The Happy Medium: Choc Foot Round 1, Taree

One of the most elusive concepts in life is that of the Happy Medium – located somewhere on a spectrum between two opposing and polar extremes.  Riders cherish Happy Medium autumnal weather between the searing summers and freezing winters, the Happy Medium between roadie attire and downhill pyjamas, or perhaps even the Happy Medium that is proposed with 650b between 26′ and 29″ wheels sizes.

Likewise, my experience of bike racing so far this year has been one of polar extremes.  A couple of bouts of success countered by numerous shockers.  Races where extrinsic racing motivation runs rampant have been balanced by those where I have to immerse myself in the scenery to find reasons to push on.  Motivation running rampant, or digging deep into the bag of mental tricks to endure.

I’ve become a huge fan of the Singletrack Mind Series of races over the last two years, because they generally hit a Happy Medium between racing and one enormous social ride.  They are races where the mascot Gumby experiences Goldilocks singletrack conditions (just right!) on his fat-bike, and everyone generally has a pretty great time.

So, after racing two national championship races within a month which required deep excursions into mental and physical reserves, it was exciting to think of a 7 hour race on flowing trails with a Happy Medium of climbing, firetrails and corners on a 10km loop, and a smorgasbord of sensational singletrack.

This particular race was held at the trails of Kirrawak State Forest near Taree.  Although relatively flat, the forest is a mixture of native brush with rainforest gullies to swoop and dive through.  A practice lap soon revealed a course that was soon remarked to be almost entirely downhill (and not in *that* way), with loads of flow, swooping gullies, drifty corners, and minimal climbing.  The course featured punchy climbs out of gullies, so the sub 9kg Superfly SL hardtail seemed like a fantastic choice for acceleration and responsiveness on the pinches.  Also on the cards was an appearance from Jason English, ensuring plenty of fast racing would be ahead.

The course was also promising to be a Happy Medium in terms of temperature.  After the sweltering heat of Atherton, the first few days commuting in the cold of Canberra felt like bliss with cool, crisp air.  This feeling soon wore off extremely quickly, and I found myself craving something other than cold, dark mornings and evenings.  Taree provided the Happy Medium, with mid-20s temperatures, mild humidity, and a slight cooling breeze.  Although hefty hydration was soon required to deal with the temperatures, the conditions were perfect for racing bikes.

Race morning rolled around with Scotty’s delicious nutella pancakes.  Lining up on the start line, I kept tabs on Jason’s position.  He was clearly also pretty tired after Marathon Nationals and together with Andrew Lloyd, we were content to a starting pace that was a Happy Medium between racing and cruising.  The course rolled pleasantly by, until I managed to mis-read a corner and ride straight into the bunting.  I scrambled to get back onto Jason and Andrew before barrelling straight into another section of bunting.  Questioning my basic vision, I backed the pace off to a very, very Happy Medium, found some sing-along songs from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and set about plodding into 7 hours of racing.

On the third lap, the magical singletrack switch flicked in my head.  This is the point where a trail becomes more than just a conglomeration of corners and obstacles, but a flowing piece of art to connect via two fat squishy tyres.  Rhythm now found, I began to settle into a sustainable rhythm on the trails, shared a few random conversations, and began to plod up through the field.

And so, the laps filtered by in the divinely Happy Medium between Racer Boy motivation (chase that Green Lantern!) and Bearded Hippy (Sweet ferns, dude!) motivation.  To combine the experience of chasing and racing hard with the flow of the forest and swooping through the gullies became enormously enjoyable.  Or conversely: to combine the immersion of the rainforest trails with the adrenaline of racing provided a solid basis for motivation.

Based on my memories of Nowra from the previous year, I realised this would be a race where lap times wouldn’t slow at the pointy end, as leg fatigue was compensated by learning cornering lines better and better.  This also meant the possibility of an absurdly fast finish to the race and some hefty “negative splitting” in last minute gambits for position.  The four hour mark rolled by absurdly quickly, and it became a question of balancing the effort until hitting the “berserk” button, with a gap to Jason reported to be hovering around the two minute mark.  

It was thus a matter of winding up the pace and keeping heart rate nice and high to find the afterburners on demand, with the added kick of some caffeine gels.  By this point, Jason had had a similar idea – possibly “really starting to enjoy the course” – and was riding as fast as any teams had started.  With news of a growing gap, it was soon time to back off the pace a little, and enjoy an easy ride back into transition.  The startling statistic when crossing the finish line was that solo riders had finished second and third overall chugging consistently away all day!  

This race was a fantastic start to what promises to be a fun series, with flowing singletrack in a fantastic setting.  Here’s hoping for some equally fun racing for the remainder of the series!

 

2013 Marathon Nationals

Last year’s Marathon Nationals goes down in my memory as a fantastic fun affair.  On a freezing cold Canberra morning, the sun eventually rose to a perfect day.  I rolled out to Stromlo, raced around in circles a few times, had far too much fun, and then limped home and got overtaken by several grey-haired ladies on the bike path.

This year would be a proposition of polar opposites, if with the same basic premise:

• Marathon distance (~100km)
• Bucket loads of climbing.
• Mixture of singletrack and fireroad

This was where the similarities ended.  Gone were my beloved freezing temps, replaced by 30+ degree heat and 90% humidity.  The sun was no longer a welcome friend, but a feared and loathed foe.  And instead of cruising to and from the race on the bikepath, it would be a crazy weekend of logistical disasters, aeroplanes, and general stress.  Given the need to take two bottles on a lap, to deal with loads of mud, and the abuse of flying a bike, I opted to take my old Superfly – ever a reliable friend to take on an adventure in the mountains.

Like most big races, the rumours trickled down through the interweb in the proceeding week.  Rumours of mud, heinous climbs, creek crossings, leeches and treacherous descents.  A few of these proved true.  Perhaps the scariest rumour that filtered through concerned race duration – as rumours of 6 hour winning times began to emerge.  A marathon effort indeed.  Jason English soon emerged as a favourite given the duration of the race, and I soon decided that, despite my love of stupid tactics, conservatism would be the only prudent tactic.

The pre-race reccy ride proved the refutation of many of these fears.  There was indeed mud, there were creek crossings, and there was certainly climbing.  But there was also divine singletrack carved into the side of the hills rising above the luscious tablelands and swooping down again.  There were rock features, switchbacks, and even the occasional jump.  As the sun set on our ride, the temperature dropped off, and everyone was feeling pretty excited about racing the next day.  I decided that, for all the stress of travelling and the pressure of a huge race, riding bikes in Far North Queensland through prehistoric rain forest held an irrefutable gravitas of its own, and one which would make the race a fantastic memory, irrespective of the result.

Race morning rolled around with a very late 9am start in the balling sun.  A poor start led to a very poor position in the first singletrack.  ”Conservatism”, I told myself, half in denial.  A bottle bounced out on the first descent, and I dreaded the consequences.  As the lap progressed, I continued to go backwards.  I only hoped I could rely on some chugging to pull me up as the race progressed, and that others had misjudged their efforts and gone too hard.

First creek crossing. Pic by Russ Baker

After traversing the singletrack and climbing away into the range, the course dove into a series of heinous pinch climbs and descents through the dense rainforest canopy.  Some areas required some hiking, but the lush rainforest, impenetrable canopy and gurgling creeks made all the suffering on the track bearable.

Descending into transition the first time, the heat took its full toll and I dreaded the lost bottle.  The next lap started disastrously as I slowed to retrieve my lost bottle, had a crash and generally lost all power.  Struggling to regulate my body temperature in the heat, I basically shut down and lost all power.  The resulting lap was an exercise in digging deep into the much-traversed bag of mental tricks, just to endure, and when performance seems a distant and surreal concept.  I drunk as much fluid as possible, ate solidly, fantasised of collapsing into the streams, and hoped for recovery.

Struggling in the heat. Photo by Russ Baker

Pulling into transition again, the F1 pit crew of Target Trek swung into action in a flurry of orange Torq bottles, a few bananas, and multiple cups of cooling water dumped just about everywhere.  With the transition back to a stable body temperature, my mind and body began to click back into gear.  Fighting back, one slow pedal stroke at a time.  Fighting not competitors, but the course, the climbing, and the conditions.  Fighting the little voices within that urge quitting when the race gets hard.  Remembering the other little voice urging onwards to push limits.  The singletrack passed pleasantly, and with distinctly more flow.  My beloved old Superfly was holding up marvellously in the mud, and was riding far better than I was.  The climb was a soft medley of sing-alongs with calm breathing.  The dense rainforest was beautiful and immersive.  The pain and suffering of the heat soon gave way to the pure magic of riding a bike through tropical rainforest, and some of the most beautiful country in the world.  A huge congrats to everyone who conquered the conditions, and especially to Jenni King on the National title win!

A good note to finish!

With this in mind, I was happy to cross the line after 6 hours and survive a tough day in the saddle.  Commuting in the cold since has seemed simply divine, but the lure of the Crocodile Trophy has got a bit stronger….

A huge thanks to Jason McAvoy, Garry James and Jason English for the travelling company, and to Pete Dowse from Target Trek for helping out in the pits.  Sharing the beautiful backcountry of Far North Queensland is made even better by hanging around with a bunch of your best mates!

 

A Marathon by the Numbers – the Wombat 100

Perhaps my favourite website in the world is the geeky comic, xkcd.  About a year ago, XKCD branched out from stick figures, and into the world of words – and numbers – with “What If?” Xkcd.  The basic premise was to take a hypothetical and extreme question posed by a reader and answer it by thumb-suck, engineering-style dives into science, with proof by back-of-the-envelope calculation, ably assisted by some vigorous handwaving.

It is commonly said that imitation is the highest form of flattery, which makes me feel a little better about shamelessly misappropriating the “What If?” concept to describe a bike race: the Wombat 100.  Admittedly, the concepts covered will be rather more mundane than those posed to XKCD, but they will be linked by a common theme that you, dear Reader, surely feel an affinity with: a road trip for a slightly eventful 100km MTB race.

To set the stage: The Wombat 100 is held at Woodend, which is a safe distance from the Great Hipster Eminence that is slowly engulfing Melbourne.  The course is nestled in the rolling hills of Wombat State Forest, and based around the scenic Cammeray Waters.  The course is a mixture of forest roads, singletrack, motorbike singletrack, and more singletrack.  All up, there’s about 2000vm of climbing through the rolling hills, some truly stunning sections of flowing trail, numerous bar-width tests, and even a few genuinely sketchy off-camber descents and elevated bridges.  This was a proper mountain bike course!

However, this course was also 7 hours driving away.  On a Saturday, I loaded up on car-trip chocolate with Garry James and started the long slog.  Which leads to “What If?” no. 1:

How many times will you hear the same pop song driving 7 hours?

It’s a universally recognised fact that pop stations only ever really play the same 40 odd tracks on repeat.  If you take the average formulaic pop song as being four minutes long, that’s 160 minutes of music.  Let’s then factor in about an additional 50% time for obnoxious presenters and advertisements, and we’re at 240 minutes or 4 hours.  So in a 7 hour drive, I should hear the Average Pop Song around 1.8 times because they’re more or less on a sequence.

However, the are a few confounding factors, mostly involving driving through four different pop radio station frequency zones.  Essentially, this means that every time you pass into a new radio station area, the clock is reset – and the probability is now 1 in 40 again.  So, if we split the drive into 1.75 h zones – we have a 62.5% chance of getting the song in every zone.  Cumulatively, we’ve now heard the song 2.5 times by the destination.

This still isn’t getting me close.  Either pop music defies statistical analysis, or something else is going on.  Unlike the Infinite Tweets of the universe, pop music operates in a much smaller space: working around the same contrived rhymes involving love, happiness, broken-heartedness, and other such themes.  Given that there is a list of English words that don’t rhyme on a single Wikipedia page, this shouldn’t narrow the field too much.  However, within the operating parameters of 140bpm and 4 bar melodies in 4:4 time, it’s quite possible that the World of Pop music got exhausted some time in the mid 2000s, which is why you actually here the song 4 times getting to Woodend.

Anyway, race morning rolled around in Woodend on a foggy but mild morning.  A complete lack of warm-up was relieved by a very casual and social start.  Here, disaster struck almost immediately – in letting some air out of my front tyre before the race, I’d succeeded in cracking the valve stem.  Within the first km, the front tyre was down to about 5psi.  I decided the only logical tactic in this situation was to go to the front, pondering a sneaky “attack and C02″ that would hopefully fix the problem.  10km in, and the first singletrack popped up, which demanded something more than a rim to ride on. My C02 inflator tore the valve core from the cracked stem.  Dejected, a tube went in, and the question popped into my head as with every mechanical-striken rider?

What are the odds?

Rolling my mind over it with the benefit of hindsight, I’ve seen plenty of cracked tubeless valves where the stem has snapped or cracked, although I’ve rarely seen them on a tube.  The correlation between this phenomena and the exorbitant price of tubeless valves is rather noticeable here, which makes me thing that somewhere, a group of tubeless valve manufacturers are giggling.

So what are the odds?  Well, the yield stress of worked brass is probably somewhere around 120MPa.  That’s rather a lot – and even over an area of 1mm2 of failure – equates to a force of around 120N loaded entirely on that spot, which is fairly implausible – not unlike having a full 12kg bucking the tube outwards.  It’s fairly safe to say that shearing force exerted by a lock nut won’t do it.

However, with a long pump used without much finesse on a valve core partially inserted – maybe some thread gets pulled.  That then leads to a weak spot with uneven load.  Strain leads to stress concentration, maybe 200 times higher.  All of a sudden, it doesn’t take much for our valve to burst asunder under something tiny like 6N of force.  

For the meantime, it was time to go into damage control and attempt to make back some positions, with some 8 minutes lost.  More crucially, the back of the fast bunch was gone forever.  

The benefits of drafting are pretty well understood by almost every cyclist on the road.  Mountain bikers approach with more caution.  A combination of riser bars, upright positions and a tendency to love everything that doesn’t involve pedaling (hence the popularity of Enduro / Super D racing) has led to a tendency to understate the value of drafting.

Well, here we are.  

Air is actually thought of by most people who have to think about it as a fluid rather than a gas – in that it has mass, density, velocity and viscosity.  Air molecules have shape and stickiness to whack you in the face with when you ride into them.  Usually this is modelled as two primary resistance mechanisms: static drag ( front on drag, what aero bars are for) and dynamic drag (surface drag, what triathlon helmets are for).  The former is easy to explain – the air that goes straight into you smashes into you, robs some of your momentum, before hopefully slipping away to the side somewhere.  The latter is to do with the energy required in shedding the vortices that form on your shoulder (that funny turbulent noise) and letting the air get away from your surface again.

Anyway, static drag is proportional to surface area, and to the square of relative velocity.  The doubly faster you go, the quadrupally harder it gets, which is also why headwinds suck so truly much.  

Drafting saves you in the sense that the air behind the leading rider is now moving a more or less the same speed as said rider.  So the faster the bunch goes, the harder it gets for the rider chasing solo.  The beauty of the stationary region behind.

And, as an even ruder element, even the rider on front in the wind gets it easier.  The riders behind act something like a sperm helmet, and shed the vortices for their beloved drafter, and save the drafter that tiny bit of energy.

With these sober realities on my mind, I plodded along through Wombat State forest.  Sections of singletrack allowed an opportunity for drafting to go out the window.  Climbs were sweet intervention.  Riding through the mist, the course transitioned from rough moto forest singletrack to native eucalypt, eternally divine in the mist.  These were great riding conditions – in super-saturated air, hydration concerns go flying out the window, because for every 5L gulp of gasping-for-breath air up the hill, you take in about 1.2mL of fluid.  Over an hour of breathing like a dog, that’s almost 2L of fluid intake!

Rolling through the course, the singletrack transitioned to tighter, slower and more technical.  Eventually, the 50km point rolled around.  I spied a solid train led by MarathonMTB’s Mike Blewitt, sucked up a few deep breaths, and attempted to charge past the whole group looking chipper and chirpy before dying the moment I was out of sight.  The singletrack became increasingly technical, with a few elevated bridges and narrow chutes.  It also became tremendous fun just to ride and race at this point!

With 30km to go, the course opened up again to fast fireroads.   Here, the benefits of drafting would once again play a large role.  I chugged along in the perfect weather, enjoying the trails and a fun day on the bike.  It was brought home to me yet again that – for all the physics of bikes and the focus on equipment and kit, for all the biometrics, power meters and data – you can still rely on mountain bike stoke to redeem a race ruined by a silly mechanical early, and a “What If!” interpretation of that might go far beyond the realms of physics!

 

 

2013 Solo 24 Hour Nationals

To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour

When sitting down to write a blog of a 24 hour race, the first question is rather a large one:

Where should I begin?

Should I begin with numbers? The numbers can quantify the gravity of these races and display an irrefutable, tangible picture of just how much is involved.

Should I talk purely of tactics and racing? Of the surges, attacks, strategies and implosions? Of an intriguing show that plays out slowly against the backdrop of the mountain, gently illuminated LEDs floating around its contours?

Should I talk of the spiritual aspects? Of madness, hopes and dreams laid on the line through a tyre track in the dust? Of self-transcendence, redemption, or perhaps even a little self-discovery? Of the intoxicating drive to push limits and shatter boundaries?

Or should I reject it as nothing more than riding around in circles, and write of the banal.  Of the suffering, the implosions, the caffeine highs, and the sinking lows of sugar bonks.

Perhaps the best approach lies somewhere in between.  A fusion the spiritual with the tangible, of the banality of suffering with the circus-show of endurance racing.

A World in a Grain of Sand

Bike racing is its own funny little world, nestled in weekend epics and races, the occasional night-ride, and the imagination of plenty of people who end up bored and inside too much of the time.  There is a World in a Grain of Sand.  Tyre pressures? Tread pattern for the depth? Will it hold up, or blow out over 24 hours of racing? What is the course like?

In this particular case, the Solo 24 Hour Nationals was an interesting grain of sand.  A race perhaps more open due to some unfortunate injuries to the multi-time incumbent Jason English involving errant cars and kangaroos.  A course which soon became known for its brutality, with rocky sections to test fatigued riders, sapping pinches, and a rough, 600m, 13% climb to build the lap to a rewarding finish down Skyline and the Luge.  A course which would make or break riders, and indeed champions.  A course where I confidently and completely erroneously predicted huge time gaps, and lap times that blew out progressively through the race.  A grain of sand that produced a thrilling race.  With a fantastic support crew of Adam, Phil and Erin behind me, I was excited for a flat-out race.

“Yep, there’s something wrong with your derailleur”

The little world of bike racing began with a relaxed, comical start.  Scott Chancellor and I had vaguely discussed the idea of fool-hardy suicidal joint attacks to start the race.  When Scott didn’t know where the course went, I led the field out and up the first few climbs at a lazy pace.  Already, vastly differing approaches were on display.  While I had opted for the superlight Superfly SL hardtail to save my legs on the climbs – knowing I’d get beaten up on the descents – Scott had gone in the opposite direction, riding his 5″ Trance 29er, affectionately known as the “School Bus”.   He shot into Slant Six with a mischievous grin and soon vanished.  On the climbs, I could catch again, but soon decided the pace was too high and too risky, and focussed instead on starting a solid hydration and nutrition strategy, and riding to a very well defined exertion limit.

A slightly scattered leading pack of five was soon established, with Scott of the front, Callum McNamara and I having a little too much fun for this  serious racing business in no man’s land behind, with Ash Hayat and Jason English lurking ominously another minute back.  Despite feeling a little unmotivated and distracted,  my body began to settle into the rhythm of endurance racing, and loosen up a little.

Berms!

About 4 hours in, I decided to leverage the advantage of the lightweight hardtail to pull clear of Callum on the climb, and soon jumped across to Scott, who was settling back into an easier, more conservative rhythm.  I then spent a few hours off the front on my own, tapping away a rhythm, all the while with a foreboding sensation that Jason English would soon warm up, and come flying across the gap.

As day transitioned to night and the sun cast reds and golds across the mountain, the temperature dropped and the riding became a little easier.  Here, something bizarre happened, when my stomach started cramping on all the descents.  Any and all food and drink consumed would only agitate the raging inferno further.  Drastic action was soon required, and we scaled back to straight water, and a minimum of food as the lights came on to guide us through the treacherous rocks in the darkness.

Lights on and having fun

With the World in a Grain of Sand thus slipping through my fingers, it wasn’t long before I spotted a quiet and fast-moving set of lights slipping through the darkness towards me at a startling pace.  While I secretly hoped it was a local XC gun out for a play, an awkward silence was soon broken by a very familiar voice:

“What’s going on?”

With this succinct reminder that my pace appeared to be going to the proverbial, I had no answer as Jason vanished at a startling pace into the darkness.  I decided the only solution would be to throw a big bunch of time away, and make a highly unscheduled trip to the toilet to exorcise the proverbial.  With things now settling down, the other reality of winding back my carb consumption soon hit me, and bonking ensued.

I struggled with the World in the Grain of Sand slipping away from my grasp.  Lacking intrinsic motivation, I plodded on through the darkness with some rather dark thoughts about endurance racing for company.  Slowly, the Formula One pit crew of Adam, Phil and Erin loaded me up with pizza, and the carbohydrate reserves began to be replenished.  Midnight ticked by, and soon enough, the magic arrived.

Heaven in a Flower

There are many forms of intrinsic motivation that riders bring to their racing.  Pushing limits, breaking boundaries, discovering unknown internal strength.  To stray dangerously close to the bizarre world of fixies, sometimes riding a bike can offer startling moments of clarity and resolution.  When the world settles down into a beautiful, logical order.  When riding love becomes motivation in its own right, and the rider can see Heaven in a Flower by the track, accomplishment in clearing a rock garden, beauty in the glittering night sky, and redemption in recovering from a deep, miserable hole.

While the relationship of my first caffeine hit in two weeks to this sensation stretches the statistician’s catch-cry of “correlation is not causation!” into the realms of pedantry most occupied by, well, statisticians, my little riding microcosm became a beautiful place.   The course had a purpose and form, and pushing out for another lap was an enjoyable experience in a dark, timeless world pierced by a cocoon of light.  My reveries were frequently broken by innumberable crashes on Blue Tongue and Little Seymour, but not enough to break the love.

Slowly, the timeless night flitted by, and slowly, the gap to Jason began to shrink.  Redemption thus achieved, the race then built strength upon strength in a ‘spiritual’ dimension as the focus, drive and racing love came flowing back.  Descending from Willo Link one lap, I saw a very fast set of lights climbing the return firetrail.  Although to each, the identities were invisible in the blinding glare, the moment of recognition was unmissable to both: game on – again.

Riding without any form of time-keeping, I began to look expectantly to the Eastern sky for the first hints of morning glow, but secretly reveled in the cold, dark night air.  I found a bizarre alternative form of measuring the gap – a strange calling card of the leader – looking at the freshness of the splattered urine trails from a rider most adept at the much-hushed topic of rolling pees.

Infinity in the Palm of your Hand

The game thus became a question of numbers.  Retrospectively, some stats from the race show its enormous gravity – some 409km covered, with 9,600vm of ascent.  Probably somewhere in the order of 50,000 – 60,000kJ consumed.  Or, I could roll back to the training for this race.  Over the three months leading in, some 110 hours, 350 hours, 9000km, and 110,000 vertical metres of ascent.

But the game was one of infinite possibilities.  To attack immediately and risk an implosion? To ride to tempo and with conservatism?  How many minutes were needed over the five hours of racing remaining, and from where could they be pried?

With the transition back to daylight, the temptation to lift the pace again was too great to resist.  After a random hot lap, at 8am, the gap had shrunk to just 90s.  Here, the guessing games began.  Rather than continuing on the adrenaline, I chose to knock the pace back to what I felt was a sustainable tempo.   The gap opened a little.  Infinity joined the blood blisters in the palm of my hand.

Not so smiley at 11am. Photo by Steve Watson

Precious seconds rolled by.  Of the 86,400 seconds in the race, now every one seemed precious, and I mourned for those lost in the toilet earlier in the race.  The lights stayed on from the night laps.  The rolling transitions became spriting transitions for the Formula 1 crew, stretching their V12s.  Aero tucks were adopted coming out of pit row in the tarmac.  There is no madness more fulfilling than winding up the pace again after 20 hours on the bike.  None other that can produce a wry smile between the grimaces, chasing the void between riders, counting the seconds, trying to close a fluid, elastic gap, and grasp at the air to cling closer.  An infinite goal, almost in the palm of my hand.

Eternity in an Hour

However, much like the Scott 24hr in 2011, the downside of the early morning acceleration was the doubt about the remaining resources.  At 10am, the lights went out, with the combination of a rear end most sore from the previous evening’s debacle and a locked lower back robbing any pedaling power.  Slowly, infinity slipped away, and the race became a question of survival.

With 10 minutes to go, I made the decision to limp out on a final 33rd lap, and push a broken and abused body a little further.  The resulting hour felt like an eternity, as I grovelled over the climbs, rockgardens and descents of the trail.  Metres dragged out into endless expanses, and time became a relative function of misery.

Eventually, the finish rolled around to end an epic an exhausting day exploring the depths of eternal hours!

There are a few people I really, really need to thank for this ride happen for me:

• The amazing pit crew of Adam, Phil and Erin.  I used the term F1 crew in all seriousness.  Every transition was seamless and perfect, and between 2am and 11.50am, I didn’t spend a second stationary in transition.  It was an amazing team performance to dig the rider out of a massive hole, and have him push for the lead again!
• Target Trek MTB Team.  It is fantastic to see so much support across all disciplines of the sport, and to see Target stepping in to the MTB market.
• Onya Bike Belconnen and CORC for their continued support of this event;
• The whole community of MTBers.  You’ll never meet a better or more inspiring group of people to share these experiences with.
• Jason English for pushing the standard for these races perpetually higher, and schooling me in some late race pace!

Revisiting the Theory of Zero-Carbon Racing: 2013 Capital Punishment

In 2012, the side of me that an eloquent coworker refers to as “a hirsute, unwashed undergraduate” began to dabble with the idea of riding to and from races as a way of embracing the general good fight against climate change, and bringing across the environmentally friendly approach towards racing.  This was perhaps best done with the 2012 Australian Marathon Champs, which were bookended very neatly by commutes to and from Stromlo for a very enjoyable (and emission free!) day on the bike.

In 2013, I’m informed by the same colleague that my personal grooming is (somewhat) improving, and I’m becoming increasingly faceless and conservative.  So, when the Capital Punishment 100 rolled around, a last minute ticket (thanks Todd!) saw the plan for zero carbon racing having a lot less to do with saving the world, environmentalism, peace and love and other such related topics that form the regular discourse of unwashed undergraduates, and much more to do with logistic simplicity and the desire to get a really good long ride in as training for 24 hour Nationals.  However, none of this conservatism prevented me from wandering through a corporate function at the Crown Plaza hotel to register in old commuting lycra, explorer socks, and with my backpack.  Stylish, classy and chic.

To cut to the actual race, the alarm went off again at Horrible O’Clock, and at 5am, I was happily rolling off into the darkness with a couple of bottles of Torq loaded on the bike, and pockets crammed with bananas and gels. As I rolled through the quiet, serene streets of pre-dawn Canberra, my thoughts were mainly occupied by avoiding shattered glass and punctures (a great irony, to foreshadow dramatically) – a regular bane of my rides to and from Kowen.  I made it safely past the airport, and even survived Queanbeyan unscathed.  Climbing into the night out of Queanbeyan, the cars with bikes loaded became more and more regular, and my focus shifted a little more to getting the optimum heart-rate for the start.  After 1 hour and twenty minutes of commuting, it was time for some pre-dawn trash talk, and some racing!

The race started in the gloom with the usual chaos of off-road pacelines with a few elbows jutting out and gears rapidly clunking.  However, my warm-up had worked fantastically, and my legs felt pretty chipper, and I even contemplated a minor and completely stupid attack before realising that there were a couple more kilometres of fast fireroad before anything resembling singletrack.   Despite trying to learn lessons from the Willo Enduro the previous weekend, I still went into the singletrack way too far back.  Sure enough and inevitably enough, wheels were soon dropped in the first singletrack sections, and there was dangerous daylight up to a hard charging bunch of 10.

I teamed up with Jeremy Ross, and as we rolled through the first sections of Kowen at a ridiculous pace, the gap gradually closed.  After some monster turns from Jeremy, we could almost touch the leading bunch heading into Sparrow.  A nice fireroad climb provided the opportunity to jump in and make contact.  With Andy Fellows and Brendan Johnston in the group, Target Trek looked to have a reasonably good position, and I was looking forward to racing in the bunch and seeing how the race would progress.

However, the happiness didn’t last long, as my front tyre went very soft heading down through Sparrow.  Wallowing in the corners, I jumped off and emptied some C02 into the tyre, thinking I’d just burped it.  A few minutes later, I stopped again.  An inspection of the tyre revealed no signs of punctures, but maybe that the valve was loose.  I tightened the valve, dumped my second canister in, and rode off.  A few minutes later, I was stopped for a third time.  Somehow, the bead of the tyre was no longer seated, and the seal had been broken.  Eventually borrowing a mini pump off eventual singlespeed winner Aaron Coles, I went about the slow and laborious business of manually inflating a tube with a mini pump, and had probably lost about 15 minutes by this point.

Realistically, this meant “race over”.  It was now time to work slowly back through the traffic, and look after the bike until the mid-race untimed section, where I could restock on some spares.  Worryingly, the front tyre was feeling increasingly spongy again, so the pace was definitely not high.  Heading out of Kowen, the course picked up some of the old West Kowen singletrack.  On a seemingly innocuous section, I soon heard a death hiss from the rear tyre.  I looked down to see a severely dented rim, and another ruined beat seat.  Scabbing a tube of another great mate Seb, I went through the mini-pump process again, and after another 15 minutes, was soon out riding on about 10 psi front and rear.

In times like this, I figured it was apt to look for some intrinsic forms of motivation to keep going.  Fortunately, they were easy to find.  I was out exploring singletrack through Kowen, including some delightful old-school sections swooping in the bigger hills of the Goorooyaroo range.  The weather was perfect, being neither to cold nor too hot.  And I was riding my bike with hundreds of other like-minded folks.  A few conversations later and some rolling through some gorgeous trails, and we were traversing the link through Defence Force land.  The transition to natural bushland was very enjoyable, and the roads undulated gently through the rolling hills.  I caught up to Seb again, who soon asked the question:

Seb: Why do defence get to have all the nice bush land?

Ed: They’re defending it…. from the Land Development Agency

Having thus scored cheap points against a government department that would probably turn every riding place in Canberra into some disastrous residential subdivision with no roads, no sewers, but plenty of self-aggrandising statues, we rolled amused towards Majura.  Here, the March of Progress was encountered again, with the divine singletrack of the Majura Pines obliterated for a new road.  After sneaking out and into the suburbs, it was time to swap bottles, pump the tyres up to about 50 psi to preclude any pinch flats of the tubes, and roll off towards Stromlo.

The next sections through Black Mountain and the Canberra Arboretum (arboratoreum? Arbortoreum? – among many others) were tremendously enjoyable, if slightly sketchy with 50psi in the tyres.  They featured violently steep fireroad pinches and rutted out descents.  A bunch of fast Onya Bike riders soon formed in chase, and I scampered off as the proverbial hare.  A race within a race!

Eventually, we rolled out towards Stromlo Forest Park, having succesfully skirted around the urban sprawl that was once Deek’s Forest Park, and has since fallen prey to the aforementioned Land Development Agency.  Heading up through Stromlo, the terrain felt familiar up the gentle climb – before finishing with the perfect race climax – down Skyline, the Luge and Old Duffy – the famous Stromlo descents, to polish off a nice 100km in the saddle.

And, of course, there was still the 20km warm-down home.  Perhaps commuting to and from races is a good reminder of more than just the environmental value of bikes in the classic emissions abatement sense – but also in the sense that it encourages you to value the ride, not just the race (particularly useful when the latter is ruined by bizarre mechanicals) – and enjoy riding mountain bikes through the green corridors of the world.

 

 

Learning slowly: A CORC 3 Hour and the Willo Enduro

Perhaps one of the most over-used sayings about mountain bike racing – both in general, and in particular on this blog – is that it holds up something of a mirror to life.  The cliched rollercoaster of ups and downs.  Moments of weakness, moments of strength, perseverance, infinite fallibility, redemption, and plenty of endorphin-loaded catharsis.

Similarly, another nice aspect is the recidivism of racing.  That, in every race, mistakes are made, and you can walk out saying “what lessons should I have learned?” or even “which ones have I repeated?” – and then remember that racing flat-out on amazing singletrack is amazing in its own right.  It’s also worth pointing out that the monsoon-like conditions have  created some amazing hero-grip on the trails of NSW!

The first race was the twilight 3 hour held by CORC at Mt Stromlo.  Twilight races are always a personal favourite, because racing under lights adds an extra dimension and changes the nature of the race.

After a week of rain, it was an exciting prospect to race, even if in windy and cold conditions.  However, the rain had turned Stromlo from Australia’s version of the Dustbowl (complete with narratives of the dustbowl: either triumph over nature, or degeneration) into hero grip.  Conditions were ideal for some fast and fun racing, even if the gusts of wind atop the hill threatened to blow you somewhere into the Brindabellas.

The other advantage of local races at Stromlo is the opportunity to embrace some hippy-ism, and go for the zero-carbon racing approach.  Cycling is well known as a world that is the polar opposite of the rest of the world, as evinced so spectacularly and succinctly by the Great Lycra Divide of urban cafes.  Carbon is a dirty word everywhere but on the saddle of a two-wheeled steed.  Rolling into the wind with a Camelbak, the 40 minute warm-up soon delivered me at Stromlo.

Unfortunately, rolling into the wind hadn’t prepared me for the start of the race, as my legs did just about everything except put power into the pedals and I entered the singletrack far too far back.  Some rapid damage control later, and things were almost under control.  Fellow Target Trek junior gun Jack Lavis was flying off the front in a team.  Lewis Cressey thought Jack was racing solo and went charging off in pursuit.  Everyone else watched as he disappeared into the horizon.  Over the first few laps, I made an interesting study of projectile motion, as I discovered that lentil soup was the polar opposite of jam donuts.

After 3 laps, I was sufficiently relieved of lentil soup and it was time to try to settle down a bit.  Lewy was long gone, but the trails were riding delightfully well, and I was eagerly anticipating a few night laps.  Coming through with a few minutes to spare, a last-ditch lap was required severely in bonk town, before floating down the ever-fun Skyline and the berms to the finish.

The next race was the Willo Enduro.  Having heard rave reports from the past two years of this race, and having loved the trails during the Highland Fling, it seemed to good to pass up.  As a collaborative effort between James Williamson’s two clubs – the Southern Highlands Cycling Club and Canberra Off Road Cyclists – it also guaranteed that this event would have a relaxed and chilled vibe.  It also guaranteed one seriously stacked field at the start line!

As the stacked field barrelled off up the start line, the usual chaos of off-road bunches soon eventuated.  Dodging ruts and rocks, the field surged and chopped as everyone tried to position well for the singletrack.  As much as I’d love to blame a slightly silly road epic the day before, I did an appallingly bad job of positioning going into the first section of singletrack, which featured a few nice little rock gardens and tight corners.  Sure enough, the gaps soon opened as riders dropped wheels.  By the end of the first singletrack section, I looked up, and there was daylight to the lead bunch – a tangible yet uncrossable precipice of goopy, thick air.

While it’s slightly disappointing to see a race roll away 5km in, the balm of every mountain bike race is amazing singletrack.  Wingello has this in abundance, and even the fireroads are fun, plunging to the edge of the escarpment, swooping through ferny gullies, and traversing rolling hills.  Riding with Aaron Bashford, the fun soon began in earnest.  Downhillers can always teach a few things about how to ride singletrack, and following Aaron through the singletrack provided a few exciting near misses and plenty of deep drifts into the corners.

One lap rolled by into the second, and then the third.  Gradually, our patience was rewarded and we made a few positions up.  However, with the moist and tacky singletrack, the air was thick and humid.  In the pinch climbs, cramps soon emerged.  It was with a bit of a limp that most riders crossed the finish line!

So, with a hefty register of “Lessons Learned”, it’s time to look ahead to some exciting racing.  24 Hour Nationals are coming up, and then some nice long races around the bush.  Maybe even a very pretty new bike too!

2013 Trek Superfly 100 Elite SL Review

My first experience with 29er duallies came out the scorching 2011 Sydney 24 hour.   As my geared Niner hardtail of the time was in the warranty process, I borrowed a very blinged out demo carbon 29er dually from the shop I worked at.

And – well – I really didn’t like it.  While its descending skills were amazing when pointed in a straight line, its climbing and acceleration response was abysmal, and it just didn’t feel like a raceworthy bike – rather, something more of a trail-bike plow.

To be honest, this put me off 29er duallies for a while.  Gradually, over the course of a few 24hrs, the whispers that I should try to get on with a dual suspension bike again permeated their way into my consciousness.  After 24hr Nationals, I spent a few days test riding a Top Fuel.  This was a bike that severely tempted me.  It was rabidly fast both in accelerating and cornering.  It had the sort of mindbogglingly twitchy handling most racers can’t resist.  But, for all this, the bike was hard to ride – with such twitchy and snappy handling, it took a lot of body-work to control the bike.  A brilliant XC race bike definitely, but perhaps not the best of endurance bikes.

I also test rode a 2012 Superfly 100 Elite.  It was a fairly good experience.  The bike crossed the great divide from “plow on wheels” 29er handling towards what I was used to on the Superfly hardtails.  For all that though, it wasn’t *quite* there in terms of geometry and performance – it felt like a trail bike that could make a race bike, not a dedicated race dually.

So, for 2013, I was interested to hear that Trek had discontinued the Top Fuel, and had attempted to make the Superfly 100 follow my intended trajectory – a race-worthy 29er duallie – superlight, fast and responsive.  I decided to go for the marketing hype without a test ride, and roll the dice with a Superfly 100 SL Elite.

The technical aspects of this bike have been covered ad nauseum in most mountain bike media, so I’ll skim over them.  The SL frames are a new “Super Light” project – and indeed, the bike is certainly lithe for a 29er duallie.  The carbon frame is certainly pared down and weight-driven, with carbon links and minimal tubing profiles.  The SL Elite frames come with an aluminium chainstay, and the SL Pro with a carbon chainstay.  The frame has press-fit headset and bottom bracket bearings directly into carbon shells – so make sure you grease them heavily, and don’t let those bearings flog!  Other nice touches include internal cable routing (admittedly, configured for American brake orientation), bottle bosses that actually fit a bottle properly in my medium frame, removable carbon armour for the downtube, and a 142x12mm rear-end for more stiffness under braking and heavy loads.

And a terrible camera phone pic!

The thing that impressed me more though was how well thought out the specifications for the Elite SL were.  This bike is good to go with a “race-ready” build right out of the box, with Fox’s new CTD platforms front and rear, full XT /Bonty RXL kit, and the new Bontrager Race Lite wheels.  I did a quick tubeless conversion on the wheelset (it’d be fantastic if Trek provided the TLR strips and valves with the bike, hint-hint) with the stock 29-1 Team Issue tyres.  Be aware that the tyres are pretty light, especially for tubeless use on the rear, and it might be better to chuck something with a heavier weave on the back.  Nevertheless – the new RL wheels are light and stiff – and this is good to go for racing, right out of the box.  Don’t worry about the upsell to a ZTR Crest wheelset!

So – getting down to the ride – I have now logged up a few solid races on the Fly 100 with some fairly consistent results.  The first was the Duo Classic – a 50km course through Sparrow and Kowen that was so fast the race was basically XC length.  I was skeptical that the duallie would be a good choice because of the short duration of the race, but ended up enjoying the ride immensely.  The bike was fast and responsive – with your weight pitched forward over the front wheel, and with the “trail” damping on the forks and shocks, it smoothed out the stutter bumps and variations without compromising too much climbing speed.  I was impressed, and even heard to say at the end – “I don’t think the hardtail will be getting much race time this year!”.

In the duo. Photo by Chad Dobbs

The next test was the Gravity 12 hour.  This would be a decent test of the dual suspension theory for endurance racing.  While not the greatest of results, the bike certainly performed pretty well.  Here, I worked out that for some situations – such as punching out of gullies, or up pinches – the hardtail can still be a superior choice.  However, I’ll note that riding the duallie Gravity allowed a fast recovery, moving on to the 100 miler at Stromlo the next weekend.

Berm! Gif by Nathaniel Peek

This was the race that sealed the functionality of the Fly 100 for me.  It was a bike that could still be used to attack up the first climb, yet opened up for the descents.  Actively recovering on descents became a viable option.  A race bike with added recovery – it helped me hold a pretty high pace with minimal effort.

In the Rocky Trail 100. Photo by Brettski of The Berm

Do I have criticisms? Yes, as with all bikes, there are some short comings.  The internal cable routing won’t work neatly for Australian braking configurations.  The 2.0 tyres are still awfully light, and a 2.2″ or larger tyre would really help this bike hit its full potential downhill.  Perhaps the bigger issue is the rear skewer – for all the benefits of the 142x12mm system for stiffness and security, the design of the skewer cam is ineffective, high-maintenance (constantly needing lubing), and you have to be very careful not to gouge the chainstay with your disc rotor on re-inserting the rear wheel.  It would also be good to see the bike specified with tubeless strips and valves, so shops can easily set tubeless up right off the show room floor.

So who should look into this bike? Anyone who wants to do endurance racing, XC racing (with a little cush), or big rides that require a bike that can actually climb well.  It’s a dream endurance race bike.  There are courses where a hardtail will outperform, and there are also courses where a slightly slacker, longer-travel bike might actually be preferable, but the Superfly 100 is a very nice compromise of those areas.  It has drifted away from being a trail bike, and towards a race bike (with benefits!).  Part of this is the stunning light weight, part is a balanced spec, but it’s mostly a question of geometry, suspension set-up and bike balance.  Having said that – trail riders who are after a balanced cross country ride should also be happy here.  Light and fast makes the uphill more pleasant, then open up the suspension for the descent!

I’m keen to see how it goes in 24hr Nationals!