
The Stumpy goes hydraulic! 24th April 2008.
Bit the bullet & lashed out on XT dual control hydraulic brake/gear combo set up to replace the cable V-brakes & shifters on the Specialized Stumpjumper. A nice price from Cambira Bike Centre (http://www.cambriabike.com/ ) & good exchange rate sweetened the deal. Already had a set of disk wheels left over from the Anthem (which now has Shimano XT disk wheels). Rushed the fitting the night before Dirt Crits so the gear changing wasn’t ideal & I swapping the brake hoses over between the levers( I like the moto set up - rear brake left, front brake right - but from the US they weren’t that way) might have got a small amount of air in the lines giving a slightly spongy feel which needed bleeding – which I didn’t do.
Still, the commute into work in the morning was OK so it was looking good for the evening's crit.
The race itself was a so so – dead last from the off, I missed shift left me way way behind with work ahead of me. But, buoyed by last weeks 7th place I got to it & strung together some tidy lines. While I was doing this I noticed gear shifting wasn’t the best with delayed upshifts & some ghost shifting in the rough stuff. Regardless I soldiered on & actually made a few passes. I tried to keep my gear changes to a minimum & found a handful of gears that worked well, although there were a few occuations that crunching the gears lost me some pace & spooked me into holding a too low or high gear in places instead of changing which effected my pace. All this resulted in a 10th in a B grade field of 13.
Closer inspection after the ride home from Westgate revealed some very worn cassette cogs & sideways kinks in the drivechain. Well that looks a whole drivetrain how ever you look at it: Chainwheels, cassette & chain.
BMC100 – Wombat State forrest April 20th 2008.
http://www.maxadventure.com.au/bmcclassic/TheCourse.htm
Tried, legs feel like they’re 100yrs old, but feeling happy about how it all went.
I originally headed off wearing bib-nicks, jersey, arm warmers, MTB gloves, helmet, sunnies & vest. Had my hydration pack with straight water (as a drink mix in the hydration pack stinks up the bladder for future use) with bars/goos/lollies & 1x biddon with a Staminade drink mix. Had 2x tubes, tyre levers, [instant] patch kit & multi-tool in a saddle bag on the bike.
Clear but very cold morning dawned as a field of about 900 starters set off from 7am in clusters a few minutes apart. Using transponders strapped to your ankle it really didn’t matter when you actually started, as the clock began as soon as you rolled over the startline. Rolling out in a group with Paulie, we settled into just cruisy ride to enjoy the trails & make it home in good time. With about 40 guys rolling out in our bunch the first part of singletrack wasn’t really that crowded. As we sorted ourselves out it was catching slower riders from the previous group that began a kongo line through the singeltrack. We weren’t in a hurry & only made passes when the opportunity came up, calling out "passing on your left/right" but we still kept a good pace.
The water/rest-stations, about 5 throughout the day, was stocked with water, energy drinks , watermelon, bananas & lollies. I stopped at each one & went to town on the fruit which left me not touching the bars/goos/lollies I took with me from the start.
Just before the 2nd water stoop, Paul copped a flat, but he told me to roll on. I stopped at the next water stop & waited for 15mins but he hadn’t come in, so I continued on.
Within the next lot of singletrack there were some ramps & bridges which were kinda spooky, on one bridge I remember was only a foot wide over a pretty deep gully (no railing at all), I rolled into it at a funny angle with a bit of speed & nearly didn’t clear it, rolling off to the side right at it's end.

There was a fair bit of open gravel road connecting the various bits of singletrack, at the time I thought that it was alittle too much open going , but in hindsight the breaks rolling along these roads were appreciated between the singletrack sections.
By about the 2nd hour into it, I removed my arm warmers & vest & crammed it all into my jersey pockets (no room in the pack). Even though I had my bike computer I didn’t have my ‘distance traveled’ showing because there were times early in the event, at some pinch climbs & technical sections that me knowing I still had more than 50kms to go might work against me. I just left my average speed displayed & tried to keep that at 16kms/hr where I could.
At the 68km rest point just after a switchback pinch climb of the 'Wombat MTB trail loop' (used the granny gear extensively but didn’t walk it) there was a section of singletrack in the ‘pines’ which I knew about from the previous week's State XC round I did so I was saving myself for the choppy sections there & tried to make the most of it, but it all caught up with me as I exited the pines & followed the route on some open gravel roads back where I kinda hit the wall & had to pull over for some jelly-snakes, Gu & whatever was left of the Staminade in my biddon.

Just after that the route looped back to the previous rest stop & knew I only had 8kms to go so I didn't hang around,just filled the biddon & shot off. There was still some singletrack & at this stage I was feeling pretty weak & just stayed in the saddle & spun a high cadence in a low gear to get me through this bit as efficently as I could. I was getting dozey too, missing great lines in the singletrack & losing momentum, just plain riding sloppy really. But luckily up ahead & just behind me were other riders all in exactly the same situation as me, so we all just silently got on with the last few kms.
The finish was back onto the main access road to the Convention centre where the start/finish was, but then we were directed to ride around a lake they had there which looped right around to the back – so close but yet so far. Across the finish line and a little girl gives me a beer in a stubbie holder. Time to find a piece of grass & polish this beer off.
Offical time: 7hrs 16mins. (Riding time was 6hrs 15mins, but this does not include the time spent at the rest stops during the event). 245th place overall (600 finishers approx, 92nd place in Vetrans (30yrs-39yrs).
No major stacks or mechanicals & I got a great opportunity to enjoy the trails instead of riding along with a head full of red mist & race fury.
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