Fathers Day Special - The Back Yamma BigFoot

As with all epic mountain bike rides, the preparation and what happens before and after race, often takes up more words than the actual ride itself.  The Back Yamma Bigfoot is a race I have always wanted to attend, so with a fixed elbow and a thirst for racing I entered on the spur of the moment (never a good move when you have family) only to realise it was Father's Day.  Hmmm, now some might say, hey, it's Father's Day, you should be able to do what you want! and that's true to a degree, but I hated leaving my family, so that's the price you sometimes pay to race at a high level.

The Road Trip

It was so good heading west out of the big smoke and many drivers were treated to a view of two gorgeous Lamborghinis cruisy down Pennant Hills Road in the wet traffic.  The guys were just cruisy slowly so you could follow them and pass them and take a really good look.  Wow!
Heading over the mountains, the mist and rain was beautiful and then once I got past Lithgow, the rain halted and gradually the clouds broke to reveal a picturesque landscape of blue skies, puffy clouds and lush green and golden fields as far as the eye could see.

Lamborghini on Pennant Hills Road

Michael's Mistake

The legs were a little stiff and definitely in need of some blood flow so a quick rego and tent pop up and I was off to enjoy a dusty ride as the sun set.  I'd bumped in Grantley who had just finished the first 30 km in a little over an hour, which would suit me fine.  I'd be back for dinner and an early bed.  I took a big gulp of water, fixed my lights to my helmet and I was away, and didnt it feel good.  The track was bone dry and dusty as .... in the race, you couldn't see the ground for the dust being kicked up by the wheel in front!

Sunset over Canola fields Back Yamma State Forest

I was having such a great time as I flicked on my lights, I didnt really notice I'd missed the turn off back to the event centre until I looked at my Garmin and it said 35km.  Uh oh, well nothing for it but to continue on, for some reason I had in mind that the 30 km loop went back through transition and it wasnt till I clocked up 40km that I realised my error.  Now I was really in a deep hole and I just kept digging.  No idea where I was, my lights were dimming, I was tired and thirsty, and just top it off, on a bit of fireroad I caught a tyre track with the front wheel and went down pretty hard, oh great now the gears arent working.  All the worst thoughts were racing through my mind from, "how will I fix my bike" to "I'm going to get cleaned up by a Kangaroo or a Cow" to "I'm going to miss dinner" to "I'm going to be stuck out here all night!"
Finally I flicked over to the map page on my Garmin and saw the "Begin" point wasnt too far away.  Oh thankyou! The navigational logic of the Garmin has always been pretty dodgy but on this occasion, it totally saved me.
I still had 10km or so to ride and even when I got to within sight of the event centre there was this dirty great ravine keeping me at bay, so I scrambled down and found a way out and headed straight for my tent.  By this time I was pretty cold.  It was now 9pm and all was quiet in the camp site.  Peter from Rotary, saved my life with a couple of sausage sandwiches some Milo and we even shared a beer as I recounted my ill-planned reccy, and he explained to me a little about the history of the land and the relationship with the kangaroos!
It all ended well and when I got back to my tent I was bone tired.  I washed all the dust off and set about getting some sleep while I pondered how I would repair my bike before tomorrow's 7:45 race start.

Rise and Shine?

At 5:30am, the alarm was not welcome.  I had sleep quite restlessly and you always feel you have only just dozed off into a deep sleep when the alarm goes off.  First things first, get some fuel into the tank, I was starving.  Second things second, figure out the bike.  I had kinked the cable and damage the ferrule so I wandered around looking for some friendly mechanic who might have a spare cable and ferrule.  Rod Farrell (race organiser) was kind enough to find his last gear cable and end cap for me to use, but I'd have to make do with the split ferrule.  Back to the bike, and I swapped the two ferrules at either end of the outer, inserted the new cable and reset the gears, "Yes! we now have a working bike, I wasnt really looking forward to going single speed today."

Chatting with Alex on the start, noone seemed all that keen to start on the front row

I lined up on the start next to Brett "Jeebus" Bellchambers.  I have no idea what he was talking about (the brain still foggy from last night's misadventure) and yet he still made me laugh and I was thankful just to be there.  The race start wasn't too bad and I was hanging onto the lead group for a while but soon the gaps started to appear and I was pretty tentative on the track not being able to see where I was riding for the dust and had no desire to wash out again, so I backed it off and saw my adversaries sail past.  First Jason Morgan and then Quantum team mate Alex Kooijman in hot pursuit and my heart and legs just come up empty.

Great shot courtesy of Michael Crummy drifting out of another perfect corner

For me it would be a case of enjoy the ride and use it as a training exercise in skills and nutrition and to that effect I had a great day. I rode with a group of 5 guys from the 20-40km mark and hit the front to do some work. After a few k's I had a gap with only the singlespeeder on my wheel.  At the half way point there were some pretty tired 100k riders; two guys quipped that they were trashed, but I felt pretty comfortable and had been careful to keep up the fluids and gels.  A quick bottle swap and I was off for the 2nd 50km.  For this lap I was pretty much on my own and I picked up a few riders who were succumbing to cramps, it had suddenly got hot!  The trails are so much fun out here, I liken it to Kowen Forest without the Pine trees.  Lots of flowing corners and a few tight ones that can catch you unaware.  Lots of sketchy gravelling descents that tempt you to drift into ruts and stay off the brakes.  Again the Ellsworth 29er was the weapon of choice and the 1x10 setup was perfect and kept the legs spinning all day.  The Curve/Rubena pairing continues to outperform and there was many a loose corner when the Rubena Kratos bit and held the line as my heart was in my mouth for fear of washing out.

Ellsworth Enlightenment, shod with Rubena tyres and Curve Carbon hoops

Alex had a great ride and was unlucky not to podium.  Unfortunately for him there was no Elite category so James Downing automatically took 1st place in Masters and overall, what a machine!  The next 3 places in Masters were spread by only 6 minutes and I cheekily took 5th in a dash for the finish line a further 12 minutes back, not too bad considering.

Hit the Road Jack

But my day wasn't over yet.  Normally one to stay for pressos, I was on a mission to get back for my son Thomas' confirmation.  Now 16, he made his own decision to make a public declaration of his faith in Jesus Christ.  I don't want to make a big song and dance about it, but I am incredibly proud of my son who is growing into a thoughtful, mature, happy, respectful and well balanced young man and he now has an eternal perspective on life.  What more could a Dad ask for Father's Day?

Keep Riding
Mike

Hebrew 10:23
"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful"

Tom and 7 others ready for confirmation with Rev Chris Edwards at St Philips Turramurra

Chocolate Foot Round 4 Coondoo

It was a strange feeling packing up all the gear prepping for the STM round in Nowra.  With interruptions from weather earlier in the year and then an injury, my racing season has been....well.....sparse to say the least.  Suffice to say the injury forced me to re-appraise my priorities and how I "do life" and with a few tweeks I was in a much better place mentally to head into a race.  Now 9 weeks since my accident and having completed 3 good weeks on the trainer with some help from cycle coach Dave Hunt, it was time to return to the race scene and see where the legs were at.  

The evening before was a perfect race prep, travelling down with fellow Masters racer Ian Bridgland, we took in a practice lap and found the track had drained well and would be in great nick for the race.  SCUM had put in a huge effort to prep the track and some of the new berms on the descent were just awesome, thanks guys!  I spent the evening reading a cycling blog, catching glimpse's of the classic James Bond "Dr No" and soon fell asleep to the soothing calm of a light shower signalling the end of the rain (surely!?).

Sure enough the weatherman got it right and we awoke to near ideal conditions Sunday morning.  The race started with the usual lead out on the fireroad and I comfortably found a spot near the rear of the lead bunch.  It is in these first few minutes when you discover whether you brought your race legs and I was happy with my first effort.  A errant strip of bunting diverted the lead bunch into an "hors d'oeuvre" of single track and confusion reigned for a moment, but there was nothing to be done except to hold the wheel in front and we all seemed to emerge back onto the fireroad none the worse off.  It's the little surprises like this that make a race more memorable.

And so the first lap completed, I was glad to to see we were in second with a healthy buffer to 3rd.  It turned out Mark Hardy wasn't so fortunate with the way the diversion worked out and he and Ben spent the entire day clawing back the 4 minutes he'd lost on the first lap.  Without that bit of race luck, the end result may have been a little different.

Having the Bioathletic team there was fantastic and added a whole other dimension to those riding in a team.  The option to take an ice bath in between laps and then stretch out on a roller was a great way to recover and I am sure it helped me to maintain consistent lap times all day.  Thanks to Jen and the team, you rocked.  

Dave Eccles entertaining some of the lovely Choc Foot ladies in the "IceT" bath

A good graph showing the epic battle for all you strategists out there

The rest of day panned out pretty much to plan and personally I just had a ball reconnecting with old friends and making new ones.  As you can see from above, Mark and Ben were never far away, chasing hard all day and Michael "Browny" Brown was the hero of the day setting blistering lap times and making a very good substitute for regular partner Phil Welch.  Phil is away riding the Mongolia Bike Challenge and at this very moment is probably reclining in a warm Gur somewhere on the Mongolian tundra partaking of his first swig of "airag". Meanwhile Jason and Paul set a pace that was inspiring and took the win with ease.

The Ellsworth Enlightenment setup with 1x10 performed beautifully on the track, still nimble in the tight corners and light as a feather up hill, but my lower back is complaining today!  The Curve Cycling wheels continue to impress and have taken the bike to a new level of performance.  Paired with the Rubena Kratos, steering and cornering has never been so precise and so reliable thanks to the wide profile rim.

The 7hr Masters Pairs podium.  You can actually see Mark thinking, if only I'd gone just that little bit harder!

The bridge added an extra fun feature at the end of the lap

Fi showing how it's done off a jump that launches one into orbit

I'd also like to extend a huge vote of thanks to all the support I've received from Turramurra Cyclery over the years.  My identity was practically synonymous with the Blue and White kit, (indeed many of you didn't recognise me in the new green kit from Quantum), but after nearly 8 years I reckoned it was time for a change and I'm looking forward to focussing my attention to more MTB riding together with a bunch of riders who have some similar goals to me.  All I need to do now is perfect my Euro accent.  I'm getting lessons by listening to Martin Wisata's staple Armin Van Buuren - State on Trance while I spin away on the wind trainers.  Who knows, even I could find myself on the start line of the TransAlp one day.

Keep riding

Mighty Mike

That's Racing

We were met with pristine conditions at Coondoo Rd for the third round of the Single Track Mind series and after a satisfactory pre-race carb load at Leong's chinese and a good sleep at the Camby Hilton, Brad and I were ready to tackle the dry dusty trails that weave through the Comberton State Forest.

I got an absolute zinger off the start line and again determined not to go too hard too early settled into a steady pace for the first lap and was happy to be in first place for the Solo Masters. Coming through transition into the 2nd lap, I had Garry James hot on my tail and we played tag for a little while as I would get a gap in the tight downhill sections and Garry would catch me up on the little climbs. Knowing how strong Garry is, I didnt want to go playing with fire and let him go on the third climb into transition and concentrated on consolidating 2nd place, always looking back expecting to see the bright orange of Jason McAvoy looming large.

Photo courtesy Dave Bateman



The track as always here is fun to ride and the corners can be treacherous on the sandy mix but I mostly stayed out of trouble aside from the odd handlebar clip passing between narrowly spaced trees. The new section of track was literally a pain in the backside but that's how it is with new sections and it held up alot better than the rutted dust bowl we had to endure at Orange and of course you have to remember that someone put their heart and soul into cutting the new trail, thanks for that trail fairies. I reckon the opportunity to get 300 riders to ride over a new section 5 or more times is a big carrot for trail builders and now we've got a great new segment of trail (well it might need a couple of little berms thrown in!)

On lap 5 a little panic set in when one of my 800ml bottles went flying out of the cage and I was in too much of a hurry to stop. What would happen without 25% of my fluids and a big chunk of energy go AWOL? Luckily there were lots of jettisonned bottles and I decided to stop and pick one up and take a slug. By the time I got back round to the same spot, there it was lying in the middle of the track, amazingly with the lid still on. Phew that was a close one!

On lap 9 the heart rate was still looking good and I tagged a ride up the main fireroad with a much bigger stronger rider...whoa 88% and I am in the draft??? See you later buddy and thanks for the tow. Next lap it was Phil Welch who came charging through the ZigZags and flashed past me on the way into the last sniggle. He looked and was riding like a man possessed so I took the safe option and let him go. I figured if he can keep that pace going I cant match him and if I can save some energy he might blow up towards the finish. Still 4 laps (maybe 5 to go). The 5 hour mark in a 7 hour race is the hump for me. Just 4 little laps to go you say to yourself, but the body talks back and says that's easy for you to say brain. This is starting to hurt! Pedal damn it and shut up legs!!! Lap 12 and Tupac, Andy and Ed all eased past with time for a brief chat and a word of encouragement. Andy said Jase was a few minutes back so that took some pressure off. Nice that team mates can still pass on a little intel to the competition.

One last pit stop to grab some carbs and I was off and soon on my 2nd last lap and feeling great when some weird things started happening on the track. First a really fast aggressive rider in t-shirt and baggies came barrelling down the track. I got out of his way as he shoved past me without so much as a track please, but we were both bearing down on a much slower rider. The legend overcooked it on the corner and went down in a squealing heap of dust, as I just managed to float over his back wheel with him and the bike lying prostrate across the track and leaving me nowhere to go and no time to stop. sure enough he reappeared in a minute or so and clearly hadn't learnt anything from him little off. Muppett!

But the big axe fell at the top of the double track leading into Hot as Hell. I came up behind two very slow guys weaving all over the track. I called rider back and saw a big gap on the right so called "on your right". As I started to pass he moved straight over toward me and chopped my front wheel, sending me careening of into the scrub. When I tried to start pedalling again it wasn't happening so I pulled over to find the chain completely mashed. The death toll goes down as one chain breaker, many chain links, a bent mech and more than 15 minutes of race time. Not a bad bit of bush mechanics to remove and reinsert the same pin to rejoin the chain. Huge thanks to Kylie and the guy who pulled over with his sturdy chainbreaker (my topeak one broke!) and stayed until the job was done. My only regret is I didn't ask his name and I couldn't track him down at the finish, but mate I couldn't have finished without your help, so thanks! Even Jase slowed down to see if there was anything he could do to help as he slipped into 3rd place. A true gentleman.

I rejoined the race who know's where and fought back to 4th place to salvage some series points, just pipping Matt at the post who came in 5th. Here is the gaps between the top 5 for each lap. It would have been a great battle with Phil at the end if not for my misadventure but that's racing.

Overall I was stoked with my race and now looking forward to the next round to try and pull back Phil and Jase. Whilst Jase and Garry probably have 1st and 2nd for the series sewn up, Phil and I will be battling for the last spot on the podium. thanks to everyone involved especially SCUM for a great track, sponsors SRAM and organisers Choc Foot, and Turramurra Cyclery for your continued awesome support and getting my rig tuned again and ready to race another day

Keep Riding
Mike

What I ate
10 gels
2 x 800mL HEED (3 scoops)
1 x 800mL HEED (2 scoops)
1 x 600mL Opti
1 TORC bar (Apple and Raspberry, dry but go down alright)
1 banana

As the temperatures start to rise the fluids will too! Probably add another 800mL to this all mixed on 2 scoops for the next rounds

Single Track Mind Nowra

Picture from the recent TORC Skills Session with Mick Ross

It’s been a long time between drinks, but what was planned to be a full on racing season has morphed into a busy life off the bike with many different demands tapping into my training time. Put that together with a trip to Brazil and some unsettled weather and the year is shaping up more as one to enjoy rather than to achieve and maybe that’s OK.

I loved the STM series last year and had some success running solo, so I thought it would be cool to form a team and take some time to actually enjoy the event instead of just thrashing my body for 8 hours straight. Gary and I have known each other for years but it wasn’t until we nearly ran each other over at the 80km drink stop in the 2009 Doctor that we became good friends. We both suffered through a wet Sydney 24 and then Gary was my mechanic at the 24HoA last year plus we’ve worked together “spreading the word” about JesusMTB. So I was stoked when I floated the idea with him about forming a Masters Pair for this one and he accepted. He was typically humble and warned he might not quite be at his peak for lack of training, but I had a feeling we’d be pretty close in form and as it turned out our lap times couldn’t have gotten much closer.

I drew the “short straw” for the first lap, but truth be told I love the start. That first drag race up a stretch of fire trail to spread the field is a pure adrenalin rush and I entered the single track right on Gary James wheel which is good and bad. Good coz you know you are lucky to be there, but bad because you know you aren’t going to be there for long. Sure enough he slowly pulled away on the first little climb but there was plenty of traffic and I soon fell in with a train that suited my pace. My only mistake all day was on this first lap when I ran a little wide on a corner and the front washed out on the soft sandy edge. No real damage and I dusted myself off and got rolling again as Farkas went past in a blur. By the end of the day that corner had shaped into a beautiful berm. The next challenge was the fireroad and coming out of the sequence of six switchbacks I hooked onto a fast wheel and had a good chew on the handlebars. I was soon pushing over 90% but I got a great tow and passed a good many riders and the HR pretty much stayed there right to transition where I handed off to Gary.

With Gary James and Rich Peil setting a blistering pace to control the race and Dan and Gavatron matching them in a battle for 1st, we were happy to settle into 3rd place but by early afternoon the Yeti Gu team had cut our 8 minute lead down to just 3 minutes and it was game on in a battle for 3rd. We realised our plan of pulling double laps was slowing us down so it was back to single’s where you get a shorter recovery but you can atleast give it all you’ve got for just one lap. With 5 mins to go Gary put in a great effort to log a 28min lap and I finished with a solid 27 to hold 3rd by nearly 6 minutes.

Thanks to everyone for a fantastic day, the track by SCUM was simply awesome, fast and well prepared, the organisation by Chocolate Foot was terrific and what an advantage to have Castech doing the timing! Thanks also to the sponsors who were generous with their support especially SRAM, Lezyne, Aussie Butt Cream, James Estate Wines and Hammer Nutrition who provided some nice little tidbits to take home for our efforts! and of course my LBS Turramurra Cyclery who always look after me with whatever I need.

10 laps – 93km, 3225Cal

Avg HR – 81% (150bpm), Max 94% (174bpm)

WHAT Gatorade 3 bidon x TORQ Organic with a Shotz tablet 2 bidon x Optimiser 1 serve dutch pancakes 1 TORQ bar 2 Shot Bloks 2 Gu gel 2 Endura gel TOTAL

ENERGY (Cal) 191 573 612 100 (?) 220 400 200 212 2508

CHO (g) 46 143 120 30(?) 47 96 50 52 584 (73g/hour)