Magellan 6 Hour - Bendigo

Rocks. Who would have thunk it?

Rocks and me have a tense relationship. Its not like I was pelted with them at primary school or had to dig my way out of a collapsed quarry, but we just don't seem to get along.

Bendigo has lots of rocks. Plenty of them. So many of the damn things that they've made a reasonable living out of fixing high explosive to them and replacing them with big holes in the ground.
I've heard that Bendigo trailbuilders like rocks. They sleep on rocks, mix rocks with their drinking water and name their children after different types of rocks. And so why I was surprised to see vast amounts of palaeozoic metasediment reaching out to rip holes in anything resembling shoe leather or tyre rubber escapes me.

Surprise! Rocks!

As such Jimmy Lefebvre and I found ourselves doing practice laps of the Sedgwick course early Saturday afternoon. It is a picturesque course, with much grass and frivolity. Half of it located upon private land, lovingly built by one of the local rock farmers and the other half reaches out to where the wild rocks live - deep in the surrounding forest.
We rolled through the trail, looking out for fast lines, letting our legs feel the climbs and generally faffed about with not too much to do except impersonate serious bike riders. A quick chat with Joel (MTB club member) about tyres - specifically about their distinct lack of longevity in Bendigo - and we meandered off to Jimmy's holiday pad in Bridgewater.

One of the relatively cool things about mountain biking is that you can get to see some interesting places. Race road crits in Melbourne and its unlikely you'd see anything like Bridgewater - unless you took a left turn at the Port Melbourne hot-dog circuit and didn't realize your mistake for 15 hours.

The view from the back door

After an excellent sleep, with breakfast digesting and bikes on the roof we headed off to race central. Now fans of history would know that Bendigo is a pretty serious place for cycling. Its got both heritage and gravitas - and as a Bendigo bike racer, after braving sub zero winter mornings and mid summer days that would freeze and burn your tackle off in equal measure, you're a reasonably robust individual. Not to mention fast. 

Such is the stature of racing in Bendigo that big names were present and large groups of lazy sub-rouleurs were not. Its not a place where you get out your rusty old rig for a annual charity roll around a circuit laid down by the crazy niece of the local mayor - no sir, if you came to a race in Bendigo, you came to race. And this was painfully apparent when the gun went off. 

Hounds, just waiting for a rabbit

The pack shot out of the starting gate like the unfriendly side of a Claymore and within 90 seconds I was holding onto my hair trying to stay with the leading pack as both the trail and my heart rate went sharply skywards. I have this view (another one, I have plenty) that keeping the team elites in sight for the first couple of kilometers is an honourable goal. The rationale being that it provides both a carrot (a rider to catch) and a stick (a rider catching me) to keep this old nag moving at race pace for the duration of the event.

As the early kilometers moved from future tense to recent history I noticed a skinny bloke with big legs hovering around, sporting a little too much 'silver on his back' so to speak. Letting the pups get an early break on me is one thing, but letting the old dogs take the steak before I've had a sniff? That's not the way we roll.

"Soooo, which category are you in mate?" 
"Solo" came the one word reply.
"Ho-kay..."

Bollocks. This bloke looked a month older than me and he was doing exactly what cagey old buggers do. Give away nothing, except a carefully opened can of whoop-ass.

From what I could ascertain, Old Mate here was rivale numero uno. He looked composed, focused and properly dangerous. So 4 clicks into a race that was going to run north of a ton of kilometers, I attacked.
It wasn't a bar twisting Tommy Voeckler burst up the trail, but a more camouflaged little effort as I ever so quietly tried to slip off the front without raising the alarm. By lap one I had made 15 seconds, lap two it'd reached 25 and by the time laps 3 and 4 had rolled under me he was reaching his bottles almost a minute after I'd got mine.

There was daylight between him and me, enough space to convince him to settle into his own race and not worry about where I was. Or so I'd hoped. 

The course, while only an 8 kilometer loop had some distinct challenges. Sprinkled over the tight uphill switchbacks was a confetti of loose and sharp rocks - and on the fast and flowing downhill sections waited their more sedentary cousins, lurking in the trail like hungry crocs. As opposed to Beechworth, where the elements had worn some of the personality from the granite, these rocks looked like they'd had a little C4 surgery and were bearing their teeth in post-op displeasure.

I'd thought to keep the pressure on until I'd done 6 laps, putting a gap of at least two minutes between me and Old Mate, but in doing so I took a line passing a cat on a downhill section that pushed me straight into the waiting jaws of a trail croc. 
Both tyres punctured as I hit it with latex spinning off the tyre and into my face as it hemorrhaged from the wounds. I had my bike upside down pumping air into it as Old Mate came past - and he didn't say a thing. From the neck up he was like an Easter Island statue, his face being completely bereft of expression. That's just pure hardened professionalism, and it irritated me no end.

No champ, he's now in front of you

By the time I had refilled my front tyre, nursed my rear tyre home to transition, I had chopped up over three minutes. Add to that a very well executed filling of my bleeding rear wheel (thanks Craig) and subsequent pressure change I had not only been caught by the elite 3 hour riders but had gone another two minutes into debt. Not only that, but I was a little cranky now too. And so I chased.
And chased, and chased.
I chased Old Mate Easter Island like the meaning of life was hanging off his saddle.

A composed Jimmy Lefebvre smashing the 3 hour

Despite me ripping into this race like a dog rips into homework I was only gradually pulling him in. Laps 9, 10 and 11 went by and I had pulled back a little over a minute. As we both started lap 12 I got close enough for him to see me as we passed each other in transition with maybe 90 seconds between us. It appears that me being that close to him poked old Easter with a stick and he disappeared into the forest. 

I thrashed myself on lap 12, half out of self loathing for picking a stupid line earlier in the race and half entertaining the possibility that the evil puncture trolls had dolled out a little rupture to one of Easter's rubber hoops, but nay, honest racing was in the house. Such things were not to be - and rightfully so. 

By the time I crossed the line with 3 minutes left on the clock and had been convinced by race commentator Big Rich to do another lap I had burnt everything there was to burn. The course had been fast and fun, but after 6 and a half hours of rocks, tricky climbs and tight technical berms I had been chopped up like sashimi.

I let myself roll through the last lap, semi-content that I'd given all I had and that the win had deservedly been taken by another cat. Easter's real name is Peter Casey, who (I discover after a little Google stalking) is a consistent top three finisher and has actually pulled the kinds of results in the kinds of races that I aspire to. In our post race conversation he turned out to be a nice bloke and at one point, he even smiled.

In addition to the Bendigo MTB putting on a cracking race, a big thanks go to Jimmy Lefebvre who sorted me out with digs, kit and help during the weekend, and even found time to have a blinder himself. And a massive shout out to Craig, Paul and Dan (and their loved ones) from the Earth Wind and Water crew who again, raced, smashed it and were there to fill bottles and deliver harsh motivation from the transition area.

Objective validation of my story (ie race results) can be found here: http://www.mtbbendigo.com/files/6013/7872/1904/2013-MagellanBenCyc6hr-Detailed.pdf and Garmin guff is below, for the cats who dig that stuff:


Thanks for stopping by.

Six Hours in the Saddle - Beechworth VIC

I see rocks when I sleep

I'd tried hard to put the acronym of this race into a funny sentence. The best I could come up with without mutilating my first language was 'S.H.I.T.S and giggles' or 'Giving me the S.H.I.T.S'. Both were just plain stupid and had probably been done to death by hosts Beechworth Chain Gang over beer and pizza since they came up with it a couple of years ago.

The S.H.I.T.S is a standard issue 6 Hour enduro over what appeared to be a relatively short course. It was just the north side of 10 kms, not a lot of climbing and in an area known to be tacky at its wettest. Youtube had shown clips of happy old fellas lapping on bedded down hardpack trail, with nary a care in the world. It'd convinced me that this was going to be a flat out, big lungs, big legs burn to the end.

Youtube lied.

Wake up Wang! Its raceday

Old mate Jimmy Lefebvre and me had pitted overnight in Wangeratta and struck out at dawn to set up camp at race central. It was a crisp start with not a tickle of wind and the sun was out tearing up the thick fog that had come to sleep on the paddocks. For all appearances, it looked like it was going to be a cracking day.

We got to Beechworth and made it to race central. We erected the Casa d'Custard (my yellow 6 x 6 marquee) set up our race-food pantry and with everything bedded down I set off for a quick recon lap.

I had entered the solo 40+ and convinced Jimmy to come out and enter the solo as well. He's a tough lad Jimmy, well up for a challenge, but beyond smashing a couple of races at the You Yangs and Forrest he hadn't spent too many hours on the knobby tyres after crossing over from the tarmac. Before getting here I said that he'd be fine. Just tap it out, knock over 6 or 7 laps and go home happy. About 400 meters into my scoping lap I realised that I might actually be considered a bit of a prick.

To generalize, all Beechworth trail is what we might term 'honest'. It hasn't been created with a digger, it doesn't have any North Shore style bridges or jumps and it doesn't have any carpet keeping its manicured berms in place. Instead, this course looked like it had been made by a bunch of dudes who spent their day-times as either physiotherapists or bike suspension mechanics. 

The way a Garmin sees it

It was proper, skinny singletrack, both technical and very fast. There were rocks everywhere. Rocks on rocks, near other rocks before and after more rocks. The A lines were rocky and the B lines were just as rocky, only with smaller rocks. On a 6" AM bike with some body armour you'd be picking hot lines and smashing this all day. On an XC bike in man-spandex in the middle of a 6 hour enduro, it'd be smashing you.

I was out there trying to determine where I could eat and drink, but with the longest break between technical sections being only about 4 seconds I was beginning to think this race was going to make me very skinny indeed.

The way humans see it. Not me, pic blatantly stolen from http://speedcyclingsystems.com.au

By the time I'd pretended to understand the course and had got back to camp, Jimmy had heard the word 'brutal' mentioned half a dozen times. It was indeed an honest course. Brutally honest.

The prologue involved a little something to spread out the pack and as T minus zero came around, the organizers sent us about 2 kilometers down a relatively steep gravel road. After some sub-witty banter and a remarkably relaxed official start, we all began mashing the pedals to climb back up this road and over the timing pads to get into the racing proper.

Racing at Beechworth is a cerebal challenge. The trail twists upon itself like an Escher stencil, albeit one filled with rocks. I had hit out pretty hard, with a view to keeping Tory Thomas in sight. 
I have this idea that if I'm faster than the fastest girl (girls fly - let it be known) then I'm doing ok. Its been a while since I've been able to do that - and with Tory beating me at the Blores Hill 6 hour by a minute or two I thought it to be an admirable goal. 
So I was looking out for her - I would see her through the trees just up ahead, then all of a sudden, it would look like she was just behind me. It was hard enough stopping the rocks from eating my bike without seeing where my competition was - and it was only through dumb luck that my furtive glances off the trail didn't put me in an ambulance. So I gave up on the glances, stopped thinking about podium placings and just raced.

The race tapped itself out through the first couple of hours with the an above average rate of attrition. I'd passed a myriad of cats sidelined by punctures to either tyre, tube or heart but despite hitting stuff harder than it was hitting me I'd got through unscathed - and with more than a little surprise, I found some mojo. 
It was the good stuff, serious, high potency, straight into your eyeball mojo and I started really having some fun. Laps 3, 4 and 5 had swung by without incident. Lapping with me was solo hard-man Kevin Skidmore and we were swapping positions, talking shite and trying ever so gently to gap each other. The race was going very,very well. Smooth bottle pickups, energy to burn (thanks Endura) and my 656B Mach 4 was charging through the rock gardens like it thought they were Rotorua berms. Sweet as, bro.

The way a Garmin sees a race going to pot

My tyres had been barking in protest all day, and then, not altogether unreasonably the front tyre made a sound that I really didn't want to hear. I'd hit the sharp side of a rock and cut it - leaving me with a bigger than little cut and a quicker than slow leak. I had the 'Please stop' mantra banging away in my head as I turned the leak south and hoped against hope that the whistling would be replaced by the sound of a puncture choking on latex. It didn't. Stans sealant spat out of the hole but didn't fill it. I ripped off my CO2 + sealant cannister and emptied that. The CO2 worked OK filling my tyre but the sealant, less so, doing just what the original goop did and made for the exit. Freaking out just a little, I took a punt and made for transition, which was on the other side of 4 kms of technical trail. The whistle continued and my tyre protested ever more loudly as I nursed it back to camp.

I'd lost a lot of time, but apparently was in first place as I crossed the pads to begin lap 9. At transition I got a little help from Jimmy (retired, the rocks had massacred his wrists) to pump a bunch of air into my front tyre. And with some relief I set out to roll through another couple of laps and into victory. What I didn't know that 2nd had overtaken me during my pit-stop and was doing a pretty good job of taking the win.

Lap 9 was painful. The slow leak didn't stop, the lack of pressure in it forced me to bomb less and brake more, and twice I had my bike upside down, delivering air with a hand pump. As I rolled into transition for the final lap I was told that I was now second, two minutes down on the top spot.

Sometimes there is a little moment of quiet before the effort dial is turned to 11. Its an intake of breath, a moment to consider what is about to happen and maybe even some space to wonder why. In this instance, there was no moment - it was all filled up with the chase. And chase I did.

So there I was, blasting through the trail like a psycho trying desperately to recapture the win I only recently discovered I'd had in the bag.

And as (a lack of) luck would have it, cresting on of the rocky climbs I broke my chain. An XX1 chain - 2 races old had taken a hit somewhere and with some poor gear selection and too much torque it had snapped clean through the plates. I sort of gazed at it for a bit - not really believing it was happening. It may have been 10 seconds or so, then upon remembering I'd handed off my tool pouch (read chain breaker and joining link) on the 3rd lap to a stricken rider I lifted my bike onto my shoulder and bolted down the hill to race central. 
Fortunately it wasn't far away and within a few minutes I had my bike in neutral spares with two mechanics - appreciating the urgency - working on the fix. To their credit they got me back on the trail and back in the race, but not before I'd lost enough time to be a good 10 minutes away from the win. 

Now it was all about what I didn't know. First was away, who knew where second was, and third and fourth could have been up for a podium stealing mugging for all I knew. Time ticked away as I burned matches I didn't have.

I had re-started the lap from scratch and the evening light was starting to make things look a little different. My tyre had stopped leaking allowing me to go back to pre-leak lines and I got to thinking that I was now in third place and that second was only a minute ahead. 
'He's just around the corner' I kept saying to myself 'He's just around the corner...'

To add to the theatre playing out in my mind, as I came out of the final corner to climb up to the finish line there he was. Another rider, out of the saddle, giving it everything. With one last effort I dug in and - somewhat pointlessly in the end - rolled over the line just in front.

The podium, me on the right. 

Turns out that the lad I'd passed in the finishing chute was riding with a school team and had probably wondered what the hell some ginger blowhard was doing racing him to the line.
And when all was said and done, I'd held second in the solo 40+ and had torn the paint off in the last lap for nothing other than pride. It was an incredibly well deserved win by Brian John who had been absolutely ripping all day. As irony would have it he had lost the top spot to finish 2nd the year before - in not too dissimilar circumstances.

We didn't get to thank them at the time, but I'm sure that everyone would hand out a big bag of appreciation to the Beechworth Chain Gang for putting on an an epic, spectacularly organized 6 hour race, in a beautiful location over a brilliant, if 'honest' course. Big props to everyone who raced, great crowd, great trail, great atmosphere.
Definitely on the calendar for next year.