I'll do a full report on my blog sometime tomorrow (I need sleep!) so if
you're interested, check http://blindrapture.blogspot.com/
I entered the 6 hr race with my mate Kurt, who guided me through the more
technical bits of the cycle epic, and wheelsucked when we hit the roads.
It's been pissing down rain in Brisbane for a few days and this morning
was hot and rainy. We joked about cancelling, but as we arrived in
Kooralbyn, the sky miraculously cleared.
We each did six laps, first a single each, then a double lap each (during
the heat of the day, which was incredibly stupid, and next time we will do
the doubles first - good for course familiarisation) and then finishing
with a single each. Kurt did 33-35 minutes per lap and I did 38-41 minutes
per lap; a hell of a lot better than I expected and placed us 5th in the
mixed category. (To make us sound cooler - first and second place went to
pro adventure race people and to Guy Andrews... and we were only a 10
minutes down on 3rd place.) I have only been on my MTB once since Epic and
I really wasn't expecting to ride so well.
The course was awesome - a bit scary in places but nothing that I
couldn't do, and the climbs were challenging but do-able. I liked riding
past people up the hills and some of the spectators cheered me on heaps
for this. Then I let people ride past me on the lead up to some technical
bits because I'm a bit of a gumby.
I caught up with some people from the MTB marathon back in ?March? When I
was checking out times, the guy from Gap Cycles recognised me from the ADF
road champs earlier this year and said, "Not bad for an Army roadie..."
and I said, "Hey, I'm not even a real roadie yet, I'm still on the
conversion course from triathlete." He thought that was an even bigger
achievement.
Heaps of people were taking it very seriously, but then again there was a
guy with spokey dokeys (woohoo!); only one guy was rude on the course and
everyone else was really supportive. There were some incredibly
impressive riders, including my good mate Hamish who came 3rd 😄 and one
girl who was incredibly fast but made really weird grunting noises as she
rode.
I saw a guy come in running with his bike, rear derailleur hanging free.
After he'd dumped it and passed the race number to the next guy, I asked
him how far he'd run... it was about 4.5km - from the furthest point of
the course. I suggested conversion to adventure racing but it turns out
he's a triathlete. (Obviously one of the good ones as he preferred a MTB
race to the Noosa tri-to-rip-everyone-off-lon.)
I have to give a huge thanks to Lotte who, as most of you know, is a great
MTBer and trained me up for the Epic. Apparently some of what she said has
sunk in 🙂