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Well due to popular demand, I'm carving out a few minutes to write a report of the weekends proceedings.
We gathered to the fray out at the track on Friday for a recce lap of at least one of the loops. Heading over the hill from the centre of Canberra gave a full view of the mountain. Pretty exciting to see the tracks weaving around on the face of the thing. The event centre, even on the friday, was impressive to say the least. Far cry from a certain infamous race in Newcastle a month or two back!
We chose the red loop (there was also a blue), which was the one that went up to the top of stromlo. More of later. We set up camp and headed back to town for some curry/noodles/pizza/all of the above.
Well all reports of canberra being like a big country town are rubbish! The epic struggle to find parking (parking cops all over the place!) and food only ended at the point of starvation, where we found an indian and were joined by onny and Mark and Narelle from Helensburgh. Good to catch up with people and be mocked for misusing the word lactating (I mention it so someone elese doesn't!). After jamming more food than is decent down it was off to coles for 'race food' (chips and creamed rice) and back to bed.
In the morning more food and out to the track. Mark has video of the raging ehthusiasm engulfing us at what lay ahead (none). Fiddle with bikes, which for people like me on the morning of the race means wipe some dust off and checking tyre pressures. For trotter it means servicing the hubs on the Rush. 'Hey Mark, was that a bearing dropping into the grass?'
Lead rider was Benham (last one to step back), who rode red loop first (there was red and blue, about 14kms each, which you had to ride in turn but could transtion after either if you liked. Unreal system, as it spread people out more without making laps too long). Ah, the red loop....
From transition it headed out on the crit track before a few kms of weaving around on flattish terrain in and out creek beds. Fun enough but nothing special. Then the climbing begins. For armidale locals the climb is something of the order of dumeresque dam carpark to the top of duval. imagine doing that climb not on rocky fireroad with your granny gear about to explode (ok ok Johnny, I know you do it in your big ring!), but on about 8kms of twisty, fun, slightly techy (sometimes) and scenic single. I may be a bit of a sicko, but I was looking forward to that climb every lap (did red loop 5 times). Even at midday on sunday I didnt have to drop out of middle ring on that climb, so you were making good progress all the way. The views from the top were pretty great, specially at night with all the lights of canberra spread out below.
The descent was awesome (and I use the word advisedly)! The first km was new single and got pretty chopped up early on, but it was still quick if you were brave and merciless on your bike. Saw at least one person fixing a flat here on every lap. The rest was sublime fast rocky flowy swithbacks carved out of the face of the mountain, ending with a section of the downhill course. Berms, drops, slidey/skittery high speed corners, you name it. Fun fun fun, all the way back to transition for the big ring dash on the crit track into transtion.
Trotter did blue next, which was like red but without the big fun descent, although with actually more climbing than red in the end. Still k after k of fun single and a nice long blast back into transition.
As is always the case, the rest is a bit of a blur. laps were pumped out, heckling and competition with laps times was plentiful, transitions were missed (trotter on the toilets- on ya mate). Wrong laps were ridden (no names but may have been a female on our team:-)), freezing waits in transition endured. In fact the cold was like a run down from north hill on a july morning- cold! minus 1 apparently. I did a double at 3am and it was very hard to tear out of a warm, soft sleeping bag and into grimey gear to ride fast down into the creeks at the start of red.
Meantime, Jenko lolls and onny were trucking along. To be honest I thought they'd have a break over night sometime but they rode all night. I actually almost believed onny when she said sh'e be slow but as usual she was disgustingly quick on the new anthem for someone with no/little training.
Stacks: very boring! Trotter over the bars but no damage and I think jenko the same? I had probably 6 high speed 'got away with that one' moments on red descent, but all in all we had no breakages, no dramas with injuries. Far cry from early days!
Other highlights: great organisation. Transition, track, bank of brand new macs to look at results (including comparing any lap with all on bell curves), food tents, big screen. High tech, super organised. Anyone who complains is not fair dinkum. Also tin seeing a snake and getting a pair of knicks from stu for mentioning it. Scammer! Actually speaking of tin, she did give one of 'Elite race leader, Track!' wallies a serve. When he came up behind her it went something like this:
"Elite race leader, TRACK!"
"Middle of pack, tired, grumpy mixed fours rider... Pass at your own risk!"
Classic:-)
Lowlights: the wind on saturday arvo. not a gale but hard work on the blue lap and cold by nightfall. Nice of it to drop just before I headed out on my first night lap at 9:-).
To the results: In contrast to other races, to simply lap consistently and cleanly with reasonable pace is not enough to have you at the pointy end. 'Big Rock Candy Mountain' got 11th/39 with 26 laps (in perspective the solo mens winner andy bell did 29!), while Blazing saddle sores (onny et al) got a very credible 6th/11 in mixed 3's. As for the 'intra team' time trial, there was supposedly a bet for the fastest winning the wheels of the slowest, which the whipper snappers thought would mean one of them would get this old blokes good wheels. Suffice to say it depends on whether you go by the official times (which include trnsition brief chats) or bike computer times- it was that close. 'Officially (:-)) Trotter fastest on red from me by 25 seconds, and that aint enough to get my crossmaxs outta me, fella!!!
There's some great pics of the evnt centre and mountain here:
http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lematelot56/Scott24HrMTBRace2007HelicopterPhotosThe official pics here- they're awesome: can't wait for the bulk to be put up (46000 of them...).
http://www.sportograf.de:4711/230_bestof/
'Indian!!'
Jamming it in... not sure what benham's thinking, though.
'Yep, it's a wheel'
Some of my & trotters pics here: not very good from me as usual, but perhaps some entertainment:
Tin on the red loop descent recce lap:
Til next time (which at the very least is this race next year- a must do in my opinion),
Gary
____________________________________
Gary Eastment
77 Parkes St
Helensburgh 2508
02 42941024
0409 725193
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