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blog courtesy of seasoned international road/sprint champion Ben Isaksen who appears to be making the switch to the wonderful world of singletrack, and was also in the winning team.

Jetblack Sydney 12 Hour

Saturday the 13th of August saw the first of 2 days racing on the fast trails of Dargle Farm, 75 kilometres North West of Sydney. Saturday was the Sydney 12 hour, followed by the 3rd round of the Rocky Trail GP series on Sunday.

The Ashfield Cycles/Specialized/Endura racing team entered 3 teams for Saturday, Mark Griffin in the solo males, Tate Dogan, Lachlan Rowe, Olivier Vallee and Ben Isaksen in the mens 4s, and Monique Clark, Libby Clark and Felicity Gartlemann competing in the females 4s.

Our team in the mens 4s were looking for a podium finish in both the outright and our respective category classifications, with the challenges expected to come from the Bernard Beer teams. With my road and track racing background having given me good explosive power and experience riding close to other riders, it was up to me to get the team off to the best possible start at 9am on Saturday morning. A good position on the front line and we were away, the first few hundred metres on a wide fire trail before heading into the bush for some fast, flowing singletrack. Luckily I had been to the course 2 weeks beforehand to help with some track maintenance so I had a good close look at the circuit, not having raced this course before.

As we hit the singletrack, I was comfortably within the top 5, making sure to stay with the leaders. As we neared the finish I had moved up to 2nd position, keeping within 30 metres of the leader, from the Stevens team and crossing the line for the first time with the same gap. Olivier was next up maintaining track position for the next lap, losing a little bit of time to the other Stevens rider. As they came through to complete the second lap it became clear that we weren’t up against Stevens, as their next rider was a female so they were racing in the mixed 4s category. Lachlan was next in for us, taking the lead before handing over to Tate.

At this stage I was a little bit surprised to be where we were, but just concentrated on riding smooth and staying out of trouble as now we were having to contend with passing other riders. There were several good spots to pass on the open fire trails making it not too much of an issue, but on the steep rocky climbs where the Epic 29r was in its element I was sure to give plenty of warning when approaching slower riders from behind.

By the third hour of the race, the track was bedding in well, some of the damper sections had dried up nicely and the lap times were coming down accordingly. I managed to do a 25:35, making me the second fastest rider for the day behind Andrew Arthur who pulled out a 24:12 for the fastest lap of the whole weekend. Tate was lapping in the low 26s and Oli and Lachie were both in the 27s.

The sun was beaming down on us after a cold, foggy start and the layers of clothing were coming off. When we weren’t racing around, we were keeping our bodies topped up with Endura, using a combination of Optimizer, Endura bars, gels and of course Endura Magnesium Rehydration Formula.

We were still leading at half race distance, maintaining a consistent gap of between 2:30 and 3:30 over the Bernard Beer team, with another of their teams in third, a bit further behind. The second half of the race would be crucial to the result as legs would fatigue, the temperature dropped and we would be down to 3 riders, as Lachie had to leave early. We knew that he had to leave at about 3, but Lachie being a team player, stayed to squeeze in one extra lap to make life just that little bit easier for the rest of us, at this stage we were over 5 minutes in front of second place.

As soon as the commentator, Paul Craft, realised this, he was geeing up the crowd, implying that it was race over for us, with 3 riders against 4 tipping the numbers advantage in favour of the Bernard riders. Oli, myself and especially Tate, used Paul’s lack of confidence in us as a source of motivation, digging even deeper just to prove him wrong.

5pm and it was time to start getting the lights ready for the onset of darkness, this was my first time racing in the dark, so I was a bit nervous, especially on some of the technical sections, which were hard enough in daylight but I can’t give enough praise to the helmet mounted Exposure Diablo light, just on the medium beam setting was enough to light up the trail in front of me.

Expectantly the lap times went up as it got dark and the clothing was packed back on with the temperature falling. The skies were still very clear and the full moon and the lighting of the traditional bonfire adding to the atmosphere.

Our lead had come back down to be hovering between 2 ½ and 3 minutes as we entered the last 2 hours of the race. I was still feeling ok, Tate also, Oli was a little bit flat, but still very consistent with his lap times to keep us in the lead. With the riding order of me, Oli, then Tate, we did the numbers and it looked like Oli would be riding the finishing lap for us. I went out for my last lap with around 2 ½ minutes lead and gave it absolutely everything. In parts I was a bit ragged, pushing too hard on a sweeping right-hander which was wetter than earlier during the day as quite a bit of moisture was appearing as the night fell. Luckily I was straight back up, and the adrenalin was pumping. On the section which has been dubbed “The Alps”, I lost the front wheel on a slippery rock, again due to the onset of moisture that wasn’t present beforehand. I had no option but to run up the rest of the climb, it was too steep to try and remount and start riding again. As I crested the climb and jumped back on the bike, both quads seized up and I was in a bit of pain just to get them turning over again, but I knew I had less than 2 minutes left before I would cross the line for the last time to hand over to our last rider to take us to the finish.

As Oli was not feeling the best, they had decided to put Tate back in for the last lap. I came through to tag him in and he requested that I ride beside him for a bit. We chatted and in turned out he was a bit worried about whether he could make it after cramping the previous lap. I had given my absolute all, thinking that I had done my last lap of the day, leaving absolutely nothing in the tank and Tate continued on to finish.

Going into the last lap, we had 2 minutes advantage on the Bernard riders, and were just hoping that Tate could hold on to deliver us the victory. I rolled back into our camp and collapsed on the cold, wet grass, unable to move, just trying to suck in as much oxygen as possible. Paul Craft saw this and thought it would be a good time to do an interview! I described my last lap to him and our situation so the entire crowd knew it would be a nail-biting finish with the possibility that we would be beaten after leading the race for over 11 hours.

The next 28 or so minutes were so nervous! I managed to get some warm clothes on and grab some food and water. There was plenty of atmosphere as Paul did his job on the microphone, building up the excitement for the spectators.

When we finally saw Tate coming down the finish straight alone we were elated! High fives and hugs all round as he crossed the line to give us a thoroughly deserved victory. Words cannot describe how good it was to take the win against the odds with the more fancied Bernard riders pushing us all the way to the line.

To top it off, Monique, Libby and Felicity won the females category quite convincingly, despite having 3 riders against the 4 riders of the second placed team, and Mark Griffin finished 4th in the male solo to achieve his goal of winning an entry into the infamous Crocodile trophy race in North Queensland later in the year.

Massive thanks to the support from Ashfield Cycles, Specialized Australia and Endura for supplying us with everything necessary to ride as far and as fast as we can!

Ben Isaksen