Scott 2011

The Scott is one of those races I had always wanted to do but never quite managed to get there (apart from last year which doesn’t really count). So when my mates from HORCC mentioned they were looking for another rider to make a team of 6 it didn’t take much convincing. The team (Captain Gavatron and the Mutineers) made up Gary, Dave, Gav, Dan and myself, all of whom have featured on the podium at this years STM series plus Paul who I hadn’t met before, but looked just a little too young and fit to be hucking it with us masters!
Camping at Stromlo was heaps of fun, especially with 3 teams of 6 from HORCC. The buzz around the camp site was always enthusiastic (even at 3 in the morning!) as guys rolled in from their lap fully wired, ready to recount many a glorious performance. These guys are seasoned campers and they do it in style. No sooner had I arrived they had the car unpacked and the TMC marquee erected. Wow, thanks guys! I also had Tom and Liam with me and they were pretty excited to be there. They had an awesome weekend riding their bikes around, camping, eating good food, Liam even picked up 2nd place in the U13 race (and he’s only 11, watch out for this guy in a few years to come ;)
Upon arrival Friday evening, the place was looking a little damp to be sure, and there was talk of a sloppy track from other riders but I wasn’t having any of it. Stromlo is built for MTB’s and it didn’t disappoint.
The vibe around the event centre was electric Saturday morning and a few of us from JesusMTB got together for a quick catch up and prayer for the race ahead. We asked for fine weather, safety, and an opportunity to share His love and gave thanks for our good health to ride and wive’s that indulge our passion. The clouds continued to roll past all weekend with the odd shower, but that only served to keep the track tacky, an experience I’ve not had at Stromlo before and I reckon it never rode so well. Fast forward to the start and Dan is our man who sprints off the line and get’s to the bike at the pointy end of the field to begin on the Blue lap. Gav followed in a similar fashion on the Red to put us in first place. By the time my lap came around, I was raring to go and raced off the line to tackle Blackberry and Willo Link. This was to be my best lap as I averaged 89% Max HR and seemed to really nail my lines. Also at this stage of race there was no slow traffic and after passing a few riders early in my lap, I settled in with a train of 3-4 riders and proceeded to bury myself. I came to love this Blue lap the best, it was so challenging with lots of tight techie corners and the Ellsworth really seemed to suit these trails. Heading into Skippys brought back memories of last years 24 solo and then into Deep Creek which I had never ridden before, a very tight section of trail but beautiful all the same. Just when you think you’ve had enough, of tight sketchy corners on a slight incline, you hit Shady’s, the toughest part of the lap, but it doesn’t last long and from there it is fun all the way home starting with Party line, what has to be the most flowingest sweetest stretch of single track on the planet. Oh yeah I almost forget Terminal Velocity, this will test your (insert euphemism to describe courage). A straight steep downhill fireroad that rolls into something like a safety ramp. The challenge is to pedal as hard as you can downhill without touching the brakes so you can roll up the other side and just pop over the crest of rocks at the top of the other side. I hit 60kph here, scary stuff.
My elation at my time of 43+ minutes was shortlived when I learn the guy I have been dualling with for the second half of the lap is from the competition (3FIDI6) and we drop from 1st to 2nd place with a gap of just 5 seconds. Game on! But it doesn’t end there. On the 5th lap, a team called “chain suck” put in a 41+ min lap on Blue elevating them to 1st, while 3FIDI6 fall back to 3rd and we hold 2nd. So now we have a 3 way battle for the category and it carries on pretty much that way for rest of the race. The whole team now gears up for a long battle, Dave and Gary both put in solid laps and Paul finishes the cycle with a 38+ min Red. Nice work. Dave, the team strategist floats the idea of the 3 strongest riders to pull a double and try and make up the gap to first, so I take the time off to mingle with other riding buddies including the crew from TORC, Sandy, Mark, Vicki and Stan. I watch my boys ride and catch up with a few more friends around the track. Thanks to the organisers for the kids race, I count the laps in the U11 and there are so many kids even two of us Dad’s cant quite keep up with it. It’s so cool to see all these kids out riding and loving it. My next lap is a 44+, which I am happy with as I hit a bit more traffic this time but the legs are still feeling good. I love being able to give it everything for a lap and then rest and recover till your next turn. It is only a brief rest this time as we are pulling our double which puts me onto the Red lap…in the dark. I am pretty excited about this, as I love the trunk climb and our course, Skyline and Luge and legendary. My lap is just OK, I have a few little offs, including a tangle of bars ends with a slower rider who picks the most narrow technical section of track to call me through…err fail, we pick our selves up, I apologise profusely and I’m on my way. I never really find my rhythm after that and to top it off I dump it in an unseen abyss on a fast left hander at the end of rascals. The lap also finishes through a bog resembling something out of the Jurassic Period so now my bike is dirty, not happy! But all is not lost and by the end of the cycle we now have a nice 8 min buffer over chain suck and a further 1 min over 3FIDI6. Turns out Dave hates the Blue lap so we swap over next cycle and everyone’s happy again.
My next lap is a night lap of Blue and this is tough. The corners are so tight and the shrubbery so dense, it makes it hard to anticipate where the track is going. There are times where I exit a corner, unsure of where the track goes next! Another lap down and still we We’ve now completed 19 laps (10 blue, 9 red) and we’re back in 2nd place. Every now and again chain suck wheel out their secret weapon and he puts 5 minutes into us all on his own. We’ve been off by up to 8 minutes but we are clawing back the time. It is now 1:30 in the morning. The boys are sound asleep but I cant rest. I take on some food, potter around the bike but I just don’t feel like resting and and my next lap isn’t till 5:20am. Then I remember my mate Phil, who is doing a solo impromptu performance. I roll down the hill to the solo transition to his hut to find the tell tale signs of a madman, gu wrappers everywhere! I tidy up and make some plans so I am ready when a shell of a man rolls in at 3:30am, completely shattered. The bike is a mess after negotiating many a bog on the red lap and he is out of petrol. OK noodles, that worked for me so I boil him up some noodles and get to work on the bike. He says he’ll stay put for a whle so I head up to the bike wash. When I get back, Phil is atleast smiling again though he groans when he realises he has to go out again. I rev him up, he is in 3rd place and 4th place is getting slower. All he has to do is keep circulating and he’ll podium. I see the spark behind the eyes and before he leaves he puts in an order for porridge next time round. OK cool I’ve got about an hour before I need to get ready and I can leave his porridge for him just before I go on my next lap. Perfect!.. Later on I pass his transition and see the porridge is gone. Phil goes onto hold 3rd place at the finish, and I feel just a little chuffed that I played a little part in getting him there. OK so back to our race, Dave rolls in off the Red lap bang on time and it is time for me to attack Willo again. I play a little game with my self each time trying to pushing a bigger gear up each section of this gentle climb. By the time I get back we are in the lead by 7 mins. Not enough, but this team will dig deep. There’s alot of excitement in the team, the dream is so close but a puncture or any little mistake could see it evaporate quickly. Strangely at this point I am ready for sleep, so inhale some porridge, curl up in my sleeping bag just as the sunrises and grab 90 minutes of shuteye.

When I wake up the mood is tense and so I start to prepare for my last lap which is a ripper. That’s me done. Our lead suddenly goes from 9 to 19 mins as chain suck post a 55+ min lap and the mood lifts as Dan, Gav and Gary get ready to bring it home. Dan returns with a flat back tyre off the Red lap. He flatted near the top of the climb, swirls the goop and puts a co2 in but no good, so he finishes the lap (yes Skyline and Luge) on the rim and still posts a 42. Inspirational! Gav puts in a solid Blue and Gary heads off for his last lap. Unbeknowns he comes off early in the lap….here is Gary’s account of the fall

>>>> 11:45, lead on 2nd placed team is approx 20 mins, but they have had some issues and have one uber fast guy who took 6 mins out of me on a red loop in the night when I was not mucking around. If they get out on the lap, and it's him, there's still danger. So I hook in- this is no last lap cruise. The time being what it is, as I drop down off the crit track into holdens creek, there is no traffic. The recent rain shower has re-slopped some small sections, but for the most part just kept the track tacky. So I'm really concentrating on lines and fast exits. I want a sub 40 min lap to put it to bed and receive gasps of amazement from my team-mates!! (I'd only done a 41 on this loop so far, at dusk). Sooo this was the mode I entered the little gully in. Only about 3-4 mins into the lap, you enter more or less straight, but as you cross the bridge you strat a turn right. The other bank forms a berm, which has you leaving the gully off to the right. As I start the drop I note the slick bridge from the recent shower. No worries, caution for a split second and then on my way. That was it. Whether I feathered the front brake or not I do not know, but I had a no-warning, lightening fast low side on the bridge. No leg down, no slide then down, just bike snatched out as if by a giant hand, with newton and his mates smashing me chest first into the pillow sized rock on the far side of the bridge. Chest lock. Could not breath a bit. Bloody, muddy knee and elbow. Mind racing: 'Can I make it back to transition? Is my elbow shattered? Have I broken two or three ribs?'. Breath returns. Some bloke comes along and picks up my bike, hovers in a concerned way. I wave him on. Roll and diagnose. So I climb on, but bars were way out. Fixed, then medium pace for a minute while I breathed and flexed various bits. Painful but fully functional. So... hook back in and rode a 41:-) Gee they hurt me in the first aid tent though... >>>>
Amazing he still posts a 41 and we celebrate the win as we wheel him off the first aid to get patched up. YOU BEAUTY!
Thanks to everyone for a great weekend
Keep Riding
Mike

Sydney 24 hour - Feb 6-7, 2010

The weather was always going to be doubtful. On arriving at the resort, it was dry and hard packed, but Friday night down it came...ok that could be good, let's get all the rain over now before the race starts, I thought, how wrong I was!
The first 4 hours were pretty non-eventful, putting in some solid laps and the rain mostly drizzled. At that point you start to regret what you have started as you realise that you still have 20 hours to go! There was only one deep creek crossing for which I dismounted each time. No point trashing the bike at this point I reasoned and was cursed as a damn roadie for my trouble!
By 5pm, the rain had ceased for a time, and the track was as good as it gets, tacky with just a few puddles. A couple of laps on the reserve bike, while the chain is lubed, brakes checked and Fulcrums fitted to my beloved Trek. Back into pit lane, a quick bike swap and I am rocketing on my full race machine. No sooner had I completed one lap and down came the deluge, and it really didn’t stop for the next 18 hours. It gets dark pretty quick and I hope and pray this is just a passing shower, so back onto the reserve bike to see if I can get through this little setback without ruining the race bike. It is now dark and the lights are on. Down the "gully" the water it running downhill faster than I am riding is it so treacherous. Try to imagine riding a bike down a glacier (rocky hard and full of holes, now add 6 inches of slushy snow over the top and imagine it is the colour of bear shit. Oh yeah it is dark, your glasses are covered in mud and your v brake pads are worn out.
By 8pm, the track had become so atrocious; I had fallen off three times on one lap. By this time I was ready to kill someone...."Please please call an end to this insanity, bypass the really bad bits...do something before someone is seriously injured!" You might well ask who is more insane, the organisers or the participants, but when you have trained so hard and you get one shot to qualify for a world championship, you will do whatever it takes.
Finally at 9pm the organisers, bring the race to a pause. Go to bed get some rest and come back at 5:30am they say. We will make an announcement then. With 15 laps on the board, I am sitting in 4th place, 3 minutes behind 3rd. After consulting radar and weather charts overnight, the organisers happily announce that there is one more front coming in from Penrith, but after that it will be sunshine (somewhere in QLD perhaps). Of course, the sun never looks like showing, and the rain merely oscillates between moderate and torrential.
The worst sections of the gully and the meadows are cut out and replaced with a fireroad descent. Normally something I would jump at, this fireroad is nasty. Two laps on the Trek and it was clear that not only were the conditions getting worse, but the bike would run out of brakes with still 8-10 laps to ride. So into the battle jumps the trusty Raleigh steed, 21 speed, V brakes, hardtail, flat pedals and suntour sprung forks. Can it make the distance? With each lap, the chain suck is worse to the point where I only have once chance to use the small chain ring on each lap and only the upper sprockets are in play on the cassette, because the cable is so jammed with mud. Add to that, the rear brake cable is frozen and as I pull back on the lever, the cable lug, slips out, locking on the back brakes and I have to re-engage the cable to get the brakes to return while negotiating the fire trail from hell.
Swapping bikes took me a minute so with 6 laps to go the gap to 3rd is still 4 minutes, but I am not done yet. Greg from CCOMTB is giving me gap updates each lap and I put a minute into 3rd place next time round. 4 laps to go and the gap is down to 45 seconds! Go Mike go, you can do it! 3 laps to go, 30 seconds, the margin. Coming around for the next lap, the gap is still 30 seconds and I think I might be done. Grinding through transition at 11:30am, the MC asks if I can get back in time for another lap and I shake my head, but then the red bull kicks in and I give it one last push. On the climb, I think I pass 3rd place, he looks like he's hurting, so I go for broke and make it back to transition with 30 seconds to spare. The MC and the incredulous crowd go wild, and I head out for my last lap. I think I have done it and I have to choke back a few tears (from mud in my eye!), but it ain't over yet. I give every last calorie on the last lap only to find 3rd place waiting for me at the finish, not to worry, I am going to worlds and I have a new mate who lives in Canberra!
There is so much more I could say about this race, but I won’t put it down here. Suffice to say I owe a huge thank you to my pit crew Matt Brooker, who lubed, mixed bottles changed wheels, and provided massive encouragement. To my family who have beared with my incessant training and supported me in so many ways, and finally to YOU if you are still reading. Throughout the MOM, roadies and MTB'ers alike from Peloton Sports and TORC have followed my (and don’t forget Matt Hou's!) journey to this event with genuine interest. So without getting to sentimental, thank you one and all for your encouragement and interest.
Now please excuse me while I go and pull apart what is left of my mountain bike
Keep riding
Mike "Isy" Israel

Jet Black 24hr 14-15 Feb 2009

As I begin this report, I am struck by two scary themes,
1.) this is the second ride report in 2 months where I question the suitability of the name “Wise”man’s Ferry
2.) This ride was so wet and muddy it actually became easier to ride up the water courses flowing down the middle of the track than to try and find a line that didn’t leave your rear mech dragging in 6 inches of mud.
In the lead up to the race, we were praying for the Weather forecast at Google to change, for this cloud to clear, but alas the only thing become clear was that this race would be test of man and machine not likely to be matched for a very long time.

Starting off for Team TORC was Mark who set a hot lap around the 8km track of 26 minutes, with Peter, Mike and Greg following all with sub 30 laps. After a couple of hours we were into 4th position in the Open Men’s 4’s with Tim Kerle’s and his team leading our category. The other interesting action was taking place on the river (ie. the Hawkesbury River not the river we were attempting to ride through every 30 minutes). The 08/09 Water Ski Racing World Selection Trials were on and what a sight (and sound) to see these boats rushing by with humans in tow at around 70 miles per hour. Mountain biking in these conditions certainly makes you want to take up Water skiing.
By late afternoon the rain was getting heavier and the track was working its way into a lovely thick oozing consistency.

A word on the track. Ahh ….yes….. well…. it has potential I suppose, but being the type who calls a spade a useful implement, it’s hard to see what the designers were thinking when they put this torture test together. Apparently the brief was as follows “Make the climb impossibly steep and rocky then add water to achieve complete destruction of 300 mountain bikes”.

Despite the obvious challenge, riding through the wet bush was at times fun and at other times hair raising especially when attempting to negotiate a wet slippery downhill rock garden...oh and did I mention the slight brake problem that began raising its ugly head. At around 5:45pm, there was sudden rush at the Blackman Cycles Stand for brake pads, seems the combination of water, sand, grit and clay makes for the perfect brake pad destroyer. A set of $40 brake pads was lasting just 3 or 4 laps, so half riding, half sliding down a slope and discovering you left the last remnant of pad lining in the last dam you rode through certainly get’s the adrenalin pumping. (Note to Avid, please design some wet weather brake pads)

Despite all this our team of masters pressed into 3rd position in the open category, half out of shear bloody determination and half because most sane people by this stage had packed up and gone home. At around 7:30pm the word came that a number of riders had fallen down a gully and now the race would be paused until 7am tomorrow morning. Around the same time, Mark appeared back at transition with a stream of red mud oozing from his shin. It didn’t take long for first aid to dress it and dispatch him to the hospital for an x-ray and stitches. All OK, he’ll back in no time, tough man! Fast forward to 7am, and we are thinking “please please call it off”. We are still in 3rd position but down a rider. But no luck, the marshals inspect the course after a night of torrential rain and declare it open for racing at 7:30am. Go figure.

I think that’s all that needs to be said now about this race. You may have detected a little negativity in this report, and maybe I have a few things to get off my chest, but I can’t finish on a negative and we managed to finish a very credible 4th for a masters team in a field of much younger riders.

To my team of Mark, Greg and Peter, you guys are top shelf, hard as nails and damn fine riders. It was a privilege to be part of this team, never once did anyone complain and through it all the camaraderie and the smiles remained.

To Sue Cheesman and Ann Hatton, what an amazing support crew you were. We could not have achieved what we did without your help and our time at Del Rio was made so much more comfortable with you taking care of us.

To the guy in the funny hat who cut a new track in the middle of the night so we didn’t have to ride through a 50 metre rice paddy anymore, my bike thanks you and I thank you.

To Ben, Chris and all the guys from Blackman cycles, who worked tirelessly to keep those many determined riders circulating, thank you. You guys are legends.

To Jet Black who provided enough lube to fill an Olympic pool, thanks heaps.

And finally to Rocky Trail. Thank you for your vision and determination to put on this event. Your organization was first rate and with some better weather and a rethink on the track, entry to this race could become a highly sought after commodity.

Now please excuse me while I go dig a grave for my mountain bike.