Things get just a little bit Cheeky

After another year of fun racing and good results on my trusty old 26" bikes, I've been getting a little jealous of all these 29er type just doing it easy at the 100km races ;-) I catch them on the hills then they just seem to roll away on the flat. Sometimes I catch them when their super wide bars connect with trees but half the time they just roll off into the distance with ease... well not quite. But they definitely seem to be a big advantage in the 100km XCM events.


I got interested in the 29er thing a while back, I've demo'ed a few but the full-time student status is a little restrictive when it comes to adding to the stable. Then there's the fact that when you have two riders in a relationship, the perfect number of bikes is actually N+2 rather than N+1, because you BOTH need a new one...

Anyway, then a new bike shop rolled into town and we dropped in for a look after the HMBA club championships. My only complaint is that the floor is damn slippery in cleats ;-) but the shop looks fantastic. The brands include Lapierre, Merida and Norco while the roadies get also Cervelo and other sexy looking brands that I might remember if I were more of a roadie... 

Inside Cheeky Velosport at Warners Bay

A few shop rides with the friendly Cheeky crew and now I'm super excited to announce I'm going to have Cheeky across my bum for the next season! Quite appropriate I hear you all saying... well yes, I have to admit it does kind of suit.

So looking forward to racing a Lapierre rocket ship next year, thanks to some great support from the guys at Cheeky. If you're in Newcastle/Lake Macquarie area pop into the shop on Hillsborough Rd, Warners Bay or come for a shop ride (Sundays 0700, Tues & Thurs 0600 from the shop) and meet the crew or find them on facebook.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Stay safe and hope to see you out on the trails. We're planning a road trip of the single track on offer in the Victorian and NSW high country, so if you're around Mt Buller, Mt Beauty or Thredbo this festive season - see you there!

Racing in a heatwave .... why not?

So the last race for the year was set to be a more casual affair, rather than a serious results-driven race. The JetBlack Sydney 24 and Mercedes Benz Vans Huntingwood 6+6 are run at the Mt Annan botanical gardens track by Rocky Trail Entertainment as their last event of the year.

Skippy clocked the fastest Strava run for this segment! Photo: B. Watson

After a full year of racing culminating in the Highland Fling, I opted for the 6+6 option in a team of 3 for a fun and relaxed race. We headed down as part of a large group of Newy Cogheads, a group of like-minded mountain bikers from the Newcastle area. More recently a lot of the female partners of the Coghead riders have started racing as the Newy Cogettes Team Talk Torque Talk … so these girls in pink were my teammates for the event, but we were only one of four Cogette female teams and there were another three Coghead male teams racing. So a big social camp was planned.  

The lead up to the race was overshadowed by weather forecasts of a heatwave approaching. The Sydney Morning Herald claimed “Dangerous heatwave heading to NSW” and advised everyone to stay indoors our of the sun, avoid exercise and alcohol. With temperatures forecast to be in the high 30s, and Campbelltown not known for it's cooling breezes, Mt Annan was set to bake for the Saturday of the race. Lucky for us, Coghead camp was equipped with a shower and two inflatable kiddies pools – never thought I’d rank those as secret weapons in the racing arsenal, but at this race they conveyed a definite advantage.

The Coglings enjoying our secret weapons and objects of envy!

After some humid conditions and rain overnight on the Friday, Saturday dawned overcast and relatively cool. Unfortunately those conditions did not last and by the 12-midday race start, the temperature was already over 30 degrees. I was third rider in our team and so headed out early afternoon for my first lap; I opted for the white lycra sun arms the whitest jersey I own and wet my kit down with a water sprayer before heading out.

Into the first bit of single track and two guys pulled over to let me pass, not quite warmed up or in the zone yet I promptly hit a rut, bounced off-line, pulled my shoe out of my pedal and bounced my arse off my seat and ended up on the otherside of the track in a rather gumby-like save… the two blokes passed me again probably wondering why they’d pulled off in the first place! 

Some welcome shade on track in the heat of Saturday

Onwards round the 8.5km lap and things went a lot better than that first bit of track, it was uncomfortable warm especially on the exposed climbs towards the end of the lap and a lot of people were resting on the shady spots. I decided not to push it in the heat and rode at a comfortable pace, although the heat pushed my HR up to normal racing levels despite the fact I was breathing easy and legs were fine.  

Mt Annan is a man made track which is mainly hard pack surface and several constructed rocky sections otherwise known as “roadie-traps”. With no huge climbs or descents, the course rewards riders who can maintain a good pace through dusty, twisty and off-camber corners but also rewards everyone with some sweet berms and flowy sections.

The roadie traps don't deter unicyclists! (Photo Brian Watson)

After a stop to help out the youngest team Coghead racer (at 12 years of age) with a flat I cruised back into transition with about 35 minutes gone, then it was straight into the kiddie pool in complete kit to cool down.

The temperature continued to climb and by my next lap our thermometer was reading 39 in the shade! Christine came into transition looking awful and said she couldn’t go out again, and all along the track I was passing people who were badly heat affected. I went out sopping wet from the pool and not half way round my kit felt dry, the hot wind was drying out my mouth and eyes and making things fairly unpleasant. 

I stopped for one rider and checked with several more along the trail, many of them waiting for marshals to rescue them and first aid attention. By the final climbs of the lap, which snake up through open grassland in full sun, I was feeling sick and unable to drink. Only just over half an hour out there and I was suffering, I have no idea how the solos were doing it and I completely understood why my teammate couldn’t go out again. 

Michelle set out bravely after I came in and I told her I’d be back in transition if I recovered enough to cover Christine’s next lap. It was basically a matter of lying in the inflatable paddling pool again in full kit and trying to rehydrate as much as possible. Back up in transition I tagged a heat-weary Michelle and set out again, the clouds had come over a bit and temperature had dropped off noticeable to the mid-to-low 30s. The difference was amazing and I felt good all lap, so much so that when I got back with 20 minutes left until our 6pm cutoff that I opted for a second lap. Not before quick dunk in the pool again complete with helmet though, even low 30s is still hot riding weather!

On track for a sub 30minute lap (Photo: Brian Watson)

Used to racing the full 24 hours, the novelty of a 6+6 was exciting. With 12 hours off to eat, rest and sleep the race becomes a lot more social and enjoyable. It was a hot and sticky night though, I think the coolest it got was mid-20s during the early hours of the morning and so sleeping was sweaty and fitful to say the least. The Austrian wake-up music started at 5:30am and Christine was back on deck for the first lap of the morning.

First place in our category!

Luckily the weather was kind and Sunday’s temperatures never got above the mid-20s making the riding so much more enjoyable. With the cooler temperatures I decided to have a crack at getting fastest female lap of the race, I had no idea what time I was chasing but I knew that there were a couple of girls riding at a similar speed to me the previous day (low 30s in terms of lap times). So my second lap of the morning I set out at race pace, my heart rate wasn’t much higher than it had been in the heat but my lungs and legs told me I was definitely working harder and going faster. 

Sprinting back across the line into transition I clocked 28:43, a quick check with timing assured me that not only was that the fastest female lap but that I was the only female under 30 minutes so far. One more lap to go and it turned out that I was racing against the clock again, this time to make transition before the 12-midday deadline so Michelle could get one more lap. Race pace again, but a few missed lines cost me some time and the clock stopped at 29:19 – good enough for another lap for the team but a touch off my earlier pace. 

The Team: Christine, Sarah and Michelle

And then that was it, race over. The sweepers went out on track and the pack up of camp began, always the worst bit of any race and somehow the car has always shrunk and nothing seems to fit back in the way it did before. Just as we finished packing, the presentations got underway – I have no idea how the solo riders did it and rode through that heat but they did an amazing job! Our girls’ team won our category and the other Coghead/Cogette teams had a lot of podiums as well. But even more importantly it was a great weekend despite the heat, with wonderful organisation by Martin and Juliane from Rocky Trail Entertainment and support from all the sponsors of the event like JetBlack and Mercedes Vans Huntingwood. But the big shoutout of the event goes to the first aiders who were kept busy treating a multitudes of patients suffering in the heat as well as the usual scrapes and bumps of mountain biking. 

(thanks to Brian Watson for allowing the use of his photos https://www.facebook.com/BrianWatsonPhotographer)

HMBA Club Championships

Well after the Fling I gave my body some time off the bike, I don't think it was necessarily a choice for the first day or two... I doubt I could have ridden. I was planning a cruisy spin during the week but somehow that never happened, then it rained on Friday and by the time we'd cleaned the bikes on Saturday it was suddenly a whole week off the bike.

But that's ok, the email about the club champs promised a forgiving course:

"The race will be a 2 hour enduro format for A, B and C grades, and 1.5 hour for D and E grades. The track will be another new configuration with the promise that there are no big hills and it will be a relatively short track."

Now the past year the club has been mixing up the club rounds, new linking tracks have been used to swap bits of the lap in and out and, just recently, we've been riding parts of the track in reverse. Today was no different, a totally new configuration including a lot of reverse track.

The usual faces were at rego and it was a decent turn out, Wendy Stevenson had rocked up from Sydney for a Sunday morning cruise of the trails only to find the race was on so she joined in the fun and registered for A grade women. The format was a 2-hour enduro for most grades with the lower grades stopping after 1.5 hours.

I'm not sure what that email meant by "no big climbs", I mean the climbs at Awaba aren't generally huge in the scheme of things but there's a lot of up and down and the track is generally hard work. This time we set out on firetrail, complete with huge moto ruts and pretty soon hit the first real descent which was slightly greasy from the small amount of rain on Friday and Saturday. Through a couple of puddles and we hit something that looked distinctly like a hill, then it felt like a hill ... but according the email it can't have been a BIG hill...

Then it was back into regular track down a fast firetrail and a stretch of rainforested single track which ends with a short pinch climb called the Murderhorn. Just as we were getting comfortable we popped out of that section of track and instead of heading left on some smooth double track, we crossed the trail and headed straight up what is normally a very fun and fast descent. Well let's just say it wasn't fast and the fun factor was questionable in this direction. 

Only a few hundred metres further on the trail setter turned us left and we promptly lost all elevation again in a fast relatively straight descent back onto the double track that had looked so inviting before the climb. Onwards into normal direction single track for a while, with nice corners and no real ups or downs, we then came out at the bottom of DH track. Normally this is the end of a lap but no, we were facing yet another descent in reverse... which I would call a climb. This was a grind, it's normally a fun descent of bermed corners, now it became hard work.

Once topped out we continued on the track in reverse direction, descending a few tight corners and swopping along all the way to Siberia corner right out near the road. Now even in the right direction Siberia corner is hard to flow, it's tight and not bermed and tends to be a bit sandy and loose. Well in reverse it was worse, because we approached on a descent.

Not far to go now, and finally you're climbing a few snaking corners up to the timing tent. Great one lap done - now just repeat for 2 hours. I was lapped at around 24 minutes, I worked out that I should get in five laps and knew I was well head of the other girls. I timed it perfectly in the end, a 2 hour enduro and my finish time on my Garmin was 2:01:45 well ahead of the other girls.

It's funny how you can know a track so well, know every rock and root and line... then someone makes you ride it backwards and it's totally new. Some of it flows like you never realised it could and then other parts... well let's just say there's a bit of bark missing and sore knee after today. 

Log roll overs became step-ups, berms tricked you into thinking they could help when the were really designed for riders coming the other way. Then those bits that look flat but feel like they are uphill; well they really must be uphill because riding them in reverse is swoopy and fast.

Lucky it was a nice flat course!

So that's it for club racing for the year, officially female A-grade champion. Thanks to all the hard-working people who make HMBA and club racing happen, I know you guys are busy people with jobs and families - it's people like you who keep mountain biking alive.

And thanks to the imagination of the course-setter who keeps us on our toes. I'd much rather be made to ride up my favorite descent from time to time than get bored with racing the same track each month. It was a tough race but definitely worth the effort, next time I'll try and bring some fresh legs.

Briars Highland Fling

The Briars Highland Fling is the last XC marathon race of the year and for the past two years it has also been the final event in the hotly contested Real Insurance XCM series. It's held in the Southern Highlands town of Bundanoon not too far from Sydney and Canberra and attracts a large and very strong field of riders.

A week out from the event and the forecast was looking terrible, 30-50mm of rain was forecast over the days before the race and we started discussing the merits of mud tyres and wet lube. However the forecast models were revised and revised and in the end less than 10mm of rain fell in the week prior leaving the tracks dry and even on the dusty side of ideal.

Last year my lead up to this event was suboptimal, we'd just bough and moved into our first house and painting, tradies and house maintenance had usurped riding in the priority list. The result was a race time over 6 hours, the last two of which were spent with both legs cramping on anything that resembled a hill. The aim this year was to improve...

Camping at the Fling is great, there's 5-star grass and they are super organised in allocation as you arrive so late comers don't disturb people by driving all round camp. Waking up to a 4-degree morning however was a little chilly! The start chute and self seeding was the usual affair, a lot of people overestimate their fitness and place themselves high up the start order only to get passed by hundreds of other riders during the day. The Fling however has minimal single track and loads of firetrail in the first  30km so this has minimal effect.

I snuck into the start chute next to Di Perry who helped me shuffle forward to a position maybe 200 hundred riders from the start. As a result I did a lot more passing than being passed throughout the race but I never felt like I got delayed so it was probably not a bad position.

A bit chilly but a dry track!

Stage one is 27-odd kms to Wingello, with such a chilly start I opted for armwarmers but probably could have left them off. The sun was out and the sky was blue, a fast tempo along the road to start soon got me warm and the warmers got pulled down pretty quickly. The rolling hills sort the field out pretty quickly and then suddenly you're at the free bike wash, a knee deep creek which freezes your feet just after they've finally got blood flow.

Then there's a paddock section, it's rough and bumpy and the 26" hardtail was making things tough. I was envious of the 29er duallys rolling past until I saw a guy on a fully rigid and figured maybe I should take a bit of concrete and drop the princess act. Coming into Wingello oval you get 5 minutes to head through transition and cross the railway, I used this time to drop my bottle and grab a new one and pick up my camelbak for the 52km Shimano stage.

The Shimano stage is mixture of firetrail and some of the famed Wingello singletrack, it also contains the infamous hills "the wall" and "halfway hill". Despite the sign warning you of "the wall" even preemptive granny gearing doesn't save you as it hits 20% at points. I jumped off and walked as I knew trying to ride it would just leave me trying to recover for the next 5km. At this point I was leapfrogging Libby Adamson, one of the six female riders tackling the 100mile event.

Single track in the final stage

The single track in Wingello is swoopy and fun with a few trees to keep those on wide-bars on 29ers on their toes. It's a welcome relief from the high paced fireroads with their numerous climbs, but all of a sudden a sign indicates you've reached halfway hill - one of the longest climbs of the race. This year we got 2/3rds of the way up and instead of turning left and continuing on up, we dropped over the back and hit another hill for the KOM/QOM point. At this point the elite men were coming past as the Fling is unique in that the elite field start 40 minutes behind the rest of the riders. It was good to see the elite were finding this every bit as tough as I was, even if they were going a whole lot faster.

Fantastic single track but hard with tired legs!

The climb was followed by a section of double track along the edge of a pine forest that I didn't remember from the previous year, it was deceptively smooth looking but bumpy as hell and with 60-odd kms in the legs it was hard to maintain any decent average. Finally tho the flat groomed road appeared which leads back to Wingello for a second time. I jumped on the back of a train of 4 guys but soon moved to the front to up the pace, one of them stuck with me and we pulled turns until the nagging pain just above me knee forced me to ease off a bit. I'm not sure how much of a wind break I give a large man on a 29er but hey, when he took his turns it was great for me :-)

Coming into Wingello my leg was giving me grief, it wasn't my knee but just above it and I wasn't sure exactly what I'd done. In the end I decided that while it was painful, it wasn't cramping and it wasn't the knee joint itself so I decided to suck it up and ride through it.

Wingello a second time and I dumped my camelbak and picked up a full bottle for the last 32km stage. Now at the 80km point in most marathons you feel like you're almost home, at the 85km point in the Convict 100km you know it's all downhill to the finish. But at the 80km point in the Fling you have 32km of some of the toughest stuff still to come.

After some fireroad out of transition and another horrible bit of bone-rattling paddock it was across a creek and into single track. Here I passed a rider down, he looked in a bad way with potential rib and collarbone injuries but he had several others helping him and they waved me on. I wish him all the best for a speedy recovery!

 

Out of single track and onto logging roads and I started to pass numerous Half-Flingers, these guys were hurting and walking a lot of the track yet they called out encouragement and let me know I was the first female they'd seen. Woot! So I was the first female age-group rider through, the elites were still behind me and would be faster but that was an immense confidence boost. My aim was to get home before the elite, I had a 40 minute head start but with Jenny Fay in  incredible form it was going to be tough.

Apparently it was dusty on course!

At the 90km point the single track starts again with Rollercoaster in reverse, this means lots of nasty little pinches that are intended to be ridden in the opposite direction. This is cramp city, and sure enough the second pinch brought on the tell-tale muscle twitches in my left inner thigh. I quickly jumped off the bike and walked every pinch, knowing that if I could stop the cramps becoming established I still had a chance to spin home.

Across the natural ford and up the final firetrail climb in the easiest gear possible, so far so good - the cramps were holding off. Into the final single track which was loose and dusty and probable some of the most technical track in the course. The half-flingers I was passing were walking a lot of it, probably partly because of the faster full-flinging traffic coming through. Then you hit that grassy paddock of a climb, once again I got into granny gear and concentrated on smooth spinning. No sudden power stroked, just smooth motions - phew made it to the top and no cramps.

Those timing mats can't come soon enough

A fast descent through a paddock and you're almost back on firetrail, then I hear a female voice calling track on the rider being me. Jenny Fay zooms past in a cloud of dust and I realise I've not quite made it home before the elites. About 10 minutes later on "your call" Peta Mullens came through for what turned out to be a fairly close finish.

Full Fling Veteran Women Podium

Suddenly you're onto a road and the end is nigh, only 4km to go and mostly flat or downhill. One last bone rattling paddock dumps you down in a gully where you cross under a road and can now hear the event centre. The next thing I'm crossing the line, 5:37 official race time but 10 minutes more on the bike due to the two 5 minute transitions. Third female across the line but of course the elite behind me are faster due to their later start.

In the end I cut 30 minutes of my 2011 time, despite the course being 3km longer and arguably harder in the Shimano stage. I was the fastest non-elite female home and was 7th female overall based  on time. I won veterans category by 13 minutes and only missed beating the elite girls home by around 4 minutes!!! Damn those cramps, I might have made it without them.

Real Insurance XCM Series Podium

Best of all I held onto my 3rd place position in the XCM series overall, which means I was on the podium with Jenny Fay and Becky Mates - two very accomplished racers.

State XCO Championships

This year Real Insurance have been supporting the NSW state XCO series which has consisted of four rounds of XCO racing at racing tracks within a few hours of Sydney. The last of the series also doubled as the NSW state championships and was hosted by the Central Coast Ourimbah club. I hadn't ridden any of the other rounds but Ourimbah is less than an hour from home.

Sizing each other up on the female start line

I'd never ridden the Ourimbah track until the Rocky Trail Entertainment MTB GP was moved there after the debacle with Appin back at the end of September. I couldn't believe I hadn't ridden the track more, only 50 minutes from our house it's the kind of track I love. It's nearly 100% single track with rocky techy dusty stuff and lots of fun descents and testing climbs. So after racing 12 laps there in the 7 hour and another 3 laps at a local CCOMTB club race I felt like it was the kind of track I could do well on. So I signed up for the state champs the moment entries opened.

Emily Parks on the drop-off

Unfortunately the women's elite race didn't attract any of the sponsored elite female riders. Apart from myself the field included Meaghan Stanton who was well placed in the series after consistent results, Clea O'Brien who had also had some podium finishes in previous rounds and Emily Parkes a Torq U19 rider from Port Macquarie who has had solid results in racing the national rounds earlier this year. Emily didn't have any U19 competition on the day so decided to race elite, and I'm pretty sure she'd be happy with her results.

All the women, elite and age group were started off together just a minute after the U17 boys. I had issues clipping in and was only 4th or 5th wheel into the single track, not ideal but some early passing saw me riding second wheel to Emily Parkes when we reached the drop off. The drop off is an intimidating roll down with a not so simple entry and a B-line off the left. Emily styled it with me on her wheel but not many of the girls behind us took the A-line.

I sat on her wheel until the sharp right turn onto sandy firetrail which heralds the start of a fairly sustained climb. I was lining up to overtake Emily on the inside on the turn and it was lucky I did because she turned a bit too sharply in the sand and ended up on the deck, I managed to miss her and continue on up the firetrail climb.


From that point on I pulled away from the other girls, even on the switch backs I lost sight of anyone else so I knew I had a bit of a gap. This is both good and bad as it's had to stay on the gas 100% without someone on your tail, yet obviously it's nice to be winning a race. I caught the back of the U17s boys field at some point during the lap and played leapfrog with one of them who was having mechanical issues.

Like I mentioned earlier I love the Ourimbah track, the descents and twisty turns suit me and lack of firetrail means that skill and line choice play a big role rather than just cardiovascular fitness. You know when you get to the top of rollercoaster you can turn off propedal and let it rip for one of the best descents ever.

NSW XCO Championships - Elite Women's Podium

As I came through for my second lap I was getting time splits and finding out I was 2 minutes up already, from my times I can see I backed off a little in the next two laps as it became obvious that I didn't need to completely max out to win this race. Not saying I didn't work for it, my average HR was still 173bpm for the entire race but my 2nd and 3rd laps were about a minute slower than my first and I didn't max out as much on the climbs.

Time splits at the end of lap 2 told me I had 4 minutes and in the end I brought it home with around a 6 minute gap back to Emily. Clea came in 3rd after Meaghan had mechanicals during the race. So that was it, I was NSW state XCO champion! Pretty stoked with that result.

I'd like to thank NSWMTB XC Coordinator Mark McInnes for all the organisation, all the clubs that hosted rounds and especially CCOMTB for hosting the champs. Also the sponsors of the series including REAL INSURANCE, CYCLENATION, NSWMTB, Capilano HONEYSHOTZ, DIYMTB, Maxxyz Tires & McGees Cycling for making it all happen.