22 Jun 2008

Geelong MTB club always puts on great events, so I’d been looking forward to this race for a while. Details were hard to come by, and on the day it was revealed it would be a 2km TT, 3 lap XC Race, and a 15min + 1 lap crit/STXC. They had proper electronic timing for the TT too, with the clock started by the rider moving knocking aside the bar, and a mat for the finish. I’ll come back to that later.

I’d like to set the record straight at this point: I have not broken a(nother) frame. I was racing on Simon’s Scott thanks to a little excitement with a stick, my derailleur, and the fatties ride. For extra fun I went 1×9 with a 32T ring.

The hardtail turned out to be a good choice for the TT, which went straight up a fireroad then down one of the less technical descents. I powered up locked out passing two riders, then flowed down the hill… and came to the long finishing straight. 140rpm cadence and this 1×9 thing doesn’t seem like such a good idea any more. Especially when the results (remember that fancy timing system?) came in, with me second place 0.28 seconds behind James Maebus. Alex Randall was only 2.5 seconds further back.

With such close racing in the TT, the race looked to be a cracker, and didn’t disappoint. Jimmy decided to be anti-social and ride off the front halfway through the first lap, but Chris Soanes joined me and Alex in a ding dong battle for the placings. First Alex broke away on the descent, only to be slowly reeled back in. I selfishly got Chris to do finishing closing the gap, and just as we caught up at the base of the big climb I went around and attacked, dropping Chris. I went again near the top of the, but wasn’t able to put more than a few seconds into Alex who promptly overtook me as I spun out over the crest. He broke away again on the descent, and I let him go to save myself for the crit. I sure missed the dually going down Cressy climb too.

With the lesson learnt from the first two races, I swapped my middle ring for a big ring to tackle the flattish crit course. We went down the main straight with a tailwind, before taking singletrack back up the slight slope, then onto the straight again. The course took around 90 seconds at race pace. I found myself in front off the start, until Jimmy decided he wanted the lead and moved past me. Chris jumped in front for a lap, and then Alex wanted a go. Jimmy did some more work before eventually Alex told me to have a go, so with 8 gone and 3 to go I jumped in front. With two to go I looked around but no one wanted it, so I went around again. With one to go I figured they’d had their chance, so I gunned it and stayed in front. I kept winding it up, waiting for an orange or blue figure to appear beside me. But somehow they didn’t appear, and I smashed myself silly down the home straight to take the win. It’s some feeling winning in a sprint with a heap of people standing around watching. I even gave a victory salute, which turned bad when I hit a rut and almost came off. Whoopsies :-).

Fox, fox, fox (mushroom mushroom!)

All up it was a really fun day, GMBC did a great job of putting on something a bit different. I hope the concept takes off and we see more stage races, and more different format (STXC, TT, etc) races too.

Posted by erin @ 9:01 am

05 Jun 2008

The second round of the Anaconda Enduro Series was held among the mist at Lysterfield Park on the weekend, where all the lycra clad participants froze their butts off for the first few hours of the day.

With quite a few line up changes and some additional teams in the pro pairs category, it made for an action packed day of racing.

Team Yeti Cycles made their debut in the Anaconda Series sporting a new “prototype” yeti ridden by fast guy Ben Randall. The paint was a bit different from what we’re all used to seeing and the decals were a little primitive with a what looked like a hand written down tube decal, but that didn’t slow the boys down ridding themselves into 3rd place.

The team giant lineup remained the same with Murray Spink and John Claxton smashing out 10 laps and finsihing up in 2nd place. John clearly had to get back and moe the lawn as he left halfway though the race leaving Murray to finish what he had started. Murray did well to regain second, but was unable to reel in the Torq team who were tearing up the course from start to finish.

The big line change was with team Torq, bringing in hired gun James Maebus which was a surprise to us all (well at least me), which made the team un-beatable on the day, finsihing in the top spot with 11 laps of the 13km course.

Also worth a mention is Adrian Jackson, fresh off his win of the NT stage race, who absolutely smashed the field not only in the solo category, but just in general, finishing in 4th place overall. AJ your a freak!

Posted by brett @ 3:11 am

26 May 2008

Ah, weekends like these. Out on Friday night for dinner and a few too many beers with workmates, then 6 hours sleep before heading up to Kinglake with Brett and Sime. Four hours of hills is more than I’ve ridden in a while, so by the end I was feeling just a little tired. Injuries… just can’t recommend them.

Mmm… yummy!

I don’t want to know what’s going on there.

Sunday and it was Brett’s turn to turn up a little hung over for our trip to Lysterfield. Aside from the recent Anaconda Enduro series round it’s a while since we were out there, and the changes to the start of Blair Witch were a bit of a disappointment, bye bye one of my favorite sections. Riding Buckle down towards the lake was great though, and enough to send us out for the third lap. Of everything bar the games course anyway. No stacks all round, and a dab free run through the (now rather easier) rockgarden, and a good day all up. Finished off by returning a lost phone to another rider and a surprisingly edible pizza on Heatherton Rd near the Hallam Nth Rd roundabout.

Later in the evening we headed over to DISC to watch someone ride a rather strange wheeled device around a velodrome for 12 hours. To my eyes that’s the worst of track racing and 24hr racing combined. I can picture the briefing: “So what you’ve got to do right, is just turn left. All night.” We only stayed for an hour, but apparently he covered 500km in total. Crazy.

Sat: 115.2km out, 1235m up, 4:06 on.
Sun: 54.49km out, 1051m up, 2:59 on.

Posted by erin @ 11:57 am

13 May 2008

Another weekend, another race. It’s a bit of a shock to the system after two months off, but it’s certainly keeping me out of trouble.

The first round of the Anaconda Enduro series used a course heavy in fireroad, with almost all the climbing contained in the middle 50% of the course. The result of this was pain and lots of it. Climb slowly through singletrack, short rest, left into the headwind on a long rising fireroad, right and more climbing, left into singletrack and you’re still going up. Brief fun singletrack respite before a sweeping right hander and you’re at the base of the ‘Here is a cliff. Would you like to ride up it?’ A-line climb. Get to the top of that with legs on fire and heart beating it’s way out of your chest, your reward is another super fast road descent, with a sharp corner at the bottom cruelly stealing all your speed. Down over the bars in a timetrial position as the road continues flat for a while, then begins to climb… and climb. Into the singletrack, up and up all the way to the rock garden.

I’m, still going uphill?

All this is especially fun when you realise about halfway through it that your water bottle has ejected itself and you’re not getting a drink. All that aside though I had great fun, there is some great flowy singletrack out there. With a bit of luck they’ll throw blair witch into the next round too, that track is serious enjoyment.

It is possible we take this racing thing a bit too seriously sometimes.

The lack of progress results due to a computer glitch left us a little confused as to our position during the day. At the business end with one lap to go I got around to timing the gaps, and saw Rob Eva head out for Felt Racing 2’s final lap with a 3 minute gap on us. I set about attempting to catch him and pull us into third place, but it turned out to be too big of an ask. My finish time left us 72 seconds adrift. Next time maybe…

Problem: competition riding too fast.
Solution: Deflate tyres.

Stats: 4th, 61.4km out, 1427m up, 2:38 on.

Posted by erin @ 4:24 am

09 May 2008

That’s a photo of me on ‘little cat’, as my current ride is known around Thylacine HQ, descending boulder track with the propedal off and a big grin on the dial. This is somewhat of a Big Thing, as generally my race face looks more like this:

It really is that fun, and it goes downhill faster than the US economy too. Unfortunately I wasn’t going up the hills so fast, which combined with a few mechanicals relegated us to 5th. I had way to much fun on the great tracks out at the You Yangs to really worry about that though.

Posted by erin @ 4:14 am

27 Apr 2008

That’s right, I’m baaaack. Well, kinda. The riding fast part seems to be eluding me so far, but who needs to go fast right?

I got a special greeting for my first race back: a forecast of hail, showers and 15 degrees. I ventured out of the car fully kitted out in my riding warmies. Rego was a breeze and it was out onto the reversed course to see what we were in for. The rain had been soaked up pretty well, and the damp track was gripping very nicely. There was plenty of tech climbs and descents, with some flowing singletrack sections thrown in too. There was logs a plenty to jump, and a rock garden to navigate - which I did without breaking anything! With 200 meters of climbing per 6.5km lap it wasn’t a super hilly course, with much of the difficulty coming from short steep sections. Mainly though, the course was lots of fun. Especially after a few laps when you were used to it, it was easy to have a ball out there.

The race went well for me until the forth lap, when I collected a stick overtaking through the scrub, and somehow turned my derailleur upside down. After staring at in in bewilderment for 20 seconds I grabbed it and gave it a good shove to rotate it back into place. Unfortunately after this my gears began skipping, despite another stop to check hanger alignment. Not not after this I began to feel light headed and realised I probably hadn’t eaten enough. I ate two gus during the fifth lap and during the sixth things began to come good again. The stops and skipping gears had taken away my intensity however, and I couldn’t help just rolling around at a lower pace. I crossed the line happy to have stayed on all race and not blown up. Now to find those climbing legs again…

Posted by erin @ 8:22 am

24 Apr 2008

Marathon races are becoming the new black on the Australian MTB circuit with no less than three major marathon races already being held in Victoria this year.

This week it was the BMC 100 Classic, which was held at one of my favorite places to ride, the wombat state forest near Woodend. It could not have been a more perfect day for the race, there wasn’t a cloud in sight and the predicted temperature was in the low twenties. At 6am it was a different story though as I fought off the shivers that almost caused my bowl of muesli to leave the clutches of my freezing hands.

The sun had finally started to peak over the surrounding hills by the time we were standing on start line waiting for our epic journey. Before I knew it we were off down the road with 100 odd kilometres in front off us, which everyone seemed to realize as it wasn’t the usual mad sprint i’m used to at the enduros

Within a kilometer we were already into the single track which was a little unexpected after racing the Otway Odyssey where the first fifteen kays were on the road. The first kilometers were pretty relaxed apart from random people crashing in front of me, including one of the Torq riders who made an unintentional exit from his bike while negotiating a slippery tree root. I slipped past the fallen rider to try and catch back up to the lead bunch before they disappeared out of sight. I caught back up soon enough and even made it past a couple of riders who were starting to fall behind the lead group. Feeling pretty happy with were I was sitting I though I would settle down a bit and take on some fluids. I bit down on the hydro packs mouth bit and pulled to activate the valve, instead of getting a mouth full of water i got a mouth full of plastic as the non leak mouth bit had come off causing water to be sprayed all over me and the trail. I quickly pulled over the to work out what the hell was going on and ran around looking for the for end of the hose thinking that I needed to stop the precious fluid from leaking everywhere. I then realized that I didn’t actually needed it and jumped back on the bike in pursuit of the other riders but was thinking my chances of a good finish was as good as gone.

Within maybe 20 minutes (not that I had a clue as I forgot my bike computer) I had a rider in my sights who was only a few 100 meters ahead on a long fire road section. I quickly caught him on a climb to then see Paul Randal not too far ahead. I caught up to Paul as I powered along the open dirt road trying to ride myself back into the race. We worked together until we caught up with James Maebus where Paul opted to stay with him as I pulled away up a steep climb.

Eating and drinking was a bit of a struggle for most of the race, not only did I have know idea of the time and knowing when to eat, my stomach was not playing the game. Each time I had a gel or a bite of a bar I felt like it was going to come strait back up, which is unusual as I always find it pretty easy to eat on the bike.

After getting past James I was riding on my own for probably over an hour before I started to see riders ahead of me again. I zoomed passed a few more riders including Troy Baily and Rohin Adams before I was once again riding on my own.

On a long road section I could see two riders working together who must have only been about 800 meters ahead of me. I was determined to catch them, the chase was on and I was going to get that carrot. I worked my butt off and soon caught up to the two riders, one of who was Adam Gibson. I tried to scoot past them, pushing hard along some undulating fire road but Adam was not going to let me go that easily. We rode together for a few kays before disaster struck once again, this time in the form of a flat tyre. I was once again standing by the side of the trail watching my competition ride into the distance. I fixed my flat while cursing that I never bought a CO2 inflater the day before. I was up an going again in about five minutes and managed to not lose any more positions.

I crossed the line in 4 hours 49 minutes (7th place), just four minutes behind Adam and Dennis.

So is it possible for a race to become a “Classic” in the first year it’s run? I think any race that finishes with a person handing you a beer the moment you cross the finish line has got be a classic in my book.

Results here.

Posted by brett @ 5:46 am

07 Apr 2008

With Erin off injured, I was once again left to fend for myself in the state enduro series . Originally it was going to be solo effort but when I jumped on line to sign up there was in message from Duncan offering a spot on their three lady team, “Three Ladies, Riding a Bicycle”.

With the race starting at 10:30am I opted to travel up in the morning of the race with the Salsa Amigos, Simon and Carson. We arrived at Beachworth at 9:30, giving us plenty of time to get organised before the race, or so we thought. We were told that there was no parking at the race site and that we had to park 3kms away and use the shuttle service to the event. We unpacked the car and awaited the arrival of our limousine to escort us to our track side home for the next 6 or so hours. More and more cars arrived, parked and awaited the arrival of the shuttle bus, after 15 minutes we were beginning to wonder if there was a shuttle at all and began to think that this may have been an elaborate scheme our competitors had cooked up to stop us from racing, like something out of speed racer.

Some 30 minutes later after the planned start time we were off and racing up the prologue fire road. It was the normal battle at the start with the usually suspects riding off the front with me chasing them up the road. We had only been riding for maybe 500metres or so when were directed into the single track (a mistake) which was only a quarter way up the road. This entry point must have been halfway around the course and was the point where all the climbing was to be had. I worked pretty hard in the first couple of kms, riding in 3rd place until I ran wide on a corner letting a few riders pass, by the time I arrived back at start/finish line I had smashed my legs and had slipped further back in the field. At this point I noticed that there were no members of the three ladies waiting to go out for a lap, as that was considered the prologue circuit and I was now required to ride a lap of the normal course with my legs already shattered. About half way around the lap my body came back to life and was ready to race again so I worked hard to make up a few positions that I had lost in the first part of the lap.

It took me a little while to settle into the race, with a flat on my second lap breaking my rhythm, it wasn’t until the third lap where I got to have a clean shot at the course. By this point I was getting to know the course and really started railing the corners and picking fast lines through the rocky descents.

The other ladies, Duncan and Dave were smashing it, riding the course like the owned it, although Duncan was having some dramas with his stomach which resulting him bailing out of doing the teams final lap, leaving Dave and I to defend first place on our own. I was stoked to have the chance to ride another lap, as I was really enjoying the course and having an opportunity to ride one more lap was a bonus.

Results are here.

Thanks to Becs for the photo..

Posted by brett @ 12:35 pm

10 Mar 2008

Sunday saw Brett and I compete in what turned out to be our shortest enduro yet. It was supposedly a 6 hour, and while the organisers offered the solos a 4 hour due to extreme heat (Declined, of course. Nutters.), I think turning it into a 6 minute race might have been taking things a bit too far. I took a silly line early in the first lap, landing badly and ending the race for both of us. Compounding my stupidity I walked all the way around the course instead of turning around and riding down the road. I then took an interesting journey to Wodonga, via a first aid tent with no ice and a hospital with no doctors.

The X-ray confirmed the tennis ball sized swelling was caused by a broken thumb, and it was then I encountered the ’so how did you do it’ question, and to be honest I’ve got no idea. I landed on my right side, smashed the right side of my helmet… and broke my left thumb. WTF indeed. After waiting four hours for an X-ray I decided against surgery in Wodonga, and got a lift back to Melbourne with Brett and Simon (who’s Sweet and Sassy Salsa mixed pair took out second, nice work!). If you’re in the mood for an interesting parma, I recommend the pub in Mrtyleford. Take you pick from a dozen odd toppings including bacon, pineapple, avacado, and olives. Or do what Simon did and get a ‘parma with the lot.’ What a strange concoction.

Monday morning and it’s back to hospital, this time St Vincent’s in Melbourne. They agreed that it was an ‘unstable fracture’ and requires surgery, so I get to back again on Wednesday to get it done. Fun and games. I’ll leave it there as typing is incredibly slow right now, hopefully it all goes well and I’ll be back on the bike soon. Keep the rubber side down…

Update: The doctor has decided it doesn’t need surgery after all, so my bones will remain metal-free for the moment anyway. Back to hospital for more scans next week and it’s looking like about 8 weeks out. We’ll see how it goes.

Posted by erin @ 1:23 am

02 Mar 2008

With 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!

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.

Posted by erin @ 9:48 am

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