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Great track and no mud!!
Incorporated the Bigfoot into a weekend road trip with a mate to watch the Panthers v Dragons at Wollongong on Friday night and a drive across through Goulburn, Crookwell, Boorowa and Eugowra on Saturday. Not the best pre-race regime I've ever put together, but a quiet night on Saturday after dinner at Parkes Leagues club meant a reasonably fresh start on Sunday morning.
Back Yamma State Forest was dry and dusty - a pleasant change from Sydney's wet trails. A bit of wind on Sunday morning was a mixed blessing - it blew the dust away, but made a couple of the fire trail sections into the wind a pretty hard slog. The track was a mix of good flowy sniggle, straight forest trail sections and some "pump track" sections around a few dams. A few log rollovers and a bit of gully work towards the end added some variation. As did a few mobs of roo's...
Started out about mid field and went pretty hard - it's very tempting when the terrain is pretty flat. It's great fun in a sniggle train when the surface is pretty good. Felt a bit weird at about 15 kms and slowed for a while, letting a few people past that I'd overtaken. Came good again after about 15 minutes and pressed on to the end from there with no problems. Only needed one gel and a bit of water the whole ride. Had a couple of moments with drift in the loose corners, but generally the surface was pretty predictable at my pace.
Great track for a 29'er as it was pretty good for keeping momentum up - there were a few tight corners, but generally there were reasonable berms or just a good flow. Finished in about 2:40 - tbc. I thought I was on track to break 2:30, but it was 54.5 km's on my odometer 
Didn't stay for presentation or to see the results, as I had a Father's day dinner to get to - they're still sorting out dessert at the moment.... 
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not true about the mud! there was indeed one muddy puddle on the course, I found it with my wheel
Agreed that it was a good 29 rolling course, next year I'll be doing it on a 29 hardtail for sure.. but I think that you could nearly do this one on a road bike..
I must have had dust in my eyes when I passed that mud
I did see some around the edges of the dams.
Not sure about riding the Bigfoot on a road bike, but it'd probably be OK on a cyclocross bike, though the cattle footprints that had set into the mud in a few places would be hard on the back and arms on a rigid frame with skinny tyres....
Lach, those footprints were painful on a full rigid MTB with 2.4" tyres... on a CX bike I'd want a good dental plan. T'was the only time in the whole race I thought I'd taken the wrong bike.
I saw the muddy bit on the track back to the event centre at the end of the second loop but you had to ride in a rut at the side to get in it .
those cow footprints were rough especially when also heading into the wind!
The mud/puddle I hit was on the first long fire trail section, beside the paddock, I had no choice but to ride through it as we were riding three wide at that time trying to gain a few spots (everyone seemed to be jostling for positions here) I avoided it on the second lap as there was substantially less traffic.
I thought it very funny at the time that I hit the only mud on the whole "dust bowl dry" course