Racing
02 Mar 2008Scody Albury Multisport SpectacularWith Brett busy having a life, I managed to persuade Salsa amigo Simon Wright to drive me up to compete in a pair of Mountain Biking races as part of the Albury Multisport Spectacular. The races were run by the local club, Albury Wodonga Cycling club. Having never ridden around Albury before, I was keen to find out what kind of tracks they had. The decent prize money on offer helped my enthusiasm too. We arrived a couple of hours before the first race, a 25km point to point. Some helpful event staff pointed us in the right direction to get a taste of the trails before the race started, and 45 minutes later we returned to the start with big grins on our faces. The trails were comprised mostly of flowing hardpacked singletrack, with some rock gardens, berms, and tricky switchbacks thrown in for good measure. Apparently a lot of the trails are fairly new, but they sure were lots of fun!
The race began with a sprint up the main fireroad to spread the group out. I had decided to go hard early given the short nature of the race, and found myself leading Evan Franzke, Troy Bailey and Simon into the first singletrack. With a lead bunch like that you know the pace will be on, and the race didn’t disappoint. A 6km rolling fireroad in the middle of the course gave me a chance to attack and create a gap, but I was unable to hold it on a determined Evan. We continued through singletrack for several more Ks, as I worked hard but failed to drop Evan. Finally we came out on a stretch of fireroad leading to the summit and final descent. Figuring whoever summited first would most likely take out the race, the gloves came off and we both smashed our way to the top. First Evan led by a wheel, then me, then Evan, before finally the top came and I found myself in front. Leading down the hill with no way for Evan to get around and retake the lead, I heard the pssssssh that ever racer fears. A pinch flat had just ended a great contest and my chances of a win. I rushed through the change and managed to hold on to second place by a handful of seconds from Troy. And that’s why I use Co2 folks!
We headed out after the race for dinner to celebrate Troy’s birthday, with the always entertaining Rich Grant. He was in Albury as official commentator for the Multisport, and if he was half as funny on the mic as he was over dinner I’m sure there were a lot of happy punters. The 3 hour enduro start the next day was almost a carbon copy of the point to point, as I attacked from the gun and lead up the opening climb. Things changed at the top, with Neil Van Der Ploeg (who’d been absent the day before, busy racing road bikes or something - slacker!) going around me to get first go at the singletrack. And go he did, gaining a handy lead on the first descent. One of these days I’m going to learn how to ride my bike down the hills as well as up them. It wasn’t to be this day though, as I caught up to Neil on each of the two short fireroad climbs, then lost the time on the long singletrack descent. And what a descent it was, aptly named the Dirt Luge. A super fun flowing piece of track with dips, berms, jumps, and rocky tech sections. Riding that was worth the very reasonable price of admission in itself. After several laps I was able to catch up with Neil, and slowly built a counter attack. I had built a handy gap when a lapped rider was unable or unwilling to let me pass, and I saw my hard fought lead disintegrate before my eyes. Such is racing. To add insult to injury Neil zipped past when I got caught out by the rider clipping out, and I was back in second place. We rode together for another few laps before I had the decisive move put on me with three laps to go. Neil went as I Gu’d, and try as I might I couldn’t find the legs to pull it back in. We began the final lap perhaps 30 seconds apart, but my legs gave in as I attempted to smash the first climb and I backed it off to finish with a warm down lap. Stopping to pick up a dropped bottle slowed things down a little more and by the end of the lap the winning margin was 2 minutes. Evan rounded out the top 3 a few minutes later.
I got what I came for out of the weekend, and a lot more. I had hoped to win a race, but I’ll take two hard fought second places and the trophy and medal that came with them. Both races were well organised, and they’ve got some great trails up there to play on. If you’re in the area, say for next weekend’s 6 hour enduro, I’d definitely recommend checking it out. The local bike shop gets behind their races and should be able to point you in the direction of the tracks. Riding new trails is always good fun, and these ones are some pretty sweet trails as well. A rock maze (step up from a garden) from the 25km course sticks in my memory as one of the highlights, as well as plenty of other fun up and down stuff. Posted by erin @ 9:48 am - Back to topLeave a Reply |
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