8th Dec..The Kona 24hr Part 4

Sorry to keep you waiting, I was having some PC "issues"...anyhow, back to the one eyed rider...

Now I'll admit single track is a heap of fun, single eyed single track almost as much fun until you have more and more trouble judging how far away the corner actually is and how fast you are actually travelling along, or maybe it's just my brain is fried from no sleep, not enough food and fatigue...LOL

The next lap I've decided it ain't 'that' bad so keep on going. I pass what I think is 3rd place and assume he's also on the same lap, turned out not to be Carl and I was actually a lap up on 4th place...so with my shadow following me I try and play it cool, my tech skills somewhat lacking he sticks with or catches me on the descents, uphills looming I turn up the screws a little from my usual lap pace, "just see if I can stretch him a bit, show you're feeling strong" and manage to pull away, sweet! I finish strong on this lap (my 3rd last) and feel great.

Second last lap I'm pedalling out to transition at around 5:50am, so I'm 10 mins early for the morning course, bummer I'm thinking, but it turns out not so bad as the morning lap has another 100m of climbing and a few extra km's. The lap is pretty uneventful until I hit the 3km snorefest...hmmm, batteries dying...sweats are starting, bugger, I've hit the "wall"! I was thankful I was close to home and tiried to limit my losses by just keeping the cadence going, no wheels to grab onto as most are now doing the morning course...so I just manage to limp home and get some food into me. Thanks here go to the guys and gals from the Pinnacle team for a banana and some choc spread bread, this really filled a hole and got me going again...a quick walk down to check out the timing sheets and realise where I am, almost fall over backward seeing 3rd place...the bread is really hard to get down, throat is dry and sore from the inhalation of dust and water the only way to wash down the life saving food source...

Onto what becomes my last lap, and what a bugger of a course it is (insert rant here...) why we didn't start on this course on Sat arvo and finish with the awesome Sat arvo track is beyond me, does it sound like a good idea to leave the most technical course to last when you're smashed? Why wow the punters with an awesome course first up to slowly make it harder as you go! Hey, I'm sure the team riders had a ball, Mitch and I both agreed it sucked...OK, I'm done...

So I had discovered a few things by this time, pain does go away, Coach Plumb put it best when he said "the muscles are just tired of complaining, the brain is not listening!" so things like my knackered arms that were suffering on the longer rough downhill sections basically felt numb...good or bad, I'll let you decide, ha ha ha.

I caught up with Mitch on Mariner's Run and he was not liking it one bit, I don't blame him. I tried sitting with him for a while and encourage him on, it worked for a while when a moderate climb had him hoofing it up, "you go on" was his orders which I decided was the best course of action...

So I drag my tired butt back to the pit and have to make the big decision...to go on or retire...Sam suggests we go and see St. John's and get they're opinion...lots of looking with different style lights, lots of questions and then finally the word of "well you shouldn't do any more riding..."

This was pretty devastating, 3rd position, almost a lap up, an easyish couple of laps would secure it...so I have to make the hardest decision when I'm at my most tired state...so I just had to remember what my actual goals were when I started, I'm well up on them so pulling the pin here surely can't drop me down too many places.

So my first 24hr race (well, 20.5!) has been ridden, I've sort of survived and some lessons have been learnt. What lessons?
1) Provide your pit crew with better instructions for your food intake, eg prepare all the bottles in advance and mark and alot them for certain times of the day so ALL of it is input
2) Find some better glasses!!!!!
3) More warm clothes and gloves
4) Re-apply the chamois cream more often/alot a time to do so
5) Set up the spare bike EXACTLY the same
6) Some pasta wouldn't go astray during the race, very hard to swallow anything else!

So did I enjoy it? After 300km and over 6,500m of climbing I felt remarkably good, the training obviously paid off! Most of the Forrest trails were pretty sweet, a highly recommended place to do some trail riding for a day. Finding new personal limits is always great, so this added to the enjoyment, sad but true!

Would I do it again? If you ask everybody around me, I'm already signed up!

Am I doing it again? Well...

I'd also like to say thanks to all the customers who have supported Bezerk Cycles in it's first year back in operation, it's a long road ahead and gives me some confidence to go on with the support provided. None of this would be possible without it. Some other news to be confirmed real soon....

5th Dec..The Kona 24hr Part 3

Just as I was really getting into the afternoon track and really, really loving it (would have made the perfect course for the whole event) 6pm was rolling around meaning the first change of course...meaning if you didn't like it, too bad, you've got 12hrs of it matey!

The first half was not too bad, lots of singletrack and a few smoother places to drink and get some food in. This was followed by a really average jump section that wore away at your tired arms by the morning. Some fire road and then you end up climbing and then some double track to three kms of false flat gravel track...no fun let me tell you...apparently a rail trail or something.

So the night consisted of me fumbling my way through the singletrack, conserving once again on the climbs and trying catch whatever draft I could along the mind numbing stretch back to transition. Thanks to a couple of women team riders for their perfect pace long here, I thanked them then, I do it again now!

12:30 rolled around and it was time to change the whole riding outfit, change the headlight battery and add the start of some warmer clothes. I went to the Skins for the remainder of the race, yes they are worth $$$, I can't compare them to Assos as I've never had a pair, but the chamois is great, they are great around the waist for shorts and if they were helping my muscles, I'm not going to say no!

Sam joined me for some laps from here on, some reports of 3 laps done with me another says 4. Either way we had some fun, me leding for a lap, Sam exploring out the front for the second (yes, I know, I'm not leaning into those corners enough, I get it!) and some swapping around for the third. We came across "the Mitch" on one of these laps and he was still going at a steady tempo, truly inspirational for his first 24hr and in his young 50's, awesome! He's helpers had gone to bed for the night so Sam helped him out as well with bottles etc and some chain lubing, nice one Sam!

After Sam's company I managed to keep up the pace and punch out some more quickish laps, I was apparently making my way up the ladder and was now in 4th place, I was not believing it but just kept it going...one of the weird early morning stories was I had been using my walkman for the first 12+ hours and decided to remove it when I changed clothing and was going to be chatting with motor mouth Sam for a few hours anyway. So by the time Sam had left me, the feeling of the bud still in my ear combined with the rustling of my vest, I could have sworn I could hear music playing for the whole time...must have been really tired hey!

It was getting colder by the hour, toes were going numb, fingers were going numb, thin vest swapped for thicker one swapped for full jacket, new gloves go on, booties back on...you get the idea! Certainly nothing like any of the training rides, at least you could add something every lap!

The legs were still feeling OK and the sky was slowly transforming from star laden to a dull glow of the upcoming sun. This was about the coldest part of the whole ride and along the 3kms of boredom I noticed my glasses were fogging up, well so I thought until I lifted them off and discovered it was my right eye that was fogging up! Fnck I'm saying, this can't be good!

4th Dec..The Kona 24hr Part 2

Paul and I primed for the start, me with my porm mo, LOL.

So the plan was to take it easy and save some energy in the bank for when it was going to be needed later...ha ha, soon as the gun goes off it's go like stink...well for a few hundred meters until we hit the bottleneck, hundreds of riders into a space for single file only! One day they'll take us out on a road for a while to spread everybody out in the right pecking order...

So heartrate in the dirt crit range it's on for young and old and everybody scrambling for a position in the queue, and what a queue! I manage to recover to a medium pace and keep my lines clean position secure. The race is now on for conservation, tactics, find as many windbreaks as possible and keep the food and fluids up to the engine.

The afternoon course was truly awesome, a bit of everything from bermed corners, to log-overs to jumps and plenty of flowing single track with stuff all fireroad (well that's how I remember it!) and very little in regards to climbing. Majority of the climbing is a pinch out of transition, on to a gravel road climb and then onto a steep single track climb, stuf all from there on. I made the decision from early on to never ride the pinch climbs and just run them until I had no energy but to walk up. This was to balance the wattage output and not stress the legs too much and save it for powering everywhere else.

Sam's words of "the training is always harder than the race" was ringing true as my legs seemed to love everything being thrown at them, even the longish gentle climbs I just loped up and conserved.

I had the opportunity to follow Jess around for I think lap 2 or 3, this was to learn a local's way around the course and she was putting out a fine tempo let me tell you! I asked if this was her sustainable pace for 24hrs with the reply of "SH1T NO!, first 6hrs maybe..." Back to transition and I drop one bottle and collect another, the smoothest changeover yet. It's really tempting to just stop and get organised but keeping on going is always the answer.

Around hour 3 I'm feeling a bit average, stomach is churning and vomit seems a likely option...hmmm, maybe too much food...unknown to me, I was thinking I was lapping hourly but it was much sooner than that, so my intake was planned per lap with me assuming that that would be on the hour...DOH! So I back off to just water for a lap or two and by 4 or 5 hours in health is restored, whohoo!

I always find the first 6 hours the hardest to get through, you generally feel sore, depleted of energy, legs struggling to get up to temp, heartrate screaming and a lack of enthusiasm and a wonder of wtf are you doing out here! Once you can overcome this, it is a great feeling of excitement as if you've just started the ride with a fresh pair of legs ready for anything...time to rock!

3rd Dec..The Kona 24hr Part 1

Instead of writing masses of paragraphs in one hit, thought I'd break it down a little like the bike build up...

By the end of Friday my support crew had reduced half in numbers, it was no stress for myself, but did put a bit more stress/sleep deprevation on the remaining Sam and Paul. So a reworked plan to take the work ute meant that I could at least pre-load it ready for the 6:50am leaving time.

I took Friday off from work to organise those last minute details, go to Anaconda and finally swap some of the gear gained from the AES and get something useful like a new helmet and some expendable shoe covers. Shoe covers? Yep, finally sick and tired of having gravel/sand/dirt rattling around in my shoes that has been kindly dumped in there from my front tyre...and they worked a treat! New helmet was a tad heavy, but new sweat pads and orange to go with the team colors wasn't a bad thing.

Paul arrived smack on time and we quickly had his gear loaded in and we were on our way. A message arrived from Sam saying he had secured almost exactly the same pit position as last year, sweet! The usual sights of other mtb'rs on their way there as well as it seems others making hteir way to the start of the GVBR. A quick stop at the golden arches and it was a pretty uneventful trip ll the way there which we made in good time, esp considering the awesome power of the diesel, LOL.

Just as we're pulling into the carpark Sam waves us in and we double park to do a quick unload. Access as usual sucked arse, Sam telling me that even guys that arrived really early on Firday weren't permitted to just drive in, unload and then drive it out to the carpark, crazy....gone are the days of Redesdale of where you parked was your camp site and pit stop...we can only dream of those days...might revise a new plan for next time...did I just say next time...

The supplies and bikes got quickly moved down to the marquee and we were soon set up and ready to race, bugger, still a couple of hours to go until the start! A sleep would have been nice right about now...but alas other things managed to occupy us, perhaps a tent nearby will be a great asset for the future.

After 11:00 I slowly prepared my clothing, consumed some Heed and kept topping up the water store for the task ahead. The usual thoughts of "what the Hell am I doing here?" and "will I make it?" were flashing through the mind, I just wanted it to start...

So I suppose here is a good time to mention what my goals were for the weekend -
1) ride with minimal breaks for 24hrs (well it is a 24 hour race!!!)
2) try and average 15kph
3) aim for a top ten place

11:50 was rolling around and Consto got me off my butt to go and get in the queue of starters...it's getting close now!

2nd Dec..Hoorah, some results!

Cut to the chase
The nitty gritty

1st Dec...Just a quick message to yes, I am at home typing this, not from the hospital, ha ha. A day of rest to restore some health to my broken body...

I'll be adding a race report a little later...firstly, a big thanks to Coach Plumb for my awesome preperation, Paul N and Sam for looking after my every needs on the day, everybody that rode with me on those long training days esp mad Chris that would go out at just about any time and a huge thanks to Frais and the kids for letting me go out to train!

How'd I do? I had to retire with I think around 3-1/2 hrs to go because I basically couldn't see stuff all, apparently dust doesn't agree with my eyes! At this time I had worked my way into 3rd place overall, how sweet is that! I was hardly knocking on Scott and Jason's door, but I was more than stoked to say the least! No official results yet, I may have kept in the top 5 or 6, pretty sure first singlespeeder home, apparently six of us nutters, LOL. Hope to add some pics and more soon...

At Bezerk Cycles I strive to provide a service that many others don't provide, from servicing to problem solving, part sourcing, custom build ups, custom frames, modifications, TIG and OXY welding, refinishing, machining and wheelbuilding.

A life long experience with bikes and welding, there's not much that I haven't had a go at making or modifying. Specializing in Cromoly, I have done various projects in aluminium.

The current passion is single speed mountain bikes. I am currently working to have a line of off the shelf frames made to my specs that cater for both single speed and geared applications. Check out the Products page for more info...

I am currently working on a wide array of custom projects, hope to add some pics as they are created.

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