The Mont24

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 The Mont24 is a fantastic race, there’s just something magical that happens when you mix over 2000 happy mountain bikers with 20km of fantastic single track and a paddock full of tents, caravans, swags and tarps.

This year the weather was kind, those that arrived early on the Thursday were treated to an early taste of winter but by later on Friday the sun had come out and the rain and dust mixed to form hero dirt on the trails.

Morning dawns at the Mont24

This year both Tim and I joined the Newy Coghead crew and entered a team of mixed 6, which was formed to be competitive in overall standings. Normally in mixed 4s riding in a 6 was going to be a little different in terms of tactics, it can also be a hotly contested division depending on which sponsored riders come out to play. Unfortunately not long out from the race we lost a rider to illness and so we were just five come Saturday morning as the fog lifted from the campsite.

First lap decisions were made easier this year with the run replaced by an extra couple of kilometres of firetrail riding, about time event organisers realised that if we wanted to run we would enter city2surf! We sent Stu out first, despite being not on top form he still smoked most of the field and came through fairly well placed from first lap giving Ian “Bill Smith” a clear track – at least until he caught the slower people still completing lap one. Unfortunately he had a passing incident on course and henceforth became known as Kill Bill, he had to explain himself to the race directors but it was all deemed unfortunate but Kosher and we kept racing. Both Stu and Kill Bill put out fast sub 55-minute laps and Tim went out next with my prediction of a 58-minute lap proving to be spot on.

Team planning is serious business

Going out 4^th rider I was hoping traffic would have cleared a little but I still seemed to be doing a lot of passing on the gentle climb out of transition. The course this year utilised an adult sized mechano set to build a bridge allowing a figure-of-eight configuration. This meant we headed out into previously uncharted trails for the Mont24 in the Far East of Kowen. Fast and flowy descents were awesome fun but also seemed to attract trains of riders, as passing was difficult in these sections where even “slower” riders were still moving fairly quickly.

The single track itself was Kowen goodness, fast and smooth hard pack with tree roots, flowy corners and even the addition of some interesting boardwalk A-lines. One climb in particular seems to suck all your speed and send your heart rate sky high but mostly the climbing was gentle and the descents whoop-worthy.

The 29er dually was a fantastic steed for the course, while rear suspension was perhaps not strictly necessary, it took the roughness out of the roots and small rocks and the bike just seemed to maintain momentum.

Ready for race start - the motley crew!

Soon the track returned to more familiar trails, the descent down Kowalski slide show is always a favourite and to finish with the descent down beer garden almost makes you want to do a double… almost – the lap was 20km long, that’s a long double!

Coming into transition I was just a touch over an hour, and sent Keith out onto his first lap of his first ever mountain bike race. At this stage in the event the leader boards are misleading so I skipped the results tent and instead hit up the massage tent for some legwork – bliss!

There’s a special kind of time zone at 24hour races, everything revolves around lap times and transitions… eating, sleeping, toilet breaks, clothing changes… it all revolves around “when am I due out again” rather than social norms. Back at camp the usual activities were afoot with bikes on work stands, lubed up, dusted off, and lights being fitted.

Consistency is the key!

I hadn’t used my new bar light before, it’s a 1200 lumen GloWorm light and a fair bit brighter than my AyUps at 400 lumen. A testament to the light then that this next lap was my fastest of the race, it was also the fastest female night lap of the whole race. I think it had something to do with having a little less traffic, still having fresh legs and having now seen the course once but in the end I was gutted to realise I’d crossed the line the time of one hour and one second – that one hour barrier would elude me for the whole race!

Now the differences of being in five became clear, we opted to stick with single laps overnight whereas I’ve always had to do a long and cold double somewhere in the middle of the night before. With a shorter break off the bike I opted for more massage and lie down rather than attempting to sleep and felt remarkable fresh for my next lap around midnight, surprising myself with another lap of just over an hour – so far my laps were all within about 40 seconds of each other.

Early in the morning the fog rolled in, as it always does at the Mont – it hung there suspended in the beams of your bar lights or as a large orange cloud around the spotlights for the toilets. It condensed and dripped off the multitude of gazebos and awnings and it made everything just a little more chilly. It also made dawn late, and my predawn lap stayed a lot darker than it otherwise would have been.

Overnight we had kept things on track, Stu had one puncture but that just meant his lap time was similar to us other mortals and the rest of us kept up consistent times. We were in first position with around half an hour on second place come dawn, then the other team started playing tactics.

They had three fast guys on their team who were just slightly faster than Stu and Kill Bill, their other teams members were slower with two guys a bit slower than me and their girl a good 7-8 minutes slower than me. At around 6am they pulled their 3 slower teams mates off the track and cycled through their fast guys in attempt to pull back the half hour we had on them.

Deb helped the boys win over 40s mixed 6s as well!

We would have been safe except that in our 3^rd last lap Tim had a puncture and lost around 8 minutes, which meant I went out on second last lap later than expected. I pulled out yet another consistent lap and came back 12 minutes before cut-off to send Keith out on a nail-biting last lap. Second place came through with one second to spare and sent their fastest rider out to chase Keith, all we could do was wait and calculate lap times hypothesising about the finish. In the end Keith brought it home, just two and half minutes ahead of the chasing team – what a way to end your first ever mountain bike race!

So there we go, 1^st place in mixed 6s with five riders – we all completed 5 laps each and all my five laps were within 54 seconds of each other. I got fastest female night lap and 5 of the top 13 fastest female laps overall in the race. Awesome work  

Capital Punishment XCM 100km

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Capital Punishment takes in some fantastic Canberra singletrack in one 100km hit, initially touted to be the first race of the 2013 XCM series it was bound to draw a strong field. Yet with the recent collapse of the series (hopefully to be resurrected later this year) it became a little harder to predict who would be racing in the pointy end of the female field.

With only three females entered in elite I upgraded from age group category to elite the night before the race. The thing I was most nervous about was that being in elite meant starting in the first race wave, elite plus those who rank themselves in the top 10% of the overall field. Starting out in Kowen forest means you head into single track fairly early in the race and was worried that there would be a lot of fast guys behind me wanting to get past.

Canberra was incredibly kind with the weather this year, not only was it dry but the 7am start was very mild by Canberra standards, I lined up near the back of the first wave start and pretty soon the gun had gone and we off and racing. I had my eye on two of the other elite girls, Nienke Oostra and Michelle Ainsworth, and entered the single track just a couple of riders back from Michelle.

Despite my worries about the fast wave start, I found myself enjoying the pace of the single-track conga-line. I even found myself calling track on a few guys who were obviously not top 10% material. The Kowen single-track rocks, it’s flowy, bermy and today it was also very dusty and before long everything was coated with powder fine dust. A quick lap of some Kowen trails and we headed under the Kings Hwy and into the Sparrow Hill trails, the whole time I was keeping pace with Michelle who was still about 3 riders ahead of me. Nienke was somewhere behind and of course Jenny Fay was out in front.

Then I saw Tim stopped on the side of the track ahead and called out to him to see if he was ok, he’d had a flat and was fixing it so I kept and into the next smooth corner… not so smooth it would seem, something snagged my rear tyre and there was the sudden sound of rushing air. I stopped and my rear had suffered yet another sidewall tear, much smaller than the last time, and it had almost sealed with sealant. In the interests of time I tried reinflating with CO2 but annoyingly the tear refused to seal. By this stage the elite girls were gone and people from the wave starts behind we starting to come through, I pulled out tyre levers and my tube and set to work.

Back on the bike I knew I had lost serious time, Sue Thompson had come through and she’d started at least one wave start behind me. I started chasing, but now I was in a much slower area of the field and getting past groups of 4 or 5 riders in single-track was getting difficult and time consuming.

A few minutes later and I passed the first timing mat, the snazzy electronic timing tells me that at this point in the race my virtual position was 562^nd overall and 23^rd female, and compared to the people I was keeping pace with before the flat I had lost about 12 minutes.

We headed back to Kowen and I continued to claw my way back through the field, passing scores of riders on the single-track and blasting past people on the firetrail. There were several longer sections of fireroad in Kowen and a moderate head wind on some of them, at one point I came up behind a train of 5 or 6 riders, all happily sitting on the wheel of a female rider who was putting in the hard yards. I hope what I said shamed those boys into pulling a turn on the front, but unfortunately I was on my own as everyone riding my pace was still well up ahead.

The first feed station this year was well within Kowen and I passed that and over the second set of timing mats. By this stage I’d clawed back over 200 places, sitting in a virtual 329^th and 9^th female, but still far from the 3^rd female position I’d been sitting in before the flat. I say virtual position as the staggered wave starts make it impossible to know on the ground where you stand compared the person you’re passing, the timing takes all that into account but it does make you feel a little like you’re chasing ghosts in the actual race.

Somewhere in the next section before leaving Kowen I caught up to Sue Thompson on the trails, but I knew she still had a good few minutes on me due to being a later wave start. I kept just pegging people back, overtaking were I could and kept thinking that I had to keep fighting because with only 4 elite girls it would only take one mechanical for me to make the podium.

Popping out of Kowen and across the road into defence land means a good section of well-formed fire road. I locked out my suspensions and let those 29er wheels do their rolling thing, really wishing that I’d had people my speed to work with. I pushed hard, no point leaving anything in the tank – either I could catch those girls or I would know that I had pushed my hardest trying.

Finally through defence land we entered Mt Majura, a sad sight this year as roadwork and recent logging meant that the single track was gone and we were tracking straight through on firetrail. One final firetrail pinch and we crossed another set of timing mats, these ones designating the start of the untimed section through Canberra’s suburban streets. Looking at the timing, this were I passed Sue Thompson in terms of race time, I’d moved up to 6^th female and 230^th overall.

I could finally back off, eat and drink and head behind the nearest tree for a pee. It’s an odd feeling having an untimed section in a race, each year I struggle to get going again after it and this year I had been planning on riding straight through at a moderate pace. However with my rear tyre at about 15psi with a tube in I knew I was heading for a good pinch flat at Stromlo, so I was on the search for a track pump. Unfortunately I couldn’t see one in the feed station so I kept going despite the party atmosphere with all the supporters and riders hanging out in the sun.

We had chosen to stay with friends who were riding the 50km, they also live pretty much on the untimed section, so I headed there and swapped out my camelbak for a bottle and refuelled for the last 30km. Luckily Beth had left the garage remote in the letter box so I could raid the garage for a pump and spare CO2.

With more air in the rear and spare CO2 in case of further disaster, I set off again up the final stretch of untimed section to the Black Mountain climb. This climb is a little nasty to legs that have cooled down in the 55 minutes allowed for the untimed section, but mine felt ok as I pushed on up the climb and around the firetrails with their loose gravel and sand. The course in previous years has been fairly flat and fast between Black Mountain and Stromlo so it starts to feel like you’re on the home straight.

It was a bit of surprise then to come into the Arboretum (which Tim tells me is pronounced Ah-bor-eee-tum, but I kept trying to add an extra syllable in there somewhere) and turn a sharp right up a nasty little climb. The three guys in front of me were walking and from the feeling in my own legs I can only guess that they might have found that climb fairly cramp inducing. Not content with one climb, the course continued around the back of the Arboretum with several rolling climbs – definitely nastier than previous years.

Finally however that was over and I crossed the river and onto the final stretch of bike path to Stromlo. I passed a few girls for the second time who must have spent less time in the untimed section than me and pushed on to the gate into Stromlo which lead us into what was the red loop at the Scott24.

Not long into the singletrack and I came up behind a man and his young son, not connected with the race in anyway who had decided to ride a 100km race track… not impressed. They let me pass on the firetrail, how nice of them!

Feed station three was at the base of the standard Stromlo singletrack climb, another set of timing mats by now I was in 5^th overall female place, 10 minutes off Nienke although of course I had no idea of that at the time. All I knew was I just had to get up Stromlo and then down and I was done, I pushed hard and according to Strava got one of my fastest times up Stromlo despite having 90km in the legs. In fact I pulled back about a minute and a half on Nienke just on the climb and another 30 seconds on the descent but the race just wasn’t long enough to pull back the other 8 minutes which separated us in the end.

The descent down Stromlo is a blast, a great way to finish a race. I had a fairly clear run and let the bike go, using every opportunity to make up time. Then finally it was all over and I was on the crit track powering for home finally crossing the line in 5^th overall female and 179^th overall. A great result but a bittersweet finish, knowing that my ride time without the flat would have placed my 3^rd overall and on the elite podium.

The Rocky Trail 100

 Arriving at Stromlo and seeing Martin and Juliane was like coming home, having done many of their events we know them well and the vibe was just so friendly and relaxed after the national round. The course was going to be awesome, up the usual climb then down the back of the mountain with Pork Barrel, a loop of all that rocky stuff out the back then onto old favourites like Double Dissolution and Party Line before another climb (Blue Tongue and Heartbreaker?) back up to hook into Skyline and Luge, then still not over it was a sharp left hander and into Blackberry Climb and Slant Six before the descent back to camp. 

Just short of the 33km planned, the course came in at about 27-28km. So that meant that as entrants in the “100km” we’d be riding a total of more like 83km, but it was 83km of Stromlo single track with only minimal fire trail in the course – it was going to be tough. 

Good morning Stromlo!

Luckily the thunderstorms that were forecast just skirted the edge of Stromlo all night and the track was dry for the mad buggers riding the 100-mile option, which kicked off at 5am.

We had a much more relaxed start time of 9am but despite that it was a frantic rush to get ready with 10 minutes to go. Lining up on the start line I placed myself mid-pack with no idea how the legs would pull up after the smash fest the day before. Then we were off, sprinting to the first single track which caused a bottleneck and we all got our heart rates back down while we waited to file into the sniggle. 

The conga line continued up the climb and I started to feel like my legs were strong and happy to be back on the bike. The bike itself was loving Stromlo, it just seemed to roll over the rolls and up the climb. About half way up I could hear a 100-miler calling track on the guys behind me, unfortunately timing had seen the lead rider Ed coming through for lap 4 just as we started out so he was patiently passing the whole field of 100km and 66km riders despite having almost 100km in his legs already. Pulling wide on a corner to let him through I was amazed he was still managing to thank people and sound friendly it must have been a hell-of-a-job getting through that field.

By the top of the climb the conga line was starting to spread out a bit, a few bits of rolling descent before the true summit meant I could assess the descending speed of riders around me. I started passing a few guys that I pegged as being slower than me on the descent. I know that Pork Barrel doesn’t allow much passing and I didn’t want to get stuck behind slower riders if I could help it.

The XR team is made for Stromlo.... :-)

Hitting the true summit the remote lever for my new CTD suspension allows for a simple flick and the platform is fully open for descending. There was still a bit of traffic on Western Wedgetail and then it was into Pork Barrel, which I haven’t ridden since the Rocky Trail MTB GP round early last year. Some track work has smoothed out the start but the big rock roll over is still there – the new bike taking the A-line in its stride. Then I was on the tail of some bloke on a hard tail who was clearly finding Pork Barrel a bit full-on, his rear wheel was bouncing all over the place and I thought he was about to head over the bars.

Luckily he found a place for me to pass and I headed on down over the smoother sections that have been reworked but still like to launch unwary riders into some airtime. A sharp left over more rocks at the bottom and we headed into some tracks that are usually out of the back of the blue lap in the Scott24. These have names like Deep Creek and are generally rocky enough to stop your wheels in their tracks if you pick the wrong line. 

Photo by GiroPhoto

It was here the Lapierre came into its own, it just rolled over rocks but without making me feel like I was driving a semi-trailer. I still felt connected to the trail (something that you can loose with full suspension 29ers) but I just felt like the bike was flowing over everything. The suspension was now in trail mode and the rear shock took the harshness out of the trail but without the feeling of losing too much power.

I know this section of track well after many laps at 24 races and so I knew to give the guys in front a few bike lengths before the tricky bits – meaning I could avoid unclipping when they came unstuck. Loving the bike and loving the track I was happily chatting to buys I was passing, quite a few of them called me Cheeky ;-) I guess it is written across my bum!

After Deep Creek it was down a fast firetrail and then a fairly rocky Missing Link climb back up to the start of double dissolution. It was on this climb that I could see Tim up ahead, a little odd as he usually puts minutes into me on the main Stromlo climb even through I can put a bit of time into him in technical single track. Catching him at the top of the Missing Link climb I heard that he’d had a decent stack on the Pork Barrel roll down, complete with being hit by the guy behind who couldn’t stop. I tailed him down double dissolution and then into the next single track where I sat on his tail and got the whole story, his levers had twisted around on his bars in the stack and he was planning to stop and fix it at the end of the lap. 

Coming out onto fire trail we started climbing up to the start of Party Line – of course this meant I lost Tim as his power on climbs is well beyond mine. I used the section to eat and drink before heading into Party Line – wooot. Party line is just fun, it’s flowy and has bermed corners although lately it has also had some loose sand which catches the unwary.

Running new Rubena tyres (as well as a new bike, new wheels) I did have a few hairy moments where I almost lost the front wheel. There seemed to be a point on the turn where the side knobs suddenly caught and whipped the tyre into a tighter turn than I was intending, I wasn’t convinced I like the tyres but they were rolling fast. 

Vanilla Bean GU - hardy stuff

Out onto another short section of firetrail and then into more single track with fast shallow corners and few rocks, I could see Tim up ahead again and was gaining on him. In fact there are pretty much no rocks on this section, which is why I couldn’t believe it when my sidewall caught something in the middle of a corner and my rear tyre suddenly starting raining sealant on everything within a few metres. Coming to a wobbly stop I realised I’d had a fairly decent sidewall tear, about 2cm long and there was no way it was self-sealing.

Out came the spare tube, the CO2 and … hmm no tyre levers, I’d forgotten them. I managed to get the tyre off anyway and was confronted with a swimming pool of sealant still in the tyre – what a waste! About this time one of the guys I’d passed earlier pulled up “oh no Cheeky,” he said “what’s happened?” I told him I’d ripped my sidewall but had all the gear so he wished me luck and carried on.

Tube in and I realised it was just going to herniate through the side wall, lucky I had a GU wrapper so that went in to support the tear before I got the CO2 in and back on the trail. I lost about 11 minutes in that time and no girls had come past, so I figured I was either well ahead of the other girls, or well behind them, and either way it wasn’t going to change. So time to just ride and have fun.

Check out the bulge, it held for another 60-odd kms

Coming back through transition Tim was just heading out after his repairs, I grabbed the car key and checked my tyre pressure with the track pump, grabbed another spare tube and CO2 before heading out again.

Having lost a total of around 15 minutes now meant that I was passing pretty much all the riders I saw on track, including some of the guys I’d passed previously who had seen me stopped with the mechanical. A few of them called out encouragement, and several of them called me Cheeky ;-) one of them complained afterwards that I’d passed him like he was standing still.

Back up Stromlo again and the bike was just flying, I was loving it so much that I was telling the riders I was passing just how awesome it was. I think they thought I was mad, but seriously this bike was just made for Stromlo. In the back of mind was the fact that I had a vanilla bean GU wrapper bulging out of a side wall tear on one of the most tyre munching trails I’ve ever ridden, but it would seem GUs wrappers are pretty hardy and it was holding up well. 

Climbing up heart breaker climb for the second time I passed Meryl King, one of only two women to take on (and complete) the 100 miler, then it was onto back into Skyline and Luge for the fun factor before finally coming into transition for the last lap. Tim was just leaving again as I came in so it seemed we were lapping at similar speeds. 

Having ridden the first two laps with a Camelbak I ditched it in favour of just a bottle for the last lap. The Lapierre fits a full 800ml bottle on even on a small frame – pretty good for a full-sus 29er – and there was also a water station half way round if I needed to refill.

The weather had warmed up and despite some tantalising drops of rain it had stayed dry and dusty. It was now around 12:30pm and the full sun on the climb was roasting, black kit might not show the dirt but it does warm up a little! 

Stromlo can hurt too!

The funny thing about Stromlo is that we’re all used to riding certain loops that are commonly used in races, this means certain section of track are associated with that feeling of “almost home”. The double length loops in the Rocky Trail meant that those feeling would arise automatically only for you to realise that you actually had to climb most of the way back up the mountain again and complete another 10km before you were home.

In some of the fast corners just after Double Dissolution the inevitable happened, the front wheel side knobs grabbed I was down hard on my right side – unfortunately onto some rocks. Ouch, I swore and hopped around for a few seconds before getting back on the bike, sorry to see a few small holes in my Cheeky bib shorts. Stromlo claims yet more skin!

Actually that's me in the photo ;-)

Near the top of Heartbreaker climb I caught glimpses of Tim through the trees and put effort in to make up time on Skyline and Luge so that I popped out on the fire trail only just behind him. I caught his wheel on Blackberry Climb but once onto that section of firetrail before Slant Six he pulled away again. I made up ground on through Slant Six and caught him on the descent down Breakout and Muck Raker. Unfortunately he dropped his chain just as I caught him so I was past and away while he was fixing that.

Finally that “almost home” feeling was actually justified and I was at Homeview Junction and onto Old Duffy descent for the final time crossing the line in 5:15. The girl on timing said “that was a fast last lap!” – I guess it looked it on paper with the flat in the first lap and time checking tyres pressures and getting a new tube coming under the second lap. 

In the end I won the 100km women’s category convincingly but more to the point I had a fantastic day on a fantastic bike at a fantastic event.

Thanks to Cheeky Velosport for their support and my fabulous new bike, and thanks Rocky Trail for another fantastic event.

Oh La Lapierre... New bike and National Round

New bike fever! My new race machine is finally here, after a hiccup or two which were sorted out by the lovely guys at Cheeky Velosport, I picked it up on a Thursday evening just in time for the weather to dump 50mm of rain on the local trails :-( in time for the weekend. So instead of a spin on the trails it was a bike set up in the garage of Scott Steward and then the bike went back to the shop for some tweaks to cable length and bar width before I finally rode it on the dirt in Glenrock last Tuesday evening and Wednesday.

It’s generated a bit of interest the Lapierre XR team, it’s not a common brand in Australia and quite a few of the Newy mtb community had been into the shop to check it out before I even saw it!

The Lapierre XR Team finally hits the dirt

First impressions, well what I can I say I’m new to the 29er thing and it felt a bit odd. I was a bit tentative as the handling was a bit different and I was starting to wonder whether it was a good idea to race the new bike just days later at a National Round. Hmmm yes a Subaru UCI official national level round of XCO racing…

So the idea of racing a national XCO (Olympic format cross country) has been in the back of my mind since winning the state champs last year, but with the first round a 10-hour drive away at Mt Buller and my new bike not ready yet I ended up not entering. It was probably the right decision but I loved Mt Buller and it was hard seeing the race reports, footage and photos from those fantastic trails.

While the next round was at Thredbo, which neither suits or excites me in terms of riding, I was going to have my new bike and it was my last chance for the year as the 3^rd round clashes with Capital Punishment. So I pulled the trigger and entered, booked some accommodation and hoped that I’d be ok on a new bike and recovered from the cold that I somehow had managed to pick up!

The National Series rounds consist of three events for the All Mountain Cup (XC riding), including a short course eliminator on the Friday, the standard XCO on Saturday and a longer point-to-point race on Sunday. With the drive from Newcastle being over 7 hours I decided I’d be skipping the eliminator on the Friday, then I heard the point-to-point, which at Mt Buller had involved the fantabulous Stone Fly trail, was going to be laps of the flat and non-techy Crackenback course. Uninspiring!

Luckily Martin and Juliane from Rocky Trail Entertainment had an event on Sunday in Canberra, the RockyTrail100 which involved 1,2,3 or 5 laps of a roughly 33km course of Stromlo… perfect as this would put us 2.5 hours closer to home for the drive back on Sunday.

So Thursday night saw up packing and loading two new 29ers (Tim has a new Scott) onto the roof, then having to rearrange the racks as the bars are wider than our old bikes, and all the time being attacked by the million of mosquitoes that have loved the recent rain at our place. Finally on the road we headed to Sydney for a night with friends so we’d avoid the F3 peak traffic Friday morning.

Of course staying with riding friends meant that our arrival meant the bikes came off the roof and into the garage for admiration and were reloaded the next morning for the drive to Thredbo. Tim had caught the cold lurgy and slept most the journey, which meant that when we arrived at Thredbo I set out alone to scope out the course.

Most of the course was familiar from our New Years riding but with the addition of some walking track (with stair cases converted to ramps) and some extra switchbacks up grassy ski slopes that were new to me. Luckily the technical section was a part of the trail that Tim and I had spent some time on at New Years, but I still felt like the front wheel of this new bike had a mind of its own and bounced off line easily.

Overall the course felt tough, like some M C Escher sketch it definitely has more up than down! Part of the walking track had a narrow footbridge, which ended in a sharp hairpin right-hander onto a ramp (over stairs) and I simply couldn’t ride it. According to another bloke out there that afternoon you just had to endo and whip the rear around… right!

Feeling extremely apprehensive I headed back to the hotel just as some humid summer rain started to fall. I was starting to think the whole idea of entering a National Round was a little silly, seeing as how I don’t even train for this length of race – let alone doing it on a new bike after a week off the bike with illness.

Carpark Warm-Up

Too late to pull out anyway so the next morning saw me set up on the roadie on the trainer in a Thredbo car park trying to warm up. This is a novel idea for me, I generally feel that if I’m going to race then I don’t need to do EXTRA riding before hand … it’s like practice laps – a waste of energy.  While that might be true for 7 hour solo races, apparently XCO is a different world as every big name in XC riding was doing laps of the sealed road sporting the latest skinsuits… intimidated? Maybe a little!

Instead of the usual start line rabble it was all the official UCI orderly call up of the 11 elite females, two minutes to go and the silence was deafening the start line tension was suffocating. Luckily it didn’t affect little Hamish who is almost two, breaking the tense silence by yelling “go Mummy go, go now mummy go” at elite rider mum Tory lined up on the front line of the grid.

The start line-up including Olympian Bec Henderson

The next minute we were off, XCO starts are not my forte – unsurprising really, seeing as I’ve never tried to be good at them. Still last into the single track didn’t last long as I passed on of the girls just a few minutes in. I spent the next little while on the rear wheel of a girl in a VIS roadie kit – I was obviously descending faster than her and pulled a pass as soon as we were in more open track. However we soon were back past the start finish and onto the endless switchback climb up the grassy paddock and her roadie fitness soon saw that order swap back.

Never ending climb on grass

The climb doesn’t feel like it should be hard, it never seems steep and it’s not technical at all but it just HURT. Then you come out onto firetrail and keep going up before a last section of even more grassiness before you hit the most technical descent with max heart rate pounding and jelly legs from lactic acid. This is a section of walking track with steps rocks and roots, which I really enjoyed on the Anthem at New Years but struggled to feel confident on in race practice.

More grass, this time going down

Luckily some alterations to fork pressure meant my bike handled superbly and I smashed down that section faster than I’d ridden it before. Then some sketchy loose firetrail and into the walking track, I simply ran the bridge into ramp corner  (later found out a lot of the other girls did too) before heading up the rocky climb and last bit of firetrail before more grassy corners back down to the finish… 4 laps to go.

The whole race my legs felt dead, apart from the first lap I struggled to get my heart rate up to normal XC racing levels because my legs just wouldn’t come to the party. The track was dusty, loose and hot with not many spots to drink and nowhere to recover; I was off the pace of the same U19 rider I’d beaten convincingly at the State Champs. Each time I came through the feed/tech zone Tim was encouraging me to drink and keep going – every time I just wanted to stop.

My goals for this race were simple: not to get lapped (which means you get pulled off the course) and not to finish too far back. I started to worry I would get lapped as I could see the front runners in a few places and they were definitely flying, I could also still see the girl in VIS kit each time up the climb and knew I wasn’t loosing much time on her. I hadn’t seen the other girl I’d passed for some time and wondered if she was still in the race.

The whole race simply hurt!

Somehow I made it through another 3 laps and got the bell for my last lap without being caught. Finally I was going up that climb for the last time and into the final time down the techy descent. The last time of running the ramp I asked the marshal if I had been on the only one and he reassured my that a lot of the girls has been running that corner all race. Finally I was coming down the final descent and across the finish line with just under 2 hours of riding.

I found out later that there had been two DNFs (including the girl I passed early on) so I’d come 9^th in the field. I probably hoped for a little better than that but realistically with how I felt on the day I was happy to cross the line and not get lapped. I always knew Thredbo wasn’t a course that suited me.

After watching the elite men start my now dusty new bike went back on the roof and it was off to Canberra for 100km of Stromlo!

Summer Riding Holiday part 3 - Thredbo

The beautiful NSW high country

So 2013 dawned with sunny blue skies and forecast warm weather, today was a rest and travel day. With the rest of the group heading back to Melbourne, we started our drive towards the NSW high country through Tallangatta and Khancoban then along the Alpine way to climb up to the cooler, but still warm and sunny, weather of Thredbo. We made camp a few kilometres down the Alpine way towards to Jindabyne, on the banks of the picturesque Thredbo River. Unfortunately the high volume of human traffic in this part of the high country means the river water isn’t safe to drink without boiling – but it did provide a pleasant place to escape the heat and wash off the dust.

We had discovered that one of the Newy Cogheads was staying at Thredbo with his family so we arranged for a tour of the local singletrack the next morning, before retiring to bed for a deliciously cool alpine night.

visitors at camp

Thredbo is yet another ski resort, with a decent history of DH riding, which is currently trying to develop a cross-country network of trails to attract more summer time visitors. They currently have a small network of trails based around the village and lower slops and a trail is being developed that will head down the river valley and eventually will link into the Crackenback resort trails about 25km downstream.

Unfortunately, we got the feeling that Thredbo isn’t quite there yet in terms of riding. The first inkling we got was at the information desk when we were trying to discuss the trail network with the girl behind the counter. Thredbo have built a downhill flow trail, similar to the one at Mt Buller and we were keen make the long uphill grind up from the valley floor to the top lift station to test out this flowing downhill run. The conversation went something like this”

Me: do we need full-face helmets for the Flow trail?

Girl: No they aren’t required.

Me: what’s the route to the top?

Girl: you get the lift, you will need to do the $99 induction and if you don’t have full-face helmets and bikes you can hire them. It’s $299 for the day to hire everything and do the induction.

Me: Can’t we just ride to the top along this route on the trail map?

Girl: Oh no, that’s advanced! You need a guide who will assess your skills and do the lift induction.

Me: we don’t want to use the lifts, we are XC riders and have XC bikes.

Girl: Then you need to ride the XC trails in the valley, you can only ride to the top with a guide and full-face helmets.

Me: Ok so how do we get to the start of this advanced XC trail (which appeared to start from half way up the slope)

Girl: you need to walk up the Flow trail!

Colourful, but lacks trail direction and sends you up the Flow trail!

Hmmmm… now at Mt Buller as an XC rider, you could get on the DH tracks easily as they accessible from the top of the road, but there’s adequate signage and information and a general vibe that it’s up to you to take some responsibility for your own skills and riding experience both on XC and DH trails. Now at Thredbo, we started to get the feeling that we were being treated like complete idiots.

Having decided the Flow trail was out of the picture (why build a Flow trail if it’s only open to DH anyway???) we grabbed another XC trail map and tried to work out a route. Compared to Mt Buller, Thredbo trail maps suck! First of all, it’s a crappy A4 sheet of paper, which won’t last a day’s riding. Secondly, there no directions marked on any trails despite some of them being impossible in reverse unless you are an accomplished trials rider. Feeling distinctly grumpy we headed off to meet up with Ian for a lap of the valley trails.

Walking tracks make fun singletrack

We started the loop by rolling down the Valley trail – the one that will eventually head 25km down the valley to Crackenback. At the moment only 3.5km of the trail has been completed, and it’s a shared use trail of fairly smooth surface and gentle corners. It’s fun ridden at speed and Tim and I were soon covered in dust from Ian ripping it into the corners ahead of us. Soon we hit the extent of trail work and turned around for the gently climbing ride back towards town, but just before reaching the village we turned a hard right into the Bridle Loop which offers a few switch backs and rocks to keep the climbing interesting. At this stage we were starting to feel that there was a bit less oxygen available at 1500m than we were used to.

The Bridle loop pop you out onto what appears to be a beginner baby ski slope and a trail switches up that through the summer grass before you’re out onto firetrail. A bit more climbing and we ducked into some more single track, I think this may have been walking track but it was great fun with loads of steps and rocks which required quick on-the-go line choices and behind the saddle action. Then you pop out again onto firetrail at the top of the summer luge track, wave to the kiddies and it’s onwards and up again on some more firetrail.

Sections of rocks, steps and roots :-)

Then comes the Thredbo brilliance, you cross the DH track and suddenly you are riding UP the flow trail. Yup, you can only ride down it with a full-face helmet and induction but you can ride up it just by correctly following the XC trail map. Of course we stayed off the side of the trail where we could, but the trail provides a few narrow points where this is impossible and it’s also hard to see people coming. A confused DH rider stopped and told us we were on a DH trail, I don’t blame him for being confused – it’s a bloody stupid idea.

After a few hundred metres of hard uphill along side the flow trail we ducked into the most advanced XC trail on the map – Meadows Trail. This actually isn’t an XC trail but a walking track that they allow bikes on. This means that while you are negotiating the steps, rocks and roll downs you need also be away of summer walkers including children who may be on the trail. Following Ian’s big 29er wheels this track tested the best of my read-and-ride line choice and behind the saddle abilities. Linked up sections of steps and rocks were all ride-able and even roll-able but baulk and unclip and you were walking for a while.

That fun ended all too soon and we were out onto the trail around the golf course. This would be a fun descent except that so close to the town, the shared trail gets a high volume of walkers so that you are constantly stopping and starting. After less than an hour of riding we were back in town having covered 95% of the Thredbo single track, fun but definitely nothing like what we’d come to expect after our Alpine riding in Victoria.

Firetrail to Cascades Hut

That afternoon we headed up to Deadhorse Gap to ride one of the firetrails accessible to bikes in the National Park. The ride out to Cascades Hut is very pretty although it is 100% firetrail with no singletrack. Unfortunately it’s hard to appreciate the beauty while being attacked by March flies, perhaps we should have picked a windier day as the still heat was definitely sending the flies crazy.

Alpine scenery on Cascades Trail

Over the next days in Thredbo we explored the Crackenback cross country trails, a fun and flowing loop of just over half an hour with a decent skills park. All this in a little self-contained resort complete with Segway tours… odd! And headed back to the Thredbo trails to play on the more technical trails with their rocks, roots and steps. We knew that good riding was to be had in Jindabyne and at the Bundarra trails but the weather was hot even up at Thredbo and the idea of heading down to Jindy where it was 5-10 degrees hotter was not inviting, we put those trails on the “next-time” list.

The final day of riding in Thredbo became a road ride day. We decided that Charlottes Pass was worthy of an ascent and leaving our camp at 8am we headed down the road towards Jindabyne. Despite the forecast for a hot day, the alpine nights are cold leaving before the sun came up would have required vests and warmers.

While the ride to Jindy is primarily a descent, it does have two decent climbs as you head up and out of the Thredbo River valley into an adjacent valley before continuing down towards Lake Jindabyne. It must be a hugely popular area for training camps because we passed literally hundreds of roadies coming the other way, complete with support vehicles. Once down at Jindy we met up with Ian and headed along the road towards Charlottes Pass which follows the lake edge for a little way before crossing back over the Thredbo river and then commencing the climb. From the base there’s a fairly constant climb of around 5% for about 13km. From around 900m elevation at the base you reach 1600m at the 13km point before the undulations begin, you promptly descend 100m in elevation and the climb another 150m to gap … a pattern that repeats itself several times and sees you pass through winter ski towns like Perisher and Smiggins Holes. These towns are eerily ghost-like in summer with deserted buildings, signs creaking the wind and not a soul in sight except a few confused tourists wondering where everyone is.

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The total distance from the base of the climb to Charlottes Pass is about 32km with the road ending in a locked gate at about 1840m in elevation. For the last 5-10km of the climb the road weaves through beautiful alpine grassland with mountain streams running over glacial boulders, a truly beautiful to ride! Topping out at Charlottes Pass we were met by Ian’s wife and kids in their car, on his 29er Ian elected to save his off-road tyres by skipping the descent so it was just Tim and myself on the roadies heading back down to Jindabyne.

Topping out at Charlotte's Pass

The undulations meant that there were still several decent uphills to content with on the ride back and these were made worse by the return of my friends the March flies… nothing like uphill motivation than trying to outride something bitey!

Soon though we were on the 13km descent back to the base of the climb and the temperature was steadily climbing. The Thredbo river looked so inviting as we crossed at the bottom and then a hot north-westerly wind hit us as we slogged up the hill back out of the river valley. Luckily this proved to be mostly a tail wind back into Jindabyne – a welcome help seeing as we had by now covered 100km and 2000m of climbing, it was also well over 30 degrees.

We had picked up my Dad the afternoon before from his 6-day solo hike in the high country and he met us in Jindabyne with the car for some cold milkshakes and lunch by the lake. Then it was back to camp for a swim in the river and the final night at camp. Of course while I drove back to camp Tim decided to ride and, not only that, but went up to Dead Horse Gap before heading back into camp – why not on a 33 degree day!

Collecting Dad from the top of the chairlift post hike

Finally the holiday was over and it was time to head home, we drove to Canberra for our first hot shower in two weeks and to drop Dad off with relatives so he could catch a train back to Melbourne. Canberra greeted us with 39-degree heat so we decided to give the Canberra singletrack a miss this time and headed out for a dinner of steak instead. Then after a fitful nights sleep in oppressive heat it was onto Sydney the next morning for brunch with friends then eventually home to Newcastle and the reality of unpacking and starting the many, many loads of washing generated by two weeks of riding…

Summer riding holiday part 2 – Bright/Mt Beauty

Leaving our pretty camp early in the morning we headed to Bright, arriving late morning to a town swarming with carbon road bikes. Seriously, if you have an expensive carbon roadie, some matching kit and a bit of a potbelly then head to Bright because you’ll be one of thousands! I’m sure there were some pretty serious roadies around Bright too, but they tend to be glimpsed earlier in the day and we’d obviously arrived at the prime feeding time of the slightly portlier species!

Having decided that it at least meant our bikes were very unlikely to be stolen, we hit up the local bakery for a milkshake and to meet up with yet another couple of old Melbourne friends who tend to do some DH riding as well as a bit of XC. Indeed Kat suggested we should all “get some Gravity in ya”!

All the cafes in Bright were surrounded by roadies

Once the crew was assembled, a process that takes longer with increasing numbers we set off for some exploration of the Bright trails. These head up the creek from town and deliver you into a pine forest networked by random trails and some fireroad. Overhead the paragliders were circling like flies in the clear blue skies obviously enjoying the thermals created by the 30-odd degree day. Yet more flawless weather!

Unfortunately the Bright trails are hard to navigate when no-one knows where to go and we ended up doing a lot of discussing which way we should go and some time spent riding up stuff that should have been ridden down and vice-versa. In the end we climbed up the fireroad to reach some trails that are probably more all-mountain than cross-country. Should have guessed that seeing as it was the gravity-loving pair leading the way.

About 20 minutes short of the top we stopped and the less gravity inclined of us headed down what was supposed the easier trail… not so much easier as just a shorter section of steep stuff I think. Now as an XC rider I generally rank reasonable well in the descending stakes so I took the lead into this “baby gravity” trail and suddenly found myself on a very loose and soft surface with steep corners and an unfriendly drop-off to the side for a lot of the trail. Things went pear-shaped rather quickly as my front wheel found some even softer surface on the edge of the trail and dug in and I unclipped one foot pre-empting an over-the-bars incident, however I somehow stayed on the bike and careered on down the track on foot of the pedal and very soon off the saddle as well and finally coming to rest in some bushes after riding one-footed on the cross bar for some distance… what can I say – style is my middle name.

Bogong from Survey Track

Determined to do better I remounted and continue down the trail, and things went relatively well for a while until a very steep and tight right-hander with a near vertical drop off the side. I’m not sure what happened, perhaps I lost my nerve and unclipped shifting my weight forwards and over the bars or perhaps I grabbed some brake but the result was a catapult over the bars but somehow landing on my feet with my bike entangled in one foot and still cartwheeling behind me. I ended up with a perfect dust tyre-print across my arse so at some point I managed to run myself over…. That’s what I call talent! After that display everyone else walked that corner, and soon we were down off the steepest sections and into more manageable trails for us cross-country types.

The rest of the ride was more of the same, trying to find trails based on vague memories of someone who had raced there and getting thoroughly lost in the process. Then getting annoyed with it all and heading back to town only to find the sought after trails on the other side of the river to where they were supposed to be. Eventually we all ended up back in town for yet another milkshake before leaving the town of a million carbon roadies for the slightly quieter scene of Mt Beauty.

Big Hill MTB Park and the local brewery

Over Towonga Gap and into Mt Beauty, which nestles in the valley below Mt Bogong and Falls Creek, we set up camp at the foot of Mt Bogong about 15km out of town and yet again were treated to another idyllic campsite with beautiful mountain stream and no camp fees.

A good day on the trails

Our days in Mount Beauty revolved mainly around the Big Hill mountain bike park, which is just on the edge of town on the side of a hill (they have plenty of hills in the area). Luckily this time we had a local guide for a our first ride and the result was 2 hours of riding awesome trails without having to make one direction decision. The first part of the ride was up Survey track, which was the original track, used by surveyors and early construction workers on the Kiewa Hydro Scheme in the early 1930s. There is some local talk about clearing the track even further up the mountain and perhaps making a mtb route all the way up to Falls Creek which would be a phenomenal ride. For now the track winds its way up the hillside running almost parallel to the Falls Ck road and provided a not-too steep way to reach Cranky Corner – where the Falls road has a distinctive hairpin. Crossing the road here and continuing up some equally manageable firetrail brings you into the trail network of the mountain bike park. Crisscrossed with trails and fireroad you could literally spend days in here getting lost and found again but always finding stuff to ride. There is apparently a trail map available but apparently it’s more confusing than helpful so we relied on group knowledge and experiences from the first ride with the local guide.

Survey Track

Mt Beauty was back on a surface I’m more familiar with, dry hard pack through eucalypt bush with some rocks and tree roots. The single track has been built by locals and the local club (rather than resort style construction) and trails often bear the name of their main builder …. Seems Bernie was and is instrumental in the park. 

Three decent sessions in the trail network and I’d still be happy to go back for more but Tim was champing at the bit for some road riding so on New Years Eve we planned to mountain bike in the morning and road ride in the afternoon. As it turned out it was yet another hot day and so after a decent session on the trails we swapped to the roadies and headed up to Falls Creek.

Elevation of the Falls Ride... with a GPS fart to start

Now I said Mt Beauty was quieter than Bright but it’s still a riding destination, in fact there’s an informal boot camp called ride week that is headed by some riders who are Mt Beauty born and bred like the van der Ploegs and attracts some top road and mountain bikers to the area for the Christmas/New Year period. With classic road climbs like Falls Creek, Towonga Gap, Hotham and Buffalo all in reach it’s easy to see why you’d want to own a roadie in this area.

Doing my best roadie impression!

Ok so maybe not roadie legs!

Starting at Mt Beauty at around 300m elevation the road up to Falls Creek climbs with some big undulations in the first 15km up past Bogong Village until it crosses the Pretty Valley branch of the East Kiewa River, from there it continues up at a fairly constant gradient to top out at Falls Creek 31km from Mt Beauty having climbed to an elevation of around 1600m. Being the seventh consecutive day of riding, I did have some doubts about whether I’d make it especially as my easiest gear was already in use in the first 500m of the ride. The ride never gets steep though and all I had to do was just keep the legs turning and keep my heart rate from spiking to high. Soon we climbed high enough that the heat started to ease and in the shade of the tall mountain eucalypts and tree ferns it was a pleasant and pretty ride. Several kilometres from Falls Creek village you pass the toll booth for fleecing winter visitors, from there the village in often in sight and you start to loose the tree cover. I started to really struggle but Tim encouraged me to keep going and soon enough I could rack my bike on one of the many friendly racks (the hook your saddle over type ones) out side the Falls Supermarket and recover with a chocolate milk.

Just to prove I did make it!

The descent down Falls is awesome, with fairly gentle corners and gradient you swoop down the mountain between 40 and 50km/hr marvelling at hour quickly you reach landmarks that seems miles apart on the ride up. Then suddenly you cross the Kiewa and the legs have to pedal with the first of several rather rude uphills back to Beauty. Finishing back in Mt Beauty I was totally spent, so much so that after one beer I was in bed by ten thirty on New Years Eve and looking forward to a rest day to start 2013.