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First time and back of packer.....
Hi All,
Got hooked with MTBing about 9 months ago and have lost 25kg in the process. Now I'm only fat instead of obsese - lol.
Anyway - a few mates and I made some weird pact that we should give this go and why settle for just doing 50km when you can wipe yourself out on 100km?
Through our training and also doing about 75% of the course 4 weeks ago cramping was my major weakness but I managed that quite well yesterday.
We rolled into the 50km mark in about 3:40 feeling really good. Hope the two guys we saw who crashed (Just before he 28km mark and someone being 4WDed out of the 28-50km section are all ok).
We got out of ten mile hollow well and had a hoot thru the techie stuff and down Shepards Gully. I went a lot faster than our training times which I put down to a little race excitement plus you fine folks leaving solid lines to follow over most of the track. 
Ok, so I rode over the canoe bridge - my mates and cheer squad thought I'd lost it about 3-4 times (so did I!). To be frank the only reason I decided to have a crack was to get the wrist band - when I got to the other side and a lady said, "no bands this year" - ripped off 
My left quad was deciding whether to cramp up on the second big hill so a lot of walking was done and frankly I just did not have the fitness / strength left for the pinch stuff any more.
A smile on my dial when I got to the Jacks Track turn off and we rabbited down (well, fast for us) to the road and headed off to the River. Threw the bike over the shoulder and got to the other side.
Not long later 4 guys crossing the line together feelin' petty good about life 8:09 time, we were wishful to go under 8hrs but just to finish was ace as Plan B if cramp city had struck would have been pulling out at the 70km mark. Clearly there is more fitness and ability to be gained and a few more kgs to shed.
Plenty of comradie on the course at my end of the field. Hope all was well at the front though I heard about the canoe bridge log jam plus the water depth made things a little tricky for people an hour or so in front of us.
Look forward to being faster next year.
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great effort, 8 hours on a bike is hard stuff, 8 hours on a MTB is another kind of hard.
Your day sounds exactly like my first dirtworks 100, ( 8:10.. so you beat me by 1min) reading your report took me back there.
You sound hooked now.. so you better clear out some room for all the bikes your going to accumulate in the next few years
Congrats dude. You weren't at the back of the pack my friend, that was left to my brother and I. Didn't make the 70km point cut off time which left our race finished at 2:20pm. I was happy with the effort though, nutting out 70km in which I can safely say was the hardest riding I have ever had the pleasure of trying to conquer. I have the up most respect for those that finished whether it was 4 or 8 hours. Hopefully next year we can get our speed up and make a decent time of it.
and PS, to the sweepers that had to contend with our sorry slow asses. We are very sorry to hold you up! But we were two determined stubbon bastards who wanted to atleast say we got as far as we possibly could. What a great event!!!!!!!