EPIC

Now that has to be one of my most fun days out on a bike, With all of the talk of hills and rain/weather leading up to the race I really had no idea what to expect.

In the end I stopped worrying about what the conditions were going to be like and just decided to ride my bike in its current setup. Single speed and geax saguaro on the front and Racing Ralph out the back.
With all of the talk of mud I figured SS was going a wise option for the day anyway, Ok while I was worried about the hills been BIG I though bugger it and HTFU. See the problem with SS is it is not that much fun on the flat when you are surrounded by gearys, With this in mind the start was a bit of a worry for me. Sure enough I was right to be worried. As we rolled out of Apollo Bay I was sitting close to the front think Hmmmm this is going to be good if the pace stays like this.... it did for another 5 seconds. I was sitting in the middle of the bunch with riders flying past me as the pace went up, I couple of people were nice enough to give me a push to help out a bit. I reckon I would of lost 150 places in about a km.....

As we started up the climb I knew I had a good gear (29/18 on a 29er) as I was able to ride back through the field all the way to the top of the hill. Once at the top a group of 10-12 riders came together, while it was nice to have someone around to hide from the wind a bit we also had a couple of "roadie heros" that tried to attack off the front of the bunch
We all stayed together into the first bit of mud, at this point the bunch splinted. The next part of the race was a whole lot a slip sliding fun!!! The downs were awesome and while a Geax Saguaro may not look like a suitable tyre for these conditions it handled very well. At some stage through here I caught with Mark T after he spent a bit of time on the side of the track bringing up breakfast. We rode together off and on until just before the red carpet descent. I was also almost at the bottom of the first section of the singletrack (red carpet) when we came across the ambos. They had just started to stretcher a poor lady out who had hurt her ankle. I stopped and gave them a had to carry her out as it was very hard work walking down the track in the wet conditions. I hope she is alright.... Thanks to the girl who pushed my bike out to the bottom of the singletrack it saved me quite a walk to go and get it.

From this point on in the race I just tried to keep the gear going. The singletrack through forrest was great albeit wet. I was more just riding through this stage of the course as I wasnt completely into it. I walked a few more of the tough muddy hills. Once we hit the 87km mark is was still feeling ok, the climb up the fire road suited me perfectly, I was able to stand and climb all the way to the top and slowly picking off the riders too. The last singletrack descent before the sledgehammer was great, grinning from ear to ear covered in mud left me thinking this is why I love MTBing. A quick sprint home and she it was done!!! I was stoked to do 5:53 in such tough conditions. I will be back next year and I shall be bringing a few mates as well. I rate this race as one of the best 100km races.