Otway Odyssey Part 2

Unfortunately from my point of view the second half never become free flowing. Maybe it was because I was tired from the climbing in the first half, maybe it was the heat or the fact I didn’t stick to my food plan and missed my gel pack at the 40 km mark but in my mind and based on the times of a lot of riders, the second 25kms were tougher than the first.

I managed to keep Tony in sight for the first 15kms or so and then I he was gone. As I write this I am thinking that I should have made a bigger effort to keep up with him but at the time I was doing my best to keep going at my pace and there wasn’t anything extra in the tank to speed up.

The last time I saw Tony was when we came across a bit of a traffic jam at a section of the track that went down and up a gully. I guy had crashed and when I went past he was standing on the side of the track dusting himself off. As I came up out of the gully the track switched back on itself and I saw Tony. I yelled out to him to “try and keep the track clear” which must have made him speed up because I didn’t see him again till the finish line.

The section half featured some sandy sections which could trap you if you weren’t careful. Like the guy who fell off in front of me just after we passed a signpost that said “fly like a bird fall like a brick”. There was also the hazard of the native grasses that lined the track for many kilometres. Lucky it wasn’t sword grass or we would have a lot of competitors without arms and legs. I’m glad I ride with glasses on because the grass was brushing my face in lots of places. The last thing to keep you on your toes were some testing little log roll overs so there was never much time to relax.

Even though I was doing it tough I think it was the same story for lots of others because there were people stopped on the sides of the track on a regular basis. Some were vomiting, some were cramping and some were just resting. Others had punctures and mechanicals including one guy who was using his bike as a scooter because one crank had broken off.

I didn’t think that I was going very fast but there weren’t many people going past me either. On most occasions a question to whether the person behind wanted to pass was answered with “no thanks” or “this pace is OK”. At one stage I had two people behind me forming a mini train with them happy for me to lead. That was until my gears wouldn’t change and I had to stop to remove a fern frond which had wrapped itself around the rear cluster.

The last 10kms became a bit of a slog and I was counting the distance left down as a percentage of the course I had completed. I did this by doubling the distance travelled on my speedo. When I had done 40 kms I told myself that’s 80% of the course done. I knew that my speedo normally overstates the distance a bit so I didn’t expect to be in the footy ground when the 50km ticked over but I thought I would be within a km or two. It was about the 40km when I started hearing new noises from my bike. I tried to work out where they were coming from and when I couldn’t I would worry that something might break. So each time I had a negative thought I would start singing to myself to take my mind off the noises and just keep pedalling.

When my speedo showed that I had ridden over 50kms I knew that we must be getting close. We cleared the single track and got to enjoy a fast down hill run along a dirt road (55kph) which I expected to bring us out near the footy ground but we headed back into the bush for one last bit of single track. Then there was a couple of road crossings and then back into the bush before a run around the edge of the footy oval and onto the ground through the finishing shoot and across the line. My thanks to the kind people near the finish clapping and cheering which made you feel a little bit special for completing the course.

The picture shows me crossing the finish line. The time is wrong because the official time clock is for the 100km guys.
My time was 4.10.31
Tony did best with 4.07.22
Steve came home in 4.38.48
Brett did the 100km in 7.16.38 and had a nice bit of helmet hair to show for it.

Its two weeks after the event and if you asked me now if I would ride it again next year I would probably say no but who knows if I will still feel that way when it comes time to register for the 2011 event.