.

My race didn’t really go as planned. Firstly, I was the only muppet amongst the A grade field. Everyone else on the start line was an elite representative rider. The only other A graders were  Trenton Day, Cameron Ivory and Chris Aitken. So I knew I was going to be in for a long lonely race as I wouldn’t be seeing them again as they disappeared into the distance. That is pretty much how things went, however it got a whole lot harder about half way through the second lap when a sneaky tree jumped out infront of me.

Just after the Mawkes creek bridge is a little shimmy between a tree and a rock and I attempted to slot through it while traveling at mach 10. Needless to say, my timing was way out and I broadsided the tree. Collecting it with my hip and the very point of my shoulder. Somehow I stayed upright and continued riding however my hand went numb and took several minutes before I could grip the bar again with any strength. It was soon pretty apparent that I had done something to my shoulder however as I couldn’t stand and haul against the bars without acute stabbing pain.

I soldiered on and completed the race but my lap times went down the gurgler as the punchy climbs were all but impossible when I couldn’t stand and smash my way up them. Funnily enough, I didn’t wind up last in A grade however as Robbie from drift missed the start and rolled around about 5 or 6 minutes behind me.

Some steak sandwhiches after the race went a long way to easing the pain and I sat and gas bagged with other riders for over an hour before heading home. A fantastic day to be racing, brilliant weather and a single thought resonating in my mind… a bad days racing is still better than a good day at work.

R.I.P Dave

Today I am sad. Truly, honestly and deeply sad at the departure of someone I never met. Someone on the other side of the world who I have only ever seen in pictures and read his words as he chronicled his love of cycling.

Dave Blumenthal passed away this morning in Denver hospital after suffering severe head injuries in a cycling accident. Dave was participating in the Tour Divide and was putting in a stellar performance. Having covered close enough to 2000 miles through snow covered high altitude passes, sleeping in bear country and battling his way through impenetrable mud, Dave was killed in a collision with a car.

The Tour Divide has captivated me for the last couple of months. Particularly the last fortnight as I watched the dramas unfold on the other side of the world from the comfort of my lounge chair.  It was the first website I would check in the morning and the last I checked before going to bed as I eeked out every little piece of information I could find about this unfathomably difficult adventure people were undertaking.

It’s strange how you can feel like a part of a community amongst a group of strangers on an internet forum. How the internet can bring people closer together without them ever actually meeting. Yet somehow it does and so much so that I felt sick in my stomach when i first read the news. I stared in disbelief at the screen and tried to explain to work colleagues why this meant so much to me.

To be honest, I don’t know that I can rationalize why it does. I guess I can empathize with Dave’s passion for riding, his love of the great outdoors and his adoration for his family. Just to be riding the divide, he was ‘living the dream’ and ultimately, it cost him everything.

I’m not a religious man, but I would like to think that wherever Dave is now, there is a never ending supply of single track which is forever slightly downhill. Perhaps on a dually which never has any suspension bob and a tubeless wheel-set that never gets a puncture and always seals.

Dave, I may never have met you, but I will always remember you.

Training fail: Goat win

Well, no kilometers were done today. Training has been pretty sporadic at the moment. Instead, i went to a goat farm…

You see, there is much room for a comprehensive network of single track on this goat farm and a willing owner means that at some point in the distant future a private mountain bike park might appear. Lots of walking, digging and thinking to be done before that becomes a reality however.

Until such times, another pie eater bike packing mission is planned for 17/18/19 July. Shoot me an email if you are interested in coming along.

Happy Trails!

Amusing things:

Guess what I just received in the mail? Give up? That’s right – my dirtworks number plate! The organizers couldn’t find about 200 plates at rego and so we raced without them and just used the timing chips. Now it has to be some 6 weeks after the actual race, so where on earth has this thing been?Now don’t get me wrong, I have a wall covered in number plates and this bad boy is going right up in the middle of them, but i got a chuckle when i opened the envelope.

Yesterdays commute again turned into a watersport. It was dry on the way to work, but the heavens opened on my ride home which seems to be the norm at the moment. To add insult to injury, my ‘magicshine’ crapped itself. I charged it overnight but as soon as i plugged it in, the light showed the red ‘low voltage’ warning……..hmm – not good. I shunned the offer of a lift home and pedalled off into the night like the brainless tool that I am.

I made it about halfway and then it died around Sandgate. No biggie I figured, at least there are street lights most of the way from there. What I hadn’t counted on was the Newcastle Knights game that was between me and home. Let me just day, there are few things more scary than riding a bike in the dark and rain without a headlight through the melee of bogans attempting to park cars. Just terrifying – give me the Awaba rock garden any day!

I got out of bed this morning and it was dark. I noted as I made a coffee that the bar light was still plugged in and showing that annoying red status light that had heralded doom the night before. I didn’t’ think anything more of it until I walked out of the room and when I returned 5 minutes later, the status light was now green and the freaking light had happily switched itself onto high beam! I don’t think magicshines like water…

Pie Eater 1.01.SE – Ride report: Part 5

Link to  part 1:

Link to  part 2:

Link to part 3:

Link to part4:

Once we hit the fire trails, my mood was buoyed as I could at least ride these bits. There were some serious fire road climbs to get across to Killi and I attacked them with gusto since there was at least a chance I might make it up them.

Riding Killingworth again was just a revelation. The trails haven’t changed one bit. They are still fast, flowing and technical with the odd rock or two thrown in. In fact, with high pressure tyres and all the bumps, it became too much for my frame bag and the Velcro undid. I stopped, hooked it back up again and continued on at mach 2 between the trees – simply awesome.

We arrived at the car park and realized my frame bag had again undone up the top and was now serving as a bottom bracket bag and I hadn’t even noticed it was there. Even after all the logs and bumps I had ridden over! Some trail side cable ties soon ensured there was no way the bag was coming off again and we set off for the last climb of the day.

The old downhill track at Killingworth climbs right up to the top of Sugarloaf Mt. I managed to climb 90% of the way up and was only defeated by some wheel spin near the top. Along the way we were discussing how rednecks loved to take 4×4’s up here and we were greeted by several 4×4’s attempting to climb what amounted to a staircase on steroids. Somehow they managed to get the cars up there which left us scratching our heads about why you would bother…. I am betting they were saying the same thing about us after we went past.

We popped out at the summit of sugarloaf and rolled down the road before taking more fire trail to link up with the Tiny town of Stockrington. At this point, I finished the last of my food and we mounted up lights for the run back into Weston.

We followed the old rail corridor and passed through the old train tunnels as we rode through boulder fields, quick sand and all manner of puddles and trail nasty’s. The rail corrdor popped out on George Booth Drive and we single filed along the road with me at the rear since I was the only one with a red blinky light.

Brad was pushing the pace along the road and I as completely spun out at around 130rpm desperately trying to hold onto the group.

We picked up a fire road which brad affectionately called ‘the yellow brick road’ that led all the way back into Kurri and got us away from the hordes of P platers that were intent on harassing us at every opportunity.

From there, we linked up random ‘back yard trails’ of Brads and bits of rail corridor before arriving at Weston station and the end of the trip. Beer, food and a heater at Brads house were all gratefully received before I dropped AK home and then got to finally have a shower.

I awoke at midnight with stomach cramps and waves of nausea – not good. It was a rough night and when i weighed myself in the morning, I was 5kg’s lighter than before starting the ride. I was sick all Monday and finally started to come good on Tuesday morning. Since Neither AK or Scott were sick, but both Brad and I were, I am highly suspicious of giardiasis from contaminated water. Either my MSR water filter is a flop or the donkey water from the small stream brought us undone as Brad wasn’t well either.

So… What things did I learn from this?

1. Fully loaded with bike packing kit and running small block 8’s – my bike is like a lead tipped arrow downhills – Everyone else had to pedal to keep up with me 🙂

2. Don’t use a 200km bike packing trip as your first test ride on a questionable tubeless coversion. Just because it holds air sitting in the house doesn’t mean it will do so after pounding through a rock garden.

3. Don’t pick the depths of winter on some of the coldest nights to test your summer weight bike packing gear.

4. Make sure you give it a go. Despite all that went wrong – much much more went right. The days were warm, the trails were awesome and next time is going to be even better

Happy Trails

p.s As with the last time, the GPS route file is available upon request – just email me.

Pie Eater 1.01.SE – Ride report: Part 4

Link to  part 1:

Link to  part 2:

Link to part 3:

Eventually I awoke to sunlight and found a couple of hot coals in the fire place that I used to re-start the fire. I sat around for a while warming up and said gday to the riders who were blasting down the trail next to where we were camped and then proceeded to pump up my front tyre!

The tent formally known as. Time for a bivvy bag!

Brads tube tent

Morning coffee production

Campsite 4 meters from the single track

Coffee for breakfast, a change of clothes and then we were off to the build day. Four hours of swinging tools and I was starting to feel a bit buggered. Thankfully, club el presidente Tim had brought the BBQ and some water. After stocking up on water and steak sandwiches, we were joined by Scott and AK who couldn’t make the whole trip but were keen to do Day 2.

This time we were determined to find all the missing bits of trail that had eluded us in the dark on the first pie eater expedition.

Along Jenkins trail I attempted to bunny hop a large puddle and it got ugly – resulting in a massive pinch flat. So 5 minutes into the days riding I was again playing around with tubes and pumps – it was starting to loose some of its humour value. Thankfully the camera was now out of batteries and Brad couldn’t record it for posterity.

We linked up a few trail but still couldn’t find the missing link and so had a short road stint to freemans water hole. While AK went off to find some water, I decided I would put yet more air in my front tyre. This is where things went horribly wrong. I was using a lezyne pump with a screw on fitting. Unfortunately, mavic removeable valve cores often unscrew when you try to take the pump back off. After some swearing and cursing, I managed to rotate the entire valve inside the rim so that I unseated the valve and breached the seal. I pumped it up again but watched as sealant bubbled out around the valve and knew things were going bad.

We rode off and my front tyre was holding air and we followed some single track next to palmers road until we reached the paint ball venue. Now my front tyre was completely flat again and I was at the point of throwing the whole set up in the bush and calling wifey to come and get me.

So I abandoned the ill fated tubeless setup on the front and went back to tubes. Now we were all out of tubes so Brad had to patch one while I got set up to get it installed. Since this was our last tube, I inflated the tyres to about 50 PSI each as I couldn’t afford another flat. This was when it became really apparent that I was riding a full rigid bike. I was taking a beating, but at least I didn’t have to worry about tyres any more.

There was a section of sneaky motorbike trail that ran around the ridge and joined some fire trail that would get us to killingworth. This motorbike trail would have been brilliant in the other direction, but was all but impossible to ride since it was ridiculously steep. Brad, Scott and myself were off and pushing while AK made a truly stunning attempt to get up them and was virtually defying gravity as he climbed bits that I was having trouble walking up.

I think trudging up this section was my lowest ebb. I was pissed about my tyre woes (self inflicted as they were) and now I was pushing my bike up god aweful hills. I was ready for it to be over.

to be continued….

To Part 5

Pie Eater 1.01.SE – Ride report: Part 3

Link to  part 1:

Continued from part 2:

When we reached Heaton camp ground, the tap had been pulled off the tank and there was no water. This was a little disconcerting since I now had about 200mls of water left. We then pushed on and tried our luck at Mcleans lookout but were again foiled by the mysterious tap thief. Now our options were to punch back down off the ridge to Freemans Waterhole service station, or break out my MSR water filter and draw water from the god forsaken scum filled funk dam we had just passed. With the light failing and the prospect of hike a biking down to Freemans waterhole seeming very unappealing, we chose to break out the water pump.

Late afternoon view from Mcleans lookout

Where be the tap?

The water that came out of the pump looked an tasted clean so we filled all our bottles and bladders and continued on to awaba. Brad kindly noted that I was again using a flippin’ pump  and it was a fitting way to see you the day!

Somewhere along the way, I decided it might make for a good story if we were to ride the downhill track on the way into awaba. It was all but dark now and Brad was operating under lights but I couldn’t have been bothered stopping to set mine up, so I decided it would be a good idea to take on the monkey trail on a fully ridigd 29er, in the dark, with no lights, with full bike packing kit.

Since were weren’t completely mental, we started at the road gap to bypass the rock garden and made our way down. It was heart in the mouth stuff! We had to get off and walk over ‘battles’ and in the near total darkness, I was hitting all manner of bumps, rocks and jumps without even knowing they were coming up. Somehow I stayed upright and we made it to the end but there was no denying it was now totally black and I would need lights to make our camp site. My brakes were never the same again for the rest of the trip after dealing with the DH track.

We reached our destination at “the club caravan”. Named purely because it would be the ideal spot to set up a caravan as an aid centre for long endures.

We wandered around in the dark looking for a suitable place to set up and eventually settled upon a spot and cobbled together our makeshift sleeping apparatus. I pitched a tarp as lean too off the side of my upturned bike. It went together very smoothly and looked surprisingly stable although I had only brough two tent pegs and really wished I had brought a third so I could tie off my bike to something solid to ensure I wasn’t going to fall over.

Brad set up his plastic tube tent and despite its flimsy plastic construction, looked pretty promising as a bike packing setup. It needed trees to be erected but it did leave the bike free to be ridden independently of the tent.

We made a small camp fire, cooked dinner then headed to bed. We didn’t really know how far we had come since neither of us was running a cycle computer, but I would estimate it to be somewhere around 100-120ks.

Around 11pm, a wind started to pick up and I awoke to find my bike laying ontop of me. A minute of playing around soon proved it wasn’t going to be easy to set things back up the way they had been, so I simply shoved the bike far enough away so I wasn’t laying on it and tried to get back to sleep under the tarp.

It was a cold night. Not quite as cold as some of the nights we had earlier in the week, but I was wearing about 5 layers of clothes plus blankets and a sleeping bag and I was still borderline for warmth. I awoke multiple times through the night and would try to rearrange blankets to maximise warmth.

to be continued…

To Part 4