Fling box ticked

After reading the other accounts and it being my first Fling experience, I thought I'd put my ride down in print, too. Disclaimer: Chronologically, some of the tracks may have been in a different order to what is mentioned.

Kudos to all those in the race. It was ouchy! Kudos squared to those who did the full Fling, and cubed to the 100 milers! Wow...nuts...

Having heard all the good stories about the Fling I thought I'd give it a whirl, well the Half anyway. The timing of the event was perfect with the Mont a couple of weeks ago and a particularly busy few months coming up at work.

After enlisting the help of my Bro in law (let's call him "Kim". A vastly more experienced racer and rider than I) as "domestique", we signed up. The aim was to stick together and I'd give it a crack while he'd cruise. I thought maybe 3 and 1/2 hours was doable. Consequently, our opinions of the ride after the event were quite different!

We formed up at the back of the pack in the 3-4hr group and enjoyed the sunshine, took a couple of selfies and talked sh*t. The plan was to cruise out and have something at the end, which we mostly did. Not being a natural born climber I tucked in behind the help and pretty much tried to stick on his back tyre as we negotiated the first couple of hills on the farms.

My expectations of the trails I'd be riding were a little off. I've never ridden in the area but have heard only good things about Wingello so was anticipating some great trails and expected Penrose to be similar. To be fair to the organisers their breakdown in the course description was probably spot on. I just didn't get into the endless climbing and descending on dirt roads/fire trails. Give me single track or gnarly, rocky trails any day.

After heading through the very pretty farmland and into the state forest, going up every climb I would think,

"OK this is the one. We'll get to the top and there'll be some single track. Sweet!"

...more disappointment.

I wasn't the only one. There was plenty of banter from riders around me like,

"oh, more road and look, another climb at the bottom...great".

"This is Akuna Bay with rocks!" from one of the ladies next to me brought a chuckle. She was pretty funny and seemed to hate the hills more than me. Right on, sister!

I thought we were finally into some good trails and then we rolled into transition at around 1h40. A quick slam of some electrolyte and a couple of fruit buns and we were rolling again. More tranquil countryside, a couple of creek crossings (one of which was ride-able at speed was a super refreshing full body spray as it was deeper than it first appeared!), a nice single track climb from a creek and we were back in the forest section. Spin, spin, spin...

A low point was coming up on one of the rocky descents, with skull and crossbone signage, and seeing a guy getting bandaged up by the RFS/SES people. Tip to the organisers: If you want to slow riders down a skull and crossbones is good, but a rider getting bandaged trumps it! Dress up a vollie in riding gear next year and give it a crack . Hope he's/you're OK!

We waded back over the deep water crossing we were into a bit of single track, bit of climbing, speedy paddock track descent with jump (Oh sh*t camera! don't look like a gumby! d'oh! gumbyfail)...then I saw the sign. It said Broke Back Mountain so I assumed the position and spun away trying to think of kittens riding rainbows and f#*%ing unicorns pulling kegs of Coopers ahead of me or whatever I had to. Needless to say "Kim" and his magic thighs made short work of it and climbed like a fart in a bath and waited at the top. After what seemed like a school concert of eternity had passed I crested the top and at last...fun bits!

Why the Magellan people chose that section for a KOM is beyond me. Techy single track that's going to back up riders and form a conga line does not make for swift progress. We picked our way past the faltering riders ahead and by now I was really having to concentrate on the right lines, but it was still fun with all the rock ups and downs and tight turns and twists and tree dodging. The legs were protesting now, though, and not like an orderly Hong Kong style occupy sit-in. This was more like pissed off anti-globaslisation, cobblestone throwing, bus burning, disenfranchised products of the capitalist dogma. I'm sure they even burned an effigy of me (sans legs) at one point.

The goddamcommiebastards won in the end and the sandy road and gentle climb after the fun bits was just painful. So I just sat and span in as high a gear as I could. "Kim" motored ahead once again, looking like he was out for a casual spin. At the start I was adamant I wanted to go left at Your Call. After Broke Back the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak...like a jellyfish on rohypnol. I came up on the junction undecided but leaning right. Then I heard a voice in my head, crystal clear, say,

"Go right. It's longer but so much nicer than going left".

It was all the convincing I needed. Turns out it wasn't in my head at all as a guy trundled past and on his merry way. I mumbled something incoherent and died a little bit inside...and went right. After meeting up with magic thighs at the top, who'd gone left of course, we made our way onwards to the finish.

I felt bad for him at about 200m to go. While leaning on a tree waiting for his drag chute (me) to catch up, a rider patted him on the back and offered some encouraging words. LOL! Oh the humanity! I had to blurt out,

"He's waiting for me!". It was the least I could do.

We came around the last turn onto the home straight with another rider between us. There was much encouragement from the sidelines like, "TAKE HIM! TAAAKE HIM!!!!" so I dropped the very small hammer I had left and gave it all. This was met with much appreciation from the onlookers so mission accomplished. It was a token gesture and would have been extremely "not the done thing" for me to finish ahead of my tractor. A man's got to know his limitations...so we rolled over the line with "Kim" doing a fine lunge for effect. Good times!

"Kim" was buzzed and I was knackered! Talk about different perceptions.

So, yeah. That's my Half Fling experience. Time was around 3h55 so a bit slower than I originally hoped. I've only done a handful of events but the endless dirt roads weren't my bag. I much prefer to do an event somewhere with the only bits on roads being links between the single track. I quite like doing rides of similar distance on the dirt roads and trails here on the NoB, but if I'm going to drive 2 hours to go for a ride then I want a pay off!

Organisation was spot on. Job well done and thank you to the team and the volunteers.