Eddie did his magic again and organised the third Ten Pub Ride . The usual concept, ride your bike between ten pubs (each being at least a suburb apart)  and partake in a beer at each, simple. Gotta love Canberra;  it's bike paths, suburban centres and fine(ish) weather!

This incarnation saw us at: Olim's, Transit Bar, Zierholz Brewery, Darham Arms, Wig & Pen, Debacle, Edgar's, Wilbur's, The Front and of course it always ends at The Phoenix. It'd be fair to say I have a moderately sore head today.....looking forward to version 4 (Summer).

Busy week for me. Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne-Canberra-Adelaide. Burned through a couple of rolls of film, one roll was part of a batch of expired Rollei Retro 400 that I picked up in Melbourne. Thankfully all is good and it worked!

The usual Melbourne haunts.

Before a rendezvous with a strange man on a tall bike at Tilley's on Friday night.

Then back in Adelaide for a family visit.

Hired a Mini Cooper S as usual and got my fix in the Adelaide Hills!

6 October 2010

My intentions were there, it's just that a series of unforeseen circumstances prevented me from reaching my full potential. You see, my usual plan is to increase my riding about six weeks out from a 24hr event, not training as such, but I don't really know or care how to train, it's all just riding for me. Either way, this plan never really came to fruition - six weeks out I came down with some kind of virus/cold/flu which lasted a full week, when usually I'm only ever sick for 48hrs (damn office dwelling lifestyle). The disease then developed into a sinus infection. Once I was over the infection I may have overdone it a bit in an effort to make up for lost time, this caused my ITB to flare up and forced me again to slow down. After a few visits to physio all was coming together, then I attempted to ride Ben's freak bike, resulting in quite a substantial ankle sprain. By the time I was able to hit the trails in a serious fashion there was two weeks to go.......unfortunately there's no such thing as cramming for an endurance event......so I ordered lots of energy supplements and horse steroids, the rest is history.
 
As always I planned to race SingleSpeed, but after a bungle at rego ended up in 30-34 year old category. I considered swapping but the fact was that I really wasn't racing for a position anyhow, and more importantly it allowed me to bring the Velosmith (with Rohloff) along to act as a spare bike (or a geared life saver come the dark hours). So I left my entry as is, with the added bonus that as long as I didn't finish last in the category I'd be beating geared riders in the World Champs on a SS!
 
Each rider was allocated a 3x3m spot in pit lane, so six of us including Brett, Claire, Ed, Andre and Bec (the Mal Adjusted crew)added our areas together to create the Taj Mahal of pit areas. Ben was my pit man(ager) while the rest of the crew was made up of Phil, Joel, Nick, Alicia and Stan. A last minute development saw me being sponsored (in a fashion) by the Australian Defence Cycling Club, which saw me wearing a billboard advertising as such for the full 24hrs, but also saw my entry fee and some parts/food covered.
 
As I write this I'm actually three days out from the event and I actually feeling quite good (physically) and excited to be getting involved. I have heard horror stories about the trail, it's not the climbing that I mind but according to some it involves a lot of loose and dead fire road climbing; something that will take a toll on the mind of any 'sane' rider after 8-10 hrs. It also includes Pork Barrel, the section of trail that led to the seizing up of my neck and shoulders last year. My plan as usual is to take it easy and plod through the 24hrs. Considering last year's semi-disastrous experience and my promise to myself never to 'race' a 24 solo again, I'm hoping I can just sit back and enjoy myself - knowing it's not in my persona to do anything at half pace this may be a challenge.

10 October 2010

Well the ride is done and dusted. I'm in that awkward state of mind where my body isn't worn down in any specific way but just generally feels useless and I have what can only be described as a hangover, without the nausea. I feel hungry but don't know what for, especially considering my taste buds are kind of burnt from so much sugar. Despite my poor mental state I had an absolute ball and couldn't be happier to have participated in this event, probably my last semi-serious 24hr event ever (I will do more, but am more likely to combine them with beer and more sleep).
 
Events transpired without a hitch. Friday was a little annoying but only due to the completely separate locations for race rego and the Race brief, held in the morning and mid afternoon, kind of wasting the day. I was still able to get my food shopping done and
Ben came over for dinner allowing me to explain my rough plan for the race and my feeding needs. Pretty simple really - two bags of food, one consisting of real food (fresh fruit, sandwiches, muffins etc) and one consisting of highly processed, packaged energy foods (gels, powders, jubes and red liquorice). Saturday morning was a breeze, we arrived at Mt Stromlo Forest Park, unloaded the car into my Bob trailer, found our marquee and waited for the riding to start.

After all the fan fair was over and the field spread out (after the first couple of laps), everyone settled into their groove. My transitions were less than serious, usually consisting of me stepping off my bike, having a chat and a bite to eat while one of the plethora of support crew replaced my water bottle and lubed my chain. I'd eventually jump back on and head off. The only issue with this 'strategy' was that every other rider seemed to be taking this event far more seriously than I, resulting in my overtaking of the very same people every lap at almost exactly the same point. While this wasn't a problem, it did plant a seed of doubt in my mind whereby I wondered how well I could have been doing if I decided to put a little more effort in.
 
The doubt quickly subsided every time I reached transition and saw some of the riders adopt some kind of manic obsessive behavior; frantically grabbing at food and gear while barking complaints/requests/orders at the handful of helpers surrounding them. Some of these riders were the very same riders that could be found applying their brakes on fast downhill fire-roads, lacking the skill to negotiate the A-line on technical trail sections and immediately dropping to granny gear on the slightest hint of a climb. I often wondered what their support crew would think if they saw how much time that rider was wasting on the trail only to expect the support crew to meet their every whim instantly.....
 
Enough of that though, what was important was that the racing was fantastic! Mullet had designed the perfect 24hr trail. The 20km stretch was comprised almost entirely of the climb and descent of two peaks, in miniature the trail profile looked like an M (if you know what I mean). The bonus of this design was that mentally each lap was divided into two sections, making it much easier to tolerate doing lap after lap. The climbs were brutal but always doable, which made it all the more satisfying when overtaking a handful of geared riders on each section, some of them walking their bikes. The descents were a mixed bag; the first including Pork Barrel (rocky) and the second including the Luge (self explanatorily fast). I loved the riding and never tired of the views out over the Brindabellas or Canberra itself. Something in my preparation for the day had worked; I was feeling on top of the world, full of energy and flying up and down the trails clocking one hour laps one after another.

However, as usual the sun went down, the temperature dropped, shaken bones began to ache, hands lost their strength, descending lost its fun and climbing became a chore. Some time around 1am my coordination began to lapse with a few stumbles and miscalculated corners. These experiences culminated with a crashed; embarrassingly I managed to find may way over the handle bars on a rocky descent, successfully wedging my head between the fork in a tree. The head wedging wasn't the main issue, it was the fact that I need to use both of my arms and all my strength to keep the tree from choking me (yeah, go ahead laugh all you want...) leaving my knees no where to go but onto the rocks below. After disentangling myself I lay on the side of the trail for what felt like eternity, in pain, watching my knees swell. I bent my left brake lever back into place, re-attached my helmet lights and got moving again, very slowly. I'd well and truly lost my nerve and motivation; got back to transition and let Ben know I'd be taking a break.
 
I lay down and soon found it hard to find the motivation to eat, let a lone head back out on the trail. I'm pretty sure I soon fell asleep and was woken by Stan at around 4am. A bacon and egg sandwich and a cappuccino and I was back out on the course for my favourite lap, the sunrise. I headed out with Andre but couldn’t resist taking a break at the portaloo on top of the mountain, the view was breathtaking, I would have liked to have left the door open while I did my thing but am sure others were glad for the automatic closing doors....

My mojo had fully returned by the time the sun was properly up again. I was having a ball again and rode non stop 'til the final lap that would see me arrive at transition within cut-off time. Ed was on his way back in for his last lap and was second behind Brett with 20 minutes separating him from third. I decided it'd be great to do my last lap with him as it was going to be a hard task pushing through the lap and in reality anything could happen, it'd be good for me to be there just in case. Understandably so he was on the brink of becoming a ‘broken man’ and even suggested we walk a couple of the hills. I agreed and said I'd meet him at the top, I'm sure this would have been enough motivation for anyone not to get off and he climbed every hill bar one pinch. His descending definitely hadn't suffered and we flew through the 5km final descent and into the finish line.

Soon enough we were enjoying beer and comfortable seating back under the tents. Once the muscles had relaxed the inevitable stiffness arrived. One of the hardest climbs of the day was the short climb to the car park. After a short sleep at home it was time to head to ANU for the presentations and event dinner. It was great to see everyone I'd spoken to on the trail and enjoy a beer with all the volunteers and support crews at the same time. It was also certainly a testament to solo riders and their ability to get on with things and not bitch and moan about aches and pains or make excuses for any shortfalls that may have come to the surface. Oh, and to have a few quite beers without falling asleep at the table.
 
Result:
16 laps = 320km in 23:58hrs
16th position in 30-34 age group
Equivalent 20 somethingth in Elite
But they all had gears, so if we rate me against real riders: Equivalent 10th in Single Speed category
 
My crew's results:
Brett Bellchambers - Single Speed World Champion. (Something equivalent to 11th in Elite, and to quote Jason English "I'm glad there's a singlespeed category so that I don't have to worry about people like him".)
Bec Parkes - Single Speed World Champion. (Beard and all).
Ed McDonald - Runner up Single Speed World Champion.
Andre Quaglio - 8th Single Speed Category.
 
Quotable quotes:
1st. I usually ignore all remarks about single speed from other riders, I've lost count of how many times I've heard 'you're crazy', 'bet you wish you had gears now', 'phwoa' etc etc. So when a pudgie kid with a camera on the side of the trail said "Singlespeed = respect" I was very impressed.
2nd. "So you're riding a single speed in age category, not singlespeed category? You really are crazy!"
3rd. Jason English overtaking me asked how I was, I replied that I was AWESOME, he sniggered, looked at my gearing, smiled and said "Good to hear!"
 
As I mentioned earlier, the 24hr caper is losing its edge for me, after 7 solos I think it's time for me to start avoiding those lonely, cold and painful 1 - 4 am laps. I've already started scouring the net for some real races - self supported multi day type stuff, anything with 'trans' or 'divide' or 'great' in it's title.....suggestions welcome!!
 
Of course, thanks again to Sportograph and their scores of cameras littering the race course. Half an hour of tinkering in LightRoom got what you see here. Love it!!

Nothing special, just some recent random B&Ws from the Canon AE-1 over the last month or so.

Let's see, there's bike polo, the coast, my birthday ride to Zeirholz, the Phoenix, Mal Adjusted shop, commute views, the National Gallery, air travel and Elroy. Enjoy.