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Husky 100
I'm not sure exactly why I thought it was a good idea to enter this race as I've had pretty bad luck with it in the past. But a whole bunch of friends were going down camping at Jervis Bay so I thought why not.
We stayed at the beautiful Booderee NP and I had a fairly restful night. Woke up, stumbled around in the dark getting ready and off to the new event centre. Decided to line up in the middle of the pack this time as I was feeling frisky.
Off we went on a long fire road descent. We came to the first of MANY huge deep puddles. One guy tries to ride through thinking it was an inch deep. Well it was about a foot deep and he goes down taking someone with him.
The next few hours are a confusing blur of single track and the very odd section of fire trail. At one point I see a policeman walking towards me marching a guy in handcuffs. He doesn't like that we are riding in the forest and has been moving course markings to show his displeasure.
I ride behind 2 guys on CX bikes for a while. Their skills are really impressive as they throw their bikes through the single track.
I see the 50km to go sign - hmmm according to my Garmin I should have closer to 40km to go. I decide to not get my hopes up and just trust the signs, realizing I could have been thrown off course by the vandals.
There is a bit of confusion near the end where we do 2 different loops, one at the 75km point and one at the 90km point. My Garmin shows 83km but I realise I am at the 75km point of the race and head out for the first loop.
Overall the race was really fun, a lot of singltrack and such a beautiful location. the negatives for me were the amount of mud on the course (my poor bike!) and the confusing/vadalised course. the high percentage of single track made it a fairly tough race.
Looking at Strava it looks like some people rode 100km, some rode 105km, some like me rode 109km and some rode 110-112km. So placings and race times etc were a little meaningless.
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mud and poor / missing / vandalised course markings a recurring theme for that event.
I strted in the 50. we were delayed by about 15-20 min.
Unfortunately I got mechanical....busted derailleur. a big fat DNF
I rode the 50 and had a pretty frustrating day out - left in the first wave, to find trail marking tape straight across the fire trail.. managed to get over it - hope others did as well!
I found some of the single track quite challenging, including a section that took you down some through some ferns, then up some barely defined pinch climbs. It looked like a lot of the track had just been cut at the last minute for the event, without anyone actually riding, or even thinking about how someone might ride it.
Anyway, I paced myself on the intended checkpoints, but found myself at the 42km mark trying to figure out when the 41km checkpoint was due to come. I promptly ran out of water at the 45km mark, while everyone around me was trying to figure out how far we had to go. I was showing 45kms along with a few others, while others were at 42. The checkpoint came at the 51 km mark, which was followed by another 8km or so until the finish line.
I'd completely dehydrated by that point, so instead of having fun on the quite nice single track at the end, I cramped non-stop.
Looking at strava, some riders did ~60km, some did ~50km, and some did ~55km. So much for a lighter race to get me set up for capital punishment this weekend!
This time I don't think you can blame the organisers for the missing markers. There was a guy protesting about us riding through the forest and he removed bunting and signs that impacted all three distances.
The organisers were on to it reasonably promptly and got the police to intervene and did their best to replace the markers. While it did impact more than a few people I felt for the parents riding with their kids in the 20k event. A lot of the young kids got lost and ended up following the 100k course so did a fair bit more distance than they were expecting. The marshals ended up having to route them back to the start via some roads and firetrails. I am not generally against peoples rights to protest however this was vandalism that impacted a lot of young kids on what should have been a fun day out. Poor form.
Interesting - my device had it down as 60km - can sympathise as it really threw me passing the various checkpoints with much higher readings on the Garmin. I had set up a speed sensor recently so thought I'd screwed my wheel size measurement. That may be partly true as the consensus seems to be 56km?
Track was definitely more challenging than expected. Those mud pits were a bit nuts and that newly cut-in single track was pretty dodgy in places - at times a good challenge others just a bit rubbish. Good fun overall though. Nice singletrack in parts and some good old fashioned smashing down rutted to hell firetrail was kinda cool.
"I was feeling frisky" - sounds like it was lucky I was ill, not sure I'd enjoy being in a tent near you if you were feeling frisky!!
Great work mate - sounds like a good event, gutted I missed it!
The mud is why I'll never ride the Husky again. Surely, if the huge mud baths are a problem every year they could come up with a solution; The promoters would be making a killing out of the race, how about they collect old pallets throughout the year and make temporary bridges out of them. If the Convict can make 2 kayak bridges and the Mont have the huge crossover, then the Husky can strap a dozen pallets together to make a bridge through the mud - it's only got to last for 1 race.....
for past, present or future issues with mud nor course marking, just commenting that it does seem to be a recurring issue with the Husky for whatever reason. Shame because it is such a nice part of the world.
Pretty much the same story really. Glad the guy ended up in handcuffs, he got in my face out on track and wouldn't move, shame about the vandalism out on course.
There was complete confusion at the end of the first lap at the event centre, the two guys in front of me pulled off to the finish, I had 88km on the Garmin so headed back out for a second lap. I know at least one of the guys got back out for the final lap but it cost him time. It was also confusing out on track at times in the latter stages, even early on I had a rider come towards me on the ST heading in the wrong direction, he wasn't happy!
The course was certainly more challenging than I expected and the newly dug out section and pinch climb at around 70km killed me!
I was happy to finish this one but I'm feeling pretty sore after hitting the deck in the last km.
I hit the feed station at about 78km at the event centre and took off on the ST when it came back to firetrail a marshall told me that if I was at 50km to go one one and if I was at 90km to go the other. Unfortunately I was at neither at about 85km and was advised to turn left. Completed that loop which had me back at the event centre at around 90km and was only given the directions that all riders are to go the same direction I had already been. In the end I ended up repeating the same loop twice and finished at about 98km??? having been over the whole day.In the end I had giving up on the whole racing thing and was in the mindset of a good training ride for the capital the following week.