This morning was spent tinkering with ‘bacon‘. I spent some time with a tape measure and the anthem in an attempt to get the saddle position over the BB as close as possible between the two. It was immediately apparent that it was successful as soon as I threw a leg over the bike as it instantly felt more ‘right’. I can’t quantify it any more than that. Before it felt wrong, now it feels right.

There are still plenty of things that don’t feel right about ‘bacon’ however. The tiny narrow little 580mm bars feel horrible. The old near balding specialized fast track tyre on the rear is just scary and it still only has a single functioning brake (fortunately it is the front one).

I fixed (?) the tyre problem by fitting a small block mistake that I had lying around. It sure is going to be fast New bars and brakes are currently in transit and should be fitted shortly which will only leave the old leaking Rock Shox Duke as the achilles heal of the bike. I can’t see me coming up with the money to replace it any time soon so it will just have to be good enough as is for the worlds.

I went for a little noodle around Awaba today to see how this new section of the red loop rides. Its pretty good. It is as green as hell, and desperately needs some wheels over it and some rain, but it is going to be quite good. I did some abbreviated laps so I could get some hill repeats up camel back climb and use the new section as a rest break between repeats. It rapidly became apparent that i have a lot of work to do in order to find some fitness for the worlds. At lease there are a still a few weeks left to work on it.

Most of the trail rode really nicely however there is one corner in the middle of the flush that is crying out for a berm and I will attempt to give it some loving in the not to distant future. There is also quite a few spots that need some more benching.

The goannas were out in force today, including one monster that I have nick named Juggernaut. Every lap he was in the same place and every lap he would panic and claw his way up a tree. Actually, to be fair, there is ever chance that Juggernaut was staying still and he was using the tree to move the earth out of his way he was that large. Sure glad he wasn’t in the middle of the track.

I also spent a little time wandering around higher up the hillside looking at where we can run a portion of the new trail. There is a magic little rock garden area that we could probably get too without too much additional climbing and it will then extend the length of the downhill that follows. I will need to walk it with a few other builders, but I think it might be a winner, especially since part of it is a perfectly benched wallaby trail which means extremely easy building.

The leeches are also starting to make a comeback. I saw more today that I have in the last 3 months….. here comes summer!

A great HMBA build day again today. A solid turn out despite it being fathers day which saw around ten builders. We made some great progress and completed work on “the flush” which is a grin inducing  series of berms, mounds, dips and twists which is just begging to be ridden flat out.

The best part of all this is that we linked it to an old fire road which rejoins the main trail and so it’s open and being ridden as I write this. The old fire road section is going to be seriously quick with ‘drift monkey’ telling me he saw over 40kph as he went down it. With two small water bars across it, it should prove quite exciting – just make sure you miss the big log at the bottom of the hill!

I am pretty chuffed that we were able to open the trail today. Nothing is more frustrating than slaving away on a long loop of trail and taking 3-6 months before the first wheels are able to roll over it. This way, we get a sense of progress and momentum which keeps people interested in the trails and keeps the build crew motivated.

Todays build has also meant the ‘high line’ which climbs up the pinch on the red loop has had a minor re-route as it descends Little Falcon Rd (it is bunted and clearly marked) to ensure there is no high speed traffic intersections as the main loop now crosses over Little Falcon Rd.

I am unsure what will happen with the next build day. With the fat tyre festival looming, we may spend the next build day adding in some switchbacks as an alternative route for camel back climb to make the red loop a little more enduro friendly. It will also make it a little more ‘punter friendly’ which will be good for weekend warriors who will now have a reason to ride the red loop.

Was how far I travelled this morning before my first flat. Ridiculous. Thankfully, it was the only flat in the 70k’s I did, but it was still one too many in my books. Time to start looking at road tubeless.

also: HMBA rider Cameron Ivory finished 16th in the Junior world champs overnight. Thats a massive effort and explains why the only time I see him in the race is the start line. Fellow HMBA rider Trenton Day had a tough race and finished with a DNF on the last lap after snapping 3 chain ring bolts and possibly his chain ring. What kind of wattage is this kid putting out to be destroying drive trains like that? I am sure he was flying and it is a tough blow, but he is young, talented and will be a name to watch in the future.

This is an open invite to heap rubbish upon me for my stupidity. What did I do that was so stupid you ask?

I spent hours tracking down the seemingly last 25.4mm seatpost in the known universe and then waited a fortnight for it to turn up. That doesn’t sound so bad?

My single speed doesn’t use a 25.4mm seatpost it turns out. In fact, none of my bikes do.

I swear, I swear in the name of all that is good and holy in the world that I checked it and saw 25.4mm written on it but upon double checking (did someone say something about measure twice, cut once?) it turns out it uses a 27.2mm post.

Now I have had offers of 27.2mm seatposts out the wahzoo and I have turned them all down because my single speed uses a 25.4mm seatpost. “Stupid frame” I would say as I turn down yet another seatpost, and lament why I had bought a frame that was still using such an old design.

Well, egg on my face.

Let the flames begin.

Since the bearded one was putting in overtime at work today and we had discussed exploring some single track out the back of Abernathy, I figured I would head out there on my own and see if I could find the elusive “best trail on earth”.

I parked at the old Abernathy pub and rode around in circles for a couple of hours without really going anywhere or finding any stellar trail. There were a couple of short moto sections that were quite fun but on the whole, I would describe the exercise as a bit of a fizzer. There certainly wasn’t a long flowing single track descent into a valley full of mind blowing trail that I had hoped for.

Instead, I stacked it twice trying to get down one of the most rutted and steepest trails I have ever ridden only to find a couple of boring fire trails at the bottom. The stacks were only quite minor and came about since I still have bugger all brakes on ‘bacon’ despite using three fingered braking, I was picking up speed at an alarming rate and it became clear that a strategic step-off was the only way I was going to survive. Thankfully I kept all my skin although my pride took a bit of a battering since the trail didn’t actually look that bad from the bottom.

I did find a short little section of motorcross track with a perfectly formed berm that I had about 20 attempts at riding but never quite got it right. I just couldn’t quite get enough speed up to really lay the bike over for the glorious video moment I was looking for. Instead, I ended up with this mash up….

I did manage to get back on the bike today however. This is the first time I have ridden since the VVC with that silly Oxfam Trail Walker getting in the way. The 24 Worlds are rapidly approaching and I am not in particularly good shape so I am going to have to be quite dedicated in my saddle time over the next month to try and find some form.

What is the world coming to? Why oh why do we need a set of bathroom scales that can talk to our GPS units? I love technology as much as the next guy, but surely there is a sensible limit and this little treasure just stepped over that line and joined the mad hatter at the tea party!

This picture of his brother in laws wheel was forwarded to me today by Luke who thought I could use a little smile with the horror run of flats i have been having. Epic flat!

Its all over for another year folks!

Such an amazing event, so much fun, misery, surprise and suffering mixed into such an intoxicating bitter sweet pill. An event where you feel every gamut of human emotion several times over and are left with elation as you cross the finish line.

Its a team effort and I would firstly like to thank Kelsie, Kellie, Susan for being the best team mates I could ever do this with. Amazingly strong, capable and energetic ladies who made this whole endeavor so enjoyable. An extra special thanks to Kelsie’s mum, Kellies dad and Stevie for turning up at freezing checkpoints at ungodly hours with big smiles and boxes full of food. Without the support crew, I would have folded 10 times over.

The actual trail is a thorough arse kicking. Lots of hills, rocks scrabbles, steep descents, sandy patches, slippery spots, stream crossings and staircases. It’s not a flat smooth course and is all the more enjoyable and memorable for it.

Memorable moments include:

1. Bumping into the guys from Johnny & the walkers and giving plenty of stick to Johnny who was clearly wearing brand new shoes. We figured he was in for an interesting time given the our blister horror stories of last year and nicknamed him “johnny new shoes”. We bumped into them the whole way through the race and had a great time exchanging stories. Johnny finished in 29.5 hours for the record

2. Absolutely gorging myself at checkpoint 2. I inhaled two sausage sandwiches only to be offered mashed potatoe and stew which was quickly devoured before I started on the chicked crimpy’s. The rest of the team were just looking at me with a stunned look on their face but it was what I needed and totally revived me.

3. Bumping into Mick and Craig as they rescued damsels in distress at the creek crossing on CP3.

4. The trail re-route between checkpoint 3 and 4 with a long gradual climb that then leveled out to a massive wide fire trail that went all the way to CP4. Having never seen this bit before, I had expected to veer off into a god forsaken ravine at any moment but this magic trail went all the way to the sphinx.

5. Bumping into Kieran and Gareth playing spotlight at the bottom of the ravines in CP4.

6. Getting a text from Lenny listing all his creature comforts at home while I was out there slogging it out. I wouldn’t have traded places with him for all the tea in china. I am pretty sure he felt the same.

7. Seeing ice from breathe smoke forming on a fellow walkers jacket as we dropped into some kind of freezing hollow near Camborra. My god it was cold in there, I was shivering and shaking and hanging for the sun to come up… good times!

8. Nearly falling asleep on my feet around 3:30am. My brain was playing tricks on me. My vision was behaving like a digital recorder that was misbehaving. Things would play at normal speeds, then it was like pausing live TV, then fast forwarding to catch up, then skipping a few frames and repeat. I tripped and stumbled quite a bit on relatively flat ground through this bit but lived to tell the tale.

9. Sun-up – Torch batteries were getting critically low, motivation was suffering and the cold was piercing. Sunshine just makes everything better.

10. Reaching CP8 and knowing there was only 11k’s to go of mostly flat road. Sitting in the sunshine amongst the hoard of other walkers was almost too good to leave.

11. Suffering unholy amounts of foot pain on the last stage once we hit asphalt roads. The balls of my feet felt like they were on fire. This had been the case for the first 5-10 minutes exiting every checkpoint for the last 30k’s but this time it didn’t let up and I hobbled all the way to the finish. I commented that “it feels like someone has been hitting me on the feet with a hammer for the last 24 hours” only to have it pointed out to me that is pretty much what had happened. New shoes are a necessity before we attempt the NZ version of oxfam next year. Funnily enough, I said exactly the same thing about the shoes last year and then promptly forgot about it. Fool me twice, shame on me.

12. Watching Suse tough it out to the finish despite suffering a knee injury with 10 k’s to go and then possibly developing shin splints on the other leg from a compensatory gait. Inspirational stuff, she’s one tough chic!

13. Finishing. Thankfully the finish line didn’t blow away this time and there were people, marquees and stuff everywhere at the finish. last year we walked into an abandoned park, gave our number and went home. This year, there was a real event atmosphere and a corresponding sense of achievment.

Thank god it is over for another year, but I don’t think it is going to be the last time I do it. It seems I like to suffer a little too much.

Warning: This post may contain non-cycling related content

The one problem with having done a big event before is that you now know exactly what you are in for. Tomorrow morning, we will start the oxfam trail walker and it is going to be one of the hardest things I have done all year. At least I am somewhat prepared for cycling events, whereas this being a hiking event, I am woefully undercooked. Add two exhausting mountain bike races (12 and 10 hour) into the lead-up before the event and I am pretty sure I have created the recipe for tears before bedtime.

What is the oxfam? It’s a charity hike which obviously raises money for oxfam and is done as a team of 4 starting in Brooklyn on the Hawskbury and following the great north walk through to Mossman. Its 100kms long and last year took us 33 hours of non-stop hiking. We were slow, wounded, broken people by the end, but we made it and that is all that matters.

Now most people I talk to about it really don’t get quite how long it takes. The best way I can describe it to people is:

“Tomorrow morning when you get to work, we will start walking. When you are having dinner that night, we will still be walking. When you go to a bed that night, we will still be walking. When you get up the following morning, we will still be walking. As you are having dinner that night, we will still be walking but will be getting somewhere near the finish.”

So, in case anyone is interested: you can see our team page which I hope to update through the event by the power of iphone.

There is also some kind of team tracker on the main page where you can keep tabs on where we are. It’s no spot, but it gives you an idea of where we are up to.

So spare a thought for the ‘gruntled goats’ as you snuggle up in your warm bed on friday night as we march through the night an into the hurt box.

Well, it was pointed out to me today by a certain bearded trail divining guru that I had attended the club social ride, however this blog bore no evidence of such.

The alarm went off at 0730 and i opened my eyes only to promptly grab at them with my hands in an effort to stem the pain. Somehow the sandman had come to my bed overnight and poured his whole bucket of sand into my eyes. Wifey watched me drag myself out of bed and shook her head at me and attempted to persuade me to abandon the club social ride in favour of more sleep. Thankfully I was not only blind, but deaf aswell.

So I fronted Kitchener only to be amazed by the number of cars that were already there. I wandered around and chatted to all the friendly faces before fulfilling my role as the tax collector who had to ask people for money to cover social day ride licening. Thankfully, everyone was extremely understanding and made the whole procedure much more palatable than I had envisaged.

We mustered for a brief rundown on the days plan and I did a rough head count and came up with 35 riders. I couldn’t believe it, We were chuffed with 20 riders at the last event, so 35 was beyond our wildest dreams.

Since I had raced the 10 hour the day before, I had self nominated to lead the short course. Although I would have dearly loved to smash down some of the hills on the back half of the loop, I knew I wasn’t going to be in any shape to actually enjoy it.

So we all rolled out together in a massive convoy and inevitably, someone got a flat tyre in the first 50 meters. So I hung back to make sure all the stragglers took the correct trail junctions. The plus side to this was that while the big group were noodling along the trail, we were now pushing to catch up and could fly along the trails as they were meant to be ridden – flat out!.

At the rendezvous point, we split the group into short and long course variants. I lead the short course which had 13 riders and we took off in the opposite direction to the long course which was now a more manageable 22 riders.

My little group was were having a great time. They fell off at every possible opportunity, scared themselves silly on sandy berms and big dips and didn’t stop smiling the whole time. There were several bail out points along the way so that riders who felt out of their depth could exit gracefully. As a testament to the course, only flogger took the bail out after the bumps and rutts proved a little to much for his young sons 24 inch wheels.

We finished off the route and arrived back at the picnic area where people ate some food and then decided they wanted to do it all over again. Actually, the family men called it a day and headed to the beer garden at the pub with their family who had been picnicing in the park, and only the ladies were bold enough for round 2.

So our little posse was now reduced to 5. After talking it over, the areas of soft sand were the biggest concern for the girls so I let copious amounts of air from their tyres and we headed out to redo the first half of the loop. There was uniform agreement amongst the girls that sand was now ‘easy’ and everyone was finding much more enjoyment in the tricky bits.

Afterwards, we all headed to Kitchener pub for a meal and a beer in the sunshine. As the long course riders slowly trickled in, our numbers swelled and the conversation and the afternoon rapidly rolled on. Before I knew it, the day was over and I was heading home in the car happy yet tired.

Social ride #4 is in the pipeline, however, for the september ride we are encouraging people to experience pedalfest.

Well, this blog actually. It has been exactly one year that I have been posting drivel on here despite my early expectations that I would remain interested in it for a week at the most. Its been a great year and thanks for reading.

What better way to celebrate than with a bunch of statistics?

Riding a 10 hour race two weeks after doing the Sydney 12 hour sounded like a good idea at the time I signed up for them. In practice, it takes a lot out of you. Especially since I have been sick with a cold twice in the last 2 weeks.

Never the less, I fronted the line at the VVC coughing and spluttering but pretty excited to be finally doing a VVC race. Fronting the line for a VVC race is an experience in itself. Not content with the traditional Le Mans start, the VVC adds a twist by requiring that you run with your front wheel which you then have to mount at the end of the run before you can start riding. To put a further twist on the technicalities of fitting a wheel while hurting from a sprint in cycling shoes, Dreggsy and Scott decided they would apply rubber bands to everyones rear brake levers so that the brakes were jammed on as people tried to run with their bikes to the mounting point. Many puzzled riders were examining their rear wheels and brakes trying to figure out what was going on as the boys laughed themselves silly from the sidelines.

I managed to stay with Danbot during the run leg and thanks to some superior QR lever prowess, left transition before him. I would like to say it was due to much diligent practice fitting front wheels in simulated race conditions during ‘training’ for this event, however that would be a lie and you would all know it. Luck was just on my side.

I was second rider out on the trail, following closely behind Fezi who was riding in the teams category and we smashed out the first lap, I stayed in contact as long as I could, but to be honest, I was struggling a little on ‘bacon’ and couldn’t quite find the pace I needed to stay with him.

At the end of the first lap, I transitioned off ‘bacon’ and back onto the anthem (the anthem has bolt up skewers and would have been a liability at the novelty start). Initially, the anthem felt extremely odd, but after 5 minutes, I started to get my groove on and picked up the pace. I caught Fezi and his team mates and stuck with them for a couple of laps before they began to tire and I decided to go it alone off the front.

I caught a glimpse of Danbot as we crossed paths at the bottom of the downhill track and figured I had around 5 minutes lead on him. In hindsight, it was probably more than that but calculations while riding were not part of the HSC curriculum and consequentially, I suck at it.

I continued to push the pace hard through to lap 10 or so. I knew I was going faster than I should have been, but I was enjoying the trail and wanted to see how long I could keep it up. It lasted until dark. As the sun went down, the suffering really started in earnest and it became apparent that I didn’t have a great deal of fuel in the tank, so I switched to survival mode.

My mental game just wasn’t there in this race. I was having some horrible dark brooding thoughts. Sinking deeper and deeper into my suffering and really struggling to find any form of motivation or enjoyment from the night laps. The ever present fear that Danbot would surely catch me at any minute had been eating away at me for 5-6 hours at this time and intensified every time I saw a set of lights behind me. Then I would realise it was just the lights of the person I had passed 5 minutes ago and wasn’t a catching rider. This went on for the rest of the race as my lap times fell apart and I was reduced to a crawl. Thankfully, there weren’t a lot of riders left on the course by this time to witness me hurting.

There were often whole sections of the track that I couldn’t account for. I would be riding along and suddenly realize that I didn’t know where I was. Then I would realize I was on the run into Mawkes creek, but how had I got there? I remembered climbing up from the downhill track but the last dozen switchbacks were a complete blank. It was eerie, lonely and cold.

To make matters worse, every time I went through transition, Lenny and Co would tell me that Dan was only a couple of minutes behind. I knew they were jerking my chain, but in my confusion, I couldn’t figure out what it really meant. Was he 5 minutes behind or 20 minutes? Then there was Craig. A strong local rider with some impressive enduro results who I hadn’t seen the entire race which could only mean was somewhere hot on my heels.

I did some rudimentary maths and guesstimated there was 1.5 hours to go and I was not even sure I was going to make it. I stopped in the pits, forced in some food even though it was the last thing in the world I wanted at that point and I sucked down a red bull energy shot which I had left over form the red bull girls at the Sydney 12 hour and hoped it was going to be enough. Then I headed back out into the dark to grind my way through another sole destroying lap, knowing I had at least 2 more to go. I barley saw another sole during that lap. I was left alone to my thoughts and the pain which made for poor traveling companions.

I called my race number to the timers as I rolled through transition, only to be greeted with “its all over”. It took a few meters for me to process what it all meant and Gerard almost had to run after me to stop me going out again on another lap. I stood there and looked at Lenny and then asked “Your not F*cking with me are you? Don’t tell me it is finished if I still have to go out again!”.  To which he replied “That’s it, the sweep rider is on the course and you are all done”.

I don’t really remember what happened then, I just kind of groveled my way off the bike and my wonky legs wouldn’t hold my weight so I layed down in the middle of the trail. Gerard understood completely, and fetched me a finish line beer and I sat and contemplated my first ever race win.

In the wash up, Dan finished second 11 minutes behind me and Craig was 3rd but a lap down. I had snuck past him while he was in the pits but I was to addled to notice. I managed 19 laps, as did Dan, with Craig coming in with 18 laps.

In hindsight, I am now able to say it was a fantastic race and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but you would have received quite a different answer if you had asked me my thoughts midway through lap 18 or 19.

A big thanks to Lenny and Gerard for running the event, Landon for helping on rego and timing and Scott and Dreggsy for being like-able douche bags. The biggest thanks goes to Danbot for bringing the pain and making me earn every little bit of the win.

What a glorious day. So much mountain biking stuff was achieved today.

It started with a couple of laps of Kitchener so I would have some idea where to lead people on this weekends social ride. I did a lap with Brad leading first up and then we did a second lap with me leading. I took a couple of wrong turns but mostly knew my way. It is an absolute maze of trail so heres hoping I can remember all the trail junctions on the day.

The actual riding was brilliant. A little sandy but otherwise perfection. I was riding ‘Bacon’ since I still don’t have a seat on the single speed and I don’t think I changed gears once during the ride. I was really struggling at first and just couldn’t get comfortable, Bacon just felt all wrong. Brad was riding off into the distance constantly and I was smashing myself to try and keep up. On the second lap, I decided to let some air out of my tyres since they were basically rock hard. I dropped them to somewhere in the low 20′s and three pedal strokes was enough to confirm it was the right choice. All of a sudden i was flying along and the bike just felt ‘right’. The sandy berms were now fun rather than annoying and I was having the most fun I have had on a bike in quite a while.

You can see some GPS mappage: here

After the ride, I headed off to awaba to do some more digging. I hung around digging until it finally got dark. I nervously fixed the single track at the bottom of the big berm on the red loop as i constantly waited for a group of riders to come smashing down the hill and mow me down. Thankfully, I didn’t see a single rider and I managed to tidy up that section which had never been completed in the inital build.

I also competed my next berm. I don’t like this one as much as the last one, but it will be functional none the less. It was an amusing build as i decided to make the back of the berm out of rock. I started off by collecting small rocks about the size of a house bricks, then started to get ambitious until I was wrestling with 100kg boulders which I danced and fought down the hillside into position. I’ll probably lose a fingernail after I jammed it between a rock and a tree – you probably heard the profanities from wherever you are reading this.

Perhaps its a little bit philosphical, but I began to wonder how many thousands of years those rocks had been lying in that exact position without being disturbed. I mean, what disturbs a 100kg boulder? They may have been sitting on that hillside for 20 or 30 thousand years just waiting to be made into a berm…. deep?!

Anyway, enough talk, here are some photos. Apologies to Nelly that they were taken with the camera phone and therefore look terrible. I’ll take the real camera next time.

Worms eye view

Looking back up the berm

Looking the in the direction it will be ridden

Lots of good work done today. 2 tonnes of road base was wheelbarrowed into some of the low lying areas in the rain forrest to try and firm up the soft parts. It seems to have worked quite well, especially after we ran the wacker packer over it.

Then we moved onto the newest section of trail. We made lots of headway and travelled much further than I had expected. The lawnmower was a massive help, its awesome when you can just stand back and watch the trail appear in a matter of minutes.

There are some interesting features build today. There are a handful of jumps, including a mini road gap along with a nice little rock drop and a half built berm. It should be a lightning fast bit of track as soon as it beds in. To try and help with this, we are going to cut a link from little falcon across to the top of this section so it can be incorporated into the main loop sooner rather than later.

I stayed back to keep working after the others had left. There was some kind of intense mini storm that looked cataclysmic with thunder and lighting and strong winds. It came out of nowhere, rained for  about 4 minutes, then the sun came out and it was like it had never happened. I dug through until it got dark and then headed home.

I carried my bike all the way out there and it didn’t leave the roof of the car the whole time. Its been 8 days since I have ridden, this weekends 10 hour is going to be tough.

Stumbled onto this today and loved it enough to share. Enjoy

Freakin cool!, posted with vodpod

Agggggghhhhh, VVC is only 10 days away. I haven’t even looked at a bike since the Sydney 12 and don’t really plan to for the rest of the week. I am either going to be stupendously rested for the vestal or stupendously undercooked. Especially since I am nursing a mild cold which I am desperately hoping will clear tonight so that I can find some energy.

I had entertained the idea of riding this one on the SS, however, given my history of hand fatigue resulting in ZERO grip strength, I am not quite willing to do it on the rigid this close to the worlds. Maybe I will give it a crack at the 8 1/4 hour race in November when i have nothing to lose.

One thing that has me fired up is the looming battle between myself and Danbot. We had some great battles last year and this race should see some close competition with ‘the bot’ starting to find some form again. I have 10 days to find some energy and then it will be game on!

Holy crap this next bit of track is going to be good. I did some walking in Awaba with Dallas and Shane on sunday afternoon and they showed me a couple of new bits they had found. OH MY GOD! So excited. There are some bits that are going to be more like a skate park than a mountain bike track! There is even a rock garden which will be a first for Awaba.

At this point, words fail me, so turn up with a rake and a shovel on sunday and lets make it a reality asap!

WOOHOO!!!!!

This was my first race at Dargle Farm and I was very curious about what the course would be like, as it turned out, it was a proper mountain bike track. There were rocks, bigger rocks, pinch climbs, mad descents and even a smattering of fire trail. Just great fun and there wasn’t a single point where I lost interest in the circuit.

My race went pretty well. I arrived on Friday night and set up the Marquee and befriended Ed Mcdonald who I talked into sharing some of my ample marquee space. It turns out, I was next to Brett Bellchambers and I had inadvertantly brought a gearie into the middle of single speed row.

I spent the night fairly comfortably in the swag and awoke to a comprehensive frost and the delight of pre-race prep in the below freezing temps. My chain lube was frozen, my eye drops were frozen, my fingers were freezing….. I couldn’t wait for race start just to get moving.

Start time rolled around soon enough and  courtesy of of my pole position marquee, I slotted myself about 10th position at the start and proceeded to go backwards fairly quickly as the teams riders rocketed off. I was doing my best to find a compromise between pushing hard and conserving some energy.

Some  hours into the race, I was starting to feel fairly average. My fluid intake had been reasonable however, my food intake had been pretty poor. So I stopped, grabbed a breadroll and kept riding. Clearing the first rocky switchback climb while trying to hold/eat a breadroll was rather amusing, however I managed it and was soon feeling considerably better with the influx of carbohydrates.

The middle of my race was pretty poor and I lost most of my time through this section. I struggle through however and started to come good around sunset. By this time, Jason English had started to run out of steam and was limping around (by his own standards, not mine) after trying to win the race outright against the teams. He was suffering so badly, that I managed to ride almost all of the lap with him which was a nice experience (for me, not so much for him I assume).

It was getting near the end of the race and I was begining to do the maths on how many laps I would have left. It was now cold and dark and I figured I would have 4 left to go. That seemed manageable (2 hours) and so I set out to make it happen. On my 20th lap which I felt was my last, I was merrily discussing with the other riders how this would be the last time around and they dutifully informed me there was 40 minutes to go and I would have to go out again.

Crestfallen, I resinged myself to going out again. As I rolled across the line, they called out my name and lap count, then the name and lap count of the rider who was on my wheel. I realized we were fighting for position and the end of a 12 hour race was going to come down to a single hot lap.

As we left transition, I noticed my sunglasses had fogged up and went to remove them only to realize I wasn’t wearing any. Then I thought it must be a cloud of dust, only, the ground was hard and there wasn’t any breeze to blow it there. Finally, I realized it must be related to the seering pain in my eyes which I had been ignoring for a couple of hours. My vision had seemingly suddenly  reduced to about 50% of normal and I was struggling to make out where the trail was going. I assume it had been slowly deteriorating for a couple of hours but this was the first time I had actually noticed it.

I dropped the hammer and made a gap on the rider following me and kept pushing the whole lap. I am sure I hit every single rock, tree and stump on the course as I simply couldn’t see what was coming up. About 4 ks from the finish, I was in big trouble. I had skipped a food stop during transition and knew I was going to struggle for energy but didn’t want to waste the time given how close the other rider was. I was starting to get delerious, and could barely turn the pedals, but luckily i found some jelly lollies deep in my pocket and chewed on them as I pushed up the last climb. I knew I was going to be home free if I made it to the top before the following rider.

I still hadn’t seen the chasing rider as I made it back to the event centre, and I  let out a hoot as I rolled across the line to a beer handup by Martin. I tried to hop off my bike but just slumped over the handlebars and gasped for breath. I don’t quite know how long I was like that, but I stayed that way until someone tapped me on the shoulder and told me I needed to move out of the way for the other finishers.

I have no idea where I finished in the race. I think I was probably in the top ten somewhere. Jason English did 24 laps, Brett Bellchambers did 23, Chops did 22 and i did 21 along with a host of other riders.

I got changed, sat by the fire and ate sausage sandwhiches, but could barely keep a train of thought. I stumbled quite a bit as I tried to stand and was generally completely F*cked. Brett took great delight in holding up his hand and making obscene gestures as he asked me to tell him how many fingers he was holding up.

I was in bed early that night. Everyone else was up partying, and despite the fact that my swag was no more than 10 meters from the action, I didn’t hear a thing as soon as my head hit the pillow. I assume there was copious amounts of green ginger wine and pies consumed.

What a glorious day. Sunshine, relatively calm winds and some time to do some k’s on the bike. It was just a beautiful day to be out on a road bike. Not even the obligatory flat tyre could dampen my mood today. I seem to have had an absolute horror run of flat tyres of late and in keeping with my new style, I punctured about 3 k’s from home (on a 60k round trip). At least it happened while I was in a sunny spot so it wasn’t really a chore to be playing around with tubes while I was warm.

I have been wondering whether it has something to do with all the rain we have had. Does it wash all the sharp pointy things off the main road and onto the shoulder where I collect them for safe keeping? Is it just because the tyres on that bike are getting old? I remember when wifey was having a similar run of flats on her bike and when you closely inspected the tyres, they looked like swiss cheese with all the cuts and debris they had collected. A new set of tyres cured her puncture woes, so perhaps 2000k’s is about all a set of tyres are good for around here?

In other news, I finally installed the new drive train on my anthem.. All these svelt XTR bits have been siting in my parts box for the last few months as I procrastinated my way through several club rounds.  The 12 hour this weekend has forced me to do something about it as I didn’t much feel like fighting ghost shifts and chain jump for the whole race.

I was thoroughly amused when i spun the rear tyre and could hear something large and solid rolling around inside. I spun it again and it was still there. I sat and looked at it and scratched my head and then spun it again… still there. I did this a few more times until I remembered that it will be the valve core from my mavic valve which parted company with the valve stem a couple of club rounds ago. It has been passenger inside my tyre for several months now and I hadn’t even realized

I also just received my full Euro gillet which will be timely for this weekends race. There are some plans afoot to make a full uneuro gillet however I will keep those plans to myself until I have a chance to go shopping for the necessary parts.

Anyway, I had better get back to packing for Dargle farm… ah the tediousness of race preparation – surpassed only by the boredom of unpacking everything afterwards. Hope the riding is good enough to make up for it