Castlemaine Enduro - The Race

After some in depth team discussions it was decided Brett was to be the lead out guy for NJR (Roz was coming down later with Gus and Steve was busy keeping the Team Manager warm). Tony bravely offered to do the same for SMC after Phil appealled for a little more time to get reacquainted with his old bike. Tony's offer was accepted on the proviso that he promised to come back within an hour.

Despite a lack of serious kms in training, sleep and motivation NJR claimed third place in the mixed class for the second year in a row and this time it wasnt as a result of a mistake in the timing hut. The team combined well and despite being a lap down on second place at the end it had been a close tussle over the course of the 6 hours. Brett completed a consistent 4 lap effort and almost got back in time to let Steve get another lap in, Roz improved her first lap time by nearly  3 mins the second time around and Steve keep up a steady pace on his two laps as well.  The team was keen to impress with the Owner/Manager in attendance and no one left disappointed. All in all the future looks bright for NJR.

The boys at SMC finished up ninth overall but only missed out on 7th place by 90 seconds. That was the amount of time they missed the cutoff by to go out on an extra lap. Phil hit the wall on the final lap but blood tests later revealed he was in the early stages of a particularly nasty virus which had him off work sick for the next two days. Tony kept his promise and put in  a very respectable first lap which is  always going to include some delays when a large group of riders head out on a tight track. Unless you are in the elite group at the front of the pack you have to expect some traffic jams out on course. We all know Tony is a climbing machine and we could tell he was having a go based on the speed he carried up the hlll through the transistion area at the 6km  mark of each lap. Tony got faster each lap and saved his best till last setting  the fastest lap time of all the NJR/SMC riders with a very nice time of 41.14. He didnt quite break the 40 minute barrier but it was still a great effort. He was even too fast for the camera.

I wasnt far behind Tony with a 41.38 and a second lap under 42 as well. I was keen for a third lap despite breaking my riding glasses but it wasnt to be so there should be some more petrol in the tank for the final training ride before the Golden Triange Epic on Sept. 5th

Everyone is looking forward to this years epic as the event will be run on some familiar territory with one of our regular training rides making up part of the course. So the out of towners better watch out for the SMC.

Castlemaine 6 Hour Enduro - Preparing for the start!

The riders from the Sunday Morning Crew and Naughty Jills Racing were coming off a limited preparation for the 2010 Castlemaine Enduro but were still confident of a good showing. However their confidence was dealt a bit of a blow after a series of mechanical issues arose in the 24 hours before the race. First of all Phil discovered a crack in the frame of his GT whilst doing his pre-race service,. This made his bike unrideable and he had to switch to his back up bike, a v-brake fitted Gary Fisher. Then Steve and Brett had brake issues (lucky for Roz her brake pads dont fit Brett's bike) then my ever reliable GT developed a creak that could be heard the whole way around the track. Luckily Paul from Bendigo Cycles had a special tool on hand to tighten up one of the linkages which reduced the problem. The only advantage to the creaking was that I didnt have to yell out track when I came up behind some one because they could hear me coming.

Tony had no problems with the Giant but he did have a little mishap on the track on Saturday. Tony and I ventured down the day before to register and do a sighting lap to see what changes had been made to the course. It seemed like a good idea at the time and we were enjoying a leisurely pedal around until we came upon the first A/B line junction. Tony had ridden the A lines last year so had no problem tackling the drop off. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and took the B line. However less than 100 metres after riding the drop off without a care in the world Tony made a meal of a slight uphill rock garden and hit the ground hard with a very sore elbow and some gravel rash on his leg to show for his over confidence. It just so happens it was the exact same spot I caused a traffice jam on the opening lap of last years event when I went over the bars. So the moral to the story is that it doenst matter how small the hazard is, if your technique is wrong you can end up eating dirt. 

New members for the Crew

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Phillip Souter and Alexander Sharp have been accepted as full members of the Sunday Morning Crew. Phil has already competed one 6 Hr event under the SMC banner and after surviving todays final test which invovled a tricky mud section he is ready to take his place amongst the elite.

New member Phil looking pleased with himself after hearing his application was accepted

Alexander who is the son of our spiritual leader Steve (this honour is based on age and Steve's the oldest) will head up the SMC Downhill division (MTB and Skiing). Although downhill racing is his first love he's pretty handy on a hardtail too. As well as sharing his dad's passion for MTB he also shares his dad's keen eye for the ladies so lock up your daughters when he's around.

Alexander getting it sideways

Blessed in Bendigo

Sometimes its easy to forget how good it is for Mountain Bikers who live in Bendigo. We have such a great variety of trails that can be ridden in all conditions within 5-10 minutes of the centre of town. Where else would it be possible to enjoy a very pleasant morning on the bike when rain was still falling at 6.30am and gale and hail warnings were in place. We hit the tracks around One Tree Hill at 9.00am with one eye on the sky and the other on the track ahead but we needn't have worried because it didn't rain on us and the sun even came out a few times. It was like the weather gods were smiling on us or maybe it was the good vibes from the Jehovah Witness convention being held in town. Although there were a couple of spots where traction was at a premium (try sliding sideways down Bruce's Hill), generally the rocky trails of One Tree Hill generally offered plenty of grip. That's not to say that we didn't come home covered in mud but that's half the fun of riding in winter.

 

 
 
Ride Time: 1 Hour 30 minutes


Distance: 22kms

Exploring Nightcap National Park

I've decided that whenever I take a holiday I am going to include a ride on my list of things to do. I recently found myself in Byron Bay for a 5 day yoga retreat and fortunately had googled "Byron Bay mountain bike riding' before I left home so I knew there was a company that offered tours in the area. I gave them a call when I got to Byron and found out that they had a ride going the next morning at 8.00am. Seeing that yoga had been starting at 6.30am I was ready and waiting when my guide arrvied to pick me up. It turned out that my guide, Braden, was also the owner of the business. He was a Kiwi who came over to Aus for a while and hasnt left. He asked for a job at the tour company and the owner sold him the business. He is a very fit, easy going and a good guide. We headed into town and picked up the other customers who were two guys from Sydney who had very little riding experience.

We headed out of town and up into the hills above Byron and made our way towards the Nightcap National Park. On the way up we had to do our good deed for the day and jump start a car load of young hippies whose old falcon had called it a day. We had them going again in  a few minutes but nearly undid all our good work when our bike trailer nearly took the back door off their car. Oh well, would have served them right for not having a Kombi.

The park is situated about 40 minutes inland from Byron between Murwillumbah to the north-east and Lismore to the south. It encompasses 8,145 hectares of the Nightcap Range and adjoins Whian Whian State Forest. Spectacular features such as waterfalls play an important part in shaping the natural environment. The precipitous drop of Minyon Falls is the dramatic result of thousands of years of erosion and was the starting point for our ride.

We were riding Norco hardtails which were in pretty good condition but I only had sandshoes on and the bike had flat pedals so it was back to the old days before clipless pedals as we headed up into the

Rain Forest. We travelled on a mixture of fire roads that the general public arent allowed to drive on and some neat single track. Unfortunatley it had been raining a lot in recent days so the tracks were very wet, especially on the single track sections. On the positive side the creeks were all running strongly which added to the serenity of the place. We made our way up to one of the creeks that provide the Byron water supply and had morning tea. Then we followed a few more tracks, including one nasty climb back to the top of the water fall but on the other side. We used some well placed stepping stones to get across and enjoyed a healthy lunch.

From here we made a fast decent down a  dirt fire road which joined back onto the main road and brought us out at near Repentance Creek.

I would recommend this ride to anyone holidaying in the Byron area. I would love to come back one time and do the 3 Parks in 3 days ride.