Another epic ride to come?

I just put in my expression of interest for a nifty little ride on the South Island of NZ in 2012. It is called the Great Southern Brevet and is the successor to the Kiwi Brevet which was held in 2009(?) which I knew nothing about until it was all over and it was too late to go and play. Its a 1200 k self supported pedal in a rather hilly (and therefore beautiful) part of the world

Assuming I am willing to even look at a bike again after the ride across Aus, I am very intersted in flitting around the South Island in search of adventure, scenery and a little bit of hurt.

Anyone else think this sounds like a good idea?

97 days till I go for a ride…

The time off work has been sorted and the gear is slowly trickling in. In early september I will be flying to Perth and riding home (slightly more than 4000k’s). I was going to do it anyway, however the idea struck me that it would be a fantastic opportunity to raise some money for charity. I have a number of customers battling with Ovarian Cancer  which we have already been raising money for throughout the year through Ovarian Cancer Australia (OCA). The fundraising permissions are still pending, however I don’t expect any problems in getting the nod of approval shortly.

I plan to travel fast and light. No trailers, no panniers, no hotels. I’ll just ride until I am spent for the day and then stealth camp by the side of the road amongst the spinifex. I think I can carry around 6-7 litres of water at the time which gives me roughly 7 hours to get between water sources. There are one or two stretches where I will be rationing however I don’t think it should represent any major problems.

Since I am getting stuff together for the Tour Divide next year, I plan on riding the mountain bike in order to test our saddles, riding positions, frame and seat bags, aero-bars  etc. Since it is a 29er, I’ll just fit some tubeless 700c (x25?) tyres and a road cassette and all will be sweet.

I will be ordering a spot in the next few days so people can track my progress and I will probably use it for many other adventures throughout the year that people can follow online.

I have a few corporate sponsors who I hope to have on board shortly and I will set up a donations page soon for anyone who would like to donate.  Its is going to be a sensational way to see this vast country and it is starting to become quite real now.

If anyone is going for a ride anytime soon, make sure you drag me along because training time is running out and I am fat and slow at the moment and am going to need some serious miles in the legs.

Paterson – Vacy 50k,100k, 100 mile?

I went to the debrief meeting with the Broughton Beef Syndicate PK24 sub committee this morning and there were smiles all round. Everyone was over the moon with the event and had nothing but good things to say about the mountain biking community. Happy days.

Afterwards, Peter Evans and David Cains took me for a spin in Davids rad paddock bashing v8 Range Rover to see potential sites for the event should the future sub divisions ever completely sell. Lets just say the PK24 has a phenomenal array of options available should the need arise to move a little further out of town.

Now I am not one to normally throw around the word ‘Epic’. I try to reserve that particular expression for those situations where all other adjectives fail. However, I am at a complete loss for words to describe the number of possibilities that were revealed in this drive. It lies several orders of magnitude above ‘epic’ in a realm normally associated with far away lands and whispered secret trails.

The network of fire trails on Peters property is almost limitless and we drove and drove and drove and climbed massive hills, crossed creeks, chased wild dogs (no, really!) and saw all manner of breathtaking scenery. With a little bit of help, this could potentially develop into one of the most incredible 100 k/mile races in the country. If we did nothing other than ride the fire trails the event would already be amazing however the possibilities for extended sections of prime single track are unbelievable.

I was talking to Tim about the drive after I had finished and the best phrase I can use to describe the situation the club now finds itself in is: “It would be a crime against mountain biking if I didn’t make the most of this opportunity”. In the wash up of the PK24, the logistics are already in place between volunteer organizations, the community spirit seems highly favorable and there is a charitable cause which benefits from the events. It is a win, win, win situation and my hands ache to hold a Macleod tool just thinking about it. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I can’t believe how lucky I am to be able to be a part of it!

 

 

Get your gear on.

Browsing through bikepacking.net this evening I discovered a post indicating that the venerable Garmin Etrex Vista Hcx GPS was on sale at REI for $149.00. It is pretty much the gold standard GPS for bike packing applications as it’s light, runs on AA batteries (so you can change them out at service stations) and allows easy navigation on the fly. Looking on ebay, the best I could find was $349.00 so even with $60.00 postage, the REI deal was far too good to refuse. So I have pressed go and fairly shortly I will have a new toy to play with and I’ll start getting a route put together.

At this point, I am thinking around 300 k’s (although hopefully longer) to use as a self supported race route. The general ethos is a self supported event with no outside assistance and you ride at your own risk. It isn’t a race in the traditional sense, more an individual time trial with a grand departure (of which I would be surprised if there were more than 3 people front up for it). You come prepared for all eventualities, and there will be no event organizers to bail you out if things don’t go well. Bring a GPS, a spot tracker, warm clothes, food etc. No idea when this route will be ready however I need to get some legs on in a hurry so I expect to be out exploring quite a bit in the near future.

I’l post more when I get to play with the Vista HCX a little. Very exciting stuff!

Now this is a pump track!

The next goal

Well, I’m in discussions with some potential sponsors for a charity bike ride in the near future. Now it clearly needs to be a big arse self supported ride to be worthy of getting out of bed for however I don’t want to give too much away just yet until I have a few more details nutted out. Nothing shits me more than people who are all talk, so i’ll wait a few weeks until I commit to anything.

In preparation, some cool stuff just arrived in the post today. Namely, a goose down jacket and sleeping bag. Now both of these seem to be the perfect compromise between weight and warmth. I perhaps went a little bit weight weenie with the jacket which weighs less than the plastic bag it came in.

I am also getting some quotes for a Fred Bar via grip sport since the siren bikes version is no longer made 😦 This is going to be a fred-tastic trip 🙂

Yep: It’s over (i checked)

Just to makes sure that all was OK, I poked my head into Paterson today to help with some more clean up. Picking up Gu packets, pulling down bunting and finishing rubbish removal from the paddock.

I found the tractor and the bad arse army water tanker thingo pulling the toilet trucks out of the paddock after they became rather bogged. A couple of lessons were learned from that experience regarding requirements for truck positioning next time.

The rain overnight had made the track super slippery as the accumulated dust turned into teflon and I nearly fell over several times as we walked the trail down into the valley. Thank god the weather was kind for this race!

I spent the morning reflecting on all the fabulous moments from the race and checking the rotorburn chat to see what people felt (pain seemed to be pretty high on the popular topics list). I think the overwhelming feeling of relaxation that came over me immediately after the race started was the stand out. All the planning and preparation had finally finished and I could now spend some time enjoying myself.

Watching the lights of people descending off the hill and returning along towards transition from cog town was another special moment.

Taking a social lap with Jeebus mid morning after I fired up on coffee was another great moment. I had cunningly let several thousand wheels before me work the track into shape so I managed to hit it at the perfect time.

I think the low light was any time a rider was injured. There was remarkably few injuries for a race of this size and most seemed to be relatively minor soft tissue problems with the exception of Steve who decided it was a good idea to crash hard on TINAS and tore his leg open. He didn’t seem to phased by it however as he wanted to head back to transition and get a beer. A few stern words by people with some common sense and the effects of adrenaline wearing off saw him make his way to hospital and receive 9 stitches. I think he should get a tattoo above the scar which says “Paterson Rocks”. Somehow the injury tally remained remarkably low and we were often checking the radios to make sure they were still working because everything was so quiet.

I am starting the list of things I can improve for next year however I think the most important thing was the overall vibe. A smallish boutique event has a lot of charm that I don’t think we will be able to recapture if the race gets too large. There will have to be a lot of thought go into this one.

Anyway, I suspect I might start riding my bike a little more and with the C2C running again in July, I had better find some legs FAST!

Paterson Kona 24

My eyes are heavy and I am sure that part way through this post I am going to nod off and drool all over the keyboard.

I can’ imagine how the PK24 could have gone better. All I saw on riders faces the whole weekend was a smile (except perhaps some of the 6+6 boys on day 1 who were deep in the pain cave – there wasn’t a great deal of smiling going on in there).

I didn’t sleep the whole weekend because I didn’t want to miss a minute of the race. I can sleep later, this was just too damn good!

The whole HMBA crew were solid as a rock and I couldn’t think of a better group of guys to work with. Thanks to everyone and I will post some more once I have slept.

Needle in a hay stack

We arrived at the event centre this morning to find Josh wandering around the paddock kicking grass and muttering to himself. It turns out that the wheels had literally fallen off the tractor shortly before we arrived and the critical part to put the whole thing back together was missing.

The missing part was about the size of your fist and Josh had been looking for it with little luck. You’d think it would stand out clearly in a freshly cut field however there was no sign of it anywhere.

Fast forward an hour and with three of us looking, it was beginning to look like a lost cause when dad managed to locate the bearing that was part of the assembly. How the heck we had walked over it a dozen times before and not noticed it was beyond me.

A few minutes later and luck shone upon as as we discovered the part out in the shrubs after the slasher hit it, flinging it a long way away from where we were looking.

Hopefully the tractor will be back up and running tomorrow and the paddock slashing will be finished.

Roll on Saturday midday

SOOOOOOOOOPEEEERRRR DEEEEEEEEEE

There has been a thought wriggling around in the back of my skull of late. The more I tried to tease it out, the more elusive it was. It would half form and then I would get distracted and forget about it. Then tonight at the club meeting I finally realized it. Paterson is begging for a super D race.

Nothing fancy, just 5 runs down the hill and keep your fastest. Self shuttle to the top – if you have a 4×4 ute, then take a few people up with you, otherwise you can ride to the top, admire the view and then race back to the bottom. Possibly seed riders based on their first couple of times to provide some drama on their last runs to see who will go fastest.

An event centre with some music, a bbq and good vibes. It was so simple, why didn’t I think of this earlier.