Hello,
Last weekend the Australian Single Speed National Champs were held as part
of the Castlemaine Fat Tyre Festival.
I started my weekend theme of doing everything the hard way by opting to
take everything up on my motorbike. One of the downsides of a carless life
when noone is going up when you need to. At least I've refined by bike
carrying setup:
http://duncanmurray.gallery.netspace.net.au/album01
The festival started on Friday night in a 150 year old theatre with beer,
pizza and old Eddie Merckx movies. Those roadies seemed a lot harder back
then.
Saturday morning had numerous events but by far the most entertaining were
the '16 inch' criterium. A small crit course with 'obstacles' was setup in
the main street and grown men and women were racing on bikes that barely
reached their hips. After suffering many spills and even pulling the
handlebars out on a sprint I reached the final. Lining up on a pink 16 inch
bike with ex world XC competitors, current national elite riders and the
current national trials champion was somewhat surreal.
The day finished off with a 'Huffy toss', we started a 'ghostie' comp on the
huffy but it broke it's axle on the first run. The night saw a live band
and DJ back in the old theatre and lots and lots of beer.
After struggling to get out of bed the next morning a short trail ride was a
good way to get me used to riding fixed off road again. I hadn't put knobby
tires on my fixie for months. It seemed that all the commuting and alley
cat style races had given me a lot more confidence on it than before.
The SSNats race briefing started by identifying the three tiers of starters.
Off first would be people in costumes, then the main field followed by those
having a crack at the title. I was a little surprised to be called out for
the third group as the organisers knew I was riding a fixie. Again I found
myself in a small group of riders from the pointy end of Australian XC,
this time it was just as ridiculous as before.
The elite guys disapeared fairly quickly as I had no intention of sticking
with them. Not wanting to pass on the single track with the risk of
clipping a pedal I waited for the fireroads to start working through the
field. I fairly soon found myself in a position where I wasn't doing much
passing.
The course was what a lot of people described as 'very technical', funnily
enough the obstacles weren't that fixie unfriendly. The main risks were
rocks on the inside of corners. I managed to clean the whole course (non
consecutively) only taking two b-lines around sections that required a
decent jump, landing a fixie is a skill I've yet to get comfortable with.
The hardest thing about the race was my gear, I was running a 36:16 and it
was a very hilly course. Thankfully the steepest section could be bypassed
by sculling a beer at a mid course drink stop. I took advantage of this on
laps 4 and 5. My last lap was quite slow and messy. My friend who ended up
winning the title said he couldn't outride his main rival so ended up
sculling beers to get the advantage he needed. You really needed to drink
quick to get much advantage from the detour.
So in the end I think I finished closer to the front than the back but
luckily enough other fixie riders showed up to make 'fixed' a seperate
category. It turned out to be a hell of a lot more fun than I expected
although I can still barely walk normaly from corking my thigh on a bodged
double log hop.
Cheers,
Duncan.
PS. Some great photos were taken at the event but I'm yet to get my hands
on them, links may follow soon.