sjh - mountain biking linux geek spice - mtb / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley
About

email: sjh@svana.org

web: http://svana.org/sjh

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Tim Potter,
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Mon, 01 Mar 2010

A race surprise and helmets - 17:12
So I will be once more competing in the Jindabyne Multisport race as a solo this coming weekend. This is one of my favourite races on the calendar. I competed solo the last two years (2009, 2008) and in teams previously (2007, 2006). So there was a CORC 3 hour mountain bike race on at Sparrow on Saturday afternoon. I thought it would be a good idea to do it and have a last good hit out on the mountain bike before Jindabyne.

For the rest of this week I will not be doing any training efforts over an hour and not much hard stuff, especially later in the week. I have to admit I have been focusing on getting my bike form back to some reasonable level the last few months, maybe something approaching the bike form I had back in 2004 (before I did so much paddling, running and swimming as well as riding). I must say though I never expected this sort of result. At the race on Saturday I finished 10th overall, with 328 people competing, taking into account the teams around 280 people on track. I was racing on my single speed, so I won the single speed category (largely because Chris was having some mechanicals due to being silly enough to make a major change to his bike the day before) and was only beaten by some strong teams and some solos. I was only 1 minute behind Bleeksie and his team mate for example. Riding 8 laps, which it seems only around 20 people managed to complete.

Well I hope that performance helps me on the bike legs, I definitely am hoping to take 30 or 40 minutes off the time for the long bike leg at Jindabyne for the last two years, something closer to 2h30m again would be good.

As for helmets, my good helmet for 2 years now has been a rather neat Giro Animas with hot pink flames. However Giro has discontinued that model and also no longer makes the E2 which was my previous favourite model of helmet. None of the current helmets released by Giro have such a good colour scheme (in my opinion), if I happened to break my current helmet I would have to get something boring. However I have noticed a shop over in the US has Animas in stock still in pink, I am sorely tempted to buy two more (they have them really cheap) so I have a stock pile of helmets just in case. I wonder if this is being silly. When I have some more spare money (new bike just having been purchased on its way here now) I may have to stockpile helmets...

[/mtb/events] link

Sun, 10 Jan 2010

Rotorua Summer MTB Series - Bike Vegas - 23:28

Green Lake near Rotorua (fullsize) 		Much to my delight I found out when I arrived in Rotorua that there was a mountain bike race on this Sunday. The Bike Vegas Summer MTB Series, this is a series of 45km point to point races through the Whakarewarewa Forest where the legendary redwoods single track are.

The rest of the series are 24th Jan and 14th Feb so I will obviously miss these events, I headed out to race today though and had a great time. I got to catch up with Gaz from NZO Clothing which was good as he was there racing. (and he beat my by a few minutes, way to go Gaz)

My GPS Map for the race shows where the race went, starting going the wrong way up the rock drop track and then onto many others, I can not work out the order exactly (writing this without the GPS trace in front of me right now) but remember it included Pigeon Run, Pig Track Link, Mad If You Dont, Mossy Track, around next to Green Lake (gorgeous/spectacular scenery there), No Brains, the end of Old Chevy (with the fun gap jump), Spring Roll, Sweet & Sour, Be Rude Not To, Lion Trail, Turkish Delight, Soakhole, Grinder, The Dipper, and Tahi.

I had not ridden some of the green tracks since the 2005 Moonride 12 Hour, others I probably would not have ridden if it were not for the race today and some of the tracks are the classics that should be ridden every time you come here. I had a great time and think it was an excellent race format (they had a 25 KM option also for people who did not want quite such a long race).

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 30 Nov 2009

Cruising around the AROC Sprint on Saturday - 16:04

Selina, Celia, Mark and Randall at presentations (fullsize) 		While Nathan, DaveS and Wayne were Moseying around the AROC classic course on Saturday just a little bit faster than the Mosey of Selina, Mark and Randall and that of Danielle, Matt and Gary. I was also out there cruising around with Ron and Tony. Strangely I was carrying a camera so took a few photos, my AROC Sprint Race 2 for 2009 photos are online. The results and race photos and stuff can be found linked from the event page at AROC Sports.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 16 Nov 2009

Triple Triathlon 2009 - 17:24

Dave and Julie finishing (fullsize) 		I was unable to compete this year, but I got out there and cheered on my friends and took a whole lot of photos which can be found at my 2009 Triple Triathlon photos page.

I hope everyone racing had fun, I enjoyed following the race.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 12 Oct 2009

Scott 24 Hour Photos - 20:03
While out at the 24 hour this weekend I managed to take a few photos I have now uploaded to a page, 2009 Scott 24 Hour photos. I also provided bandwidth this morning for the Sportograf guys to upload their photos. They took 85,000 over the weekend, the best of set are already up and they should have the rest public by Wednesday sometime.

[/mtb/events] link

Tue, 06 Oct 2009

Googong Multisport Challenge, more Sri Chinmoy fun - 13:24
Similar to the Yerrabi race in May but longer and tougher, the Googong Multisport challenge was on this weekend. I went and competed again and had fun. So did a number of friends. Photos and other stuff at my Googong Multisport Challenge 2009 page. Thanks to the local Sri Chinmoy Events crew for more fun this weekend.

[/mtb/events] link

Tue, 15 Sep 2009

Hard day in the heat at the Angry Doctor - 14:33
I put some photos I took at the Angry Doctor on line, none of them particularly good. Though showing off the awards ceremony for the spectacular efforts by Heather, Julie, Libby and Sam.

What with the worlds taking up a lot of time, and no real serious cycling efforts recently I have been continuing to rely on my base cycle fitness for all the bike efforts I do. This event came down to relying on that again. I do however think I made some mistakes. It was well over 30 Celsius down there for the race, I normally struggle in the heat so should have expected to here also.

I did not pay much attention to hydration or salts intake the day before of morning before the start. Then going out harder than I should have I was feeling good until at 30km I was hit with some nasty cramps. My reaction to that was to consume a lot of liquid. 2 litres of water from the camel back, one full bottle and two half bottles of sports drink (borrowed from others) all used up before reaching 50km. I took on two bottles of sports drink and 3 litres of water at 50km and used that all up by 70km going for 10km until the aid station with no liquid.

I did not overheat which is good, however with bad cramps for 70km and being unable to put much power down I was annoyed with my race. I probably washed too much liquid through my system, though being scared of overheating (and heat stroke type problems) I think maybe I should have tried to have more salty foods and solid foods instead of the mostly gels I used all day. Chips may have worked a treat or salty biscuits. Of course a heck of a lot more time on the bike would also help. I think this is something I should seriously concentrate on getting back before Jindabyne next year, some good bike form rather than relying on base all the time.

Anyway it was still a good event on spectacular trails, I am keen to repeat the effort next year.

[/mtb/events] link

Wed, 02 Sep 2009

2009 Mountain Bike World Championships in Canberra are finally happening. - 07:32

Ben Henderson practising the course (fullsize) 		The worlds most incredible riders are all finally here for the Worlds. It is on and happening. I have been taking photos (and will continue to do so) while I am out there working on site (two weeks of holiday from work to do so).

Yesterday was the first race (Team Relay) which was won by the Italian team. I finally have had a few moments spare to upload my photos so far (though this has made me late on site this morning). My worlds photos are all on my 2009 Mountain Bike World Championships Photos page (no time to spell check this morning)

[/mtb/events] link

Fri, 21 Aug 2009

Where many of my friends will be next week - 12:36
So a lot of my friends I regularly ride bikes with will be over in East Timor next week for the inaugural Tour de Timor, this looks like an excellent event in the making and I would love to be there. The timing however was simply too close to the Mountain Bike World Championships which start on September 1st here in Canberra at Stromlo, there is a lot of work to be done out there next week and I am having the next two weeks off work to work out there with the other CORC people who have been putting in so much time and effort to bring this event to Canberra.

Still I wish Libby, Chris, Gary, Bleeksie, Cameron, and the rest of them an excellent time over there and I look forward to hearing how much fun it was when they return from their adventure.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 29 Jun 2009

Lots of time on foot - 11:09
Yesterday I carried my Garmin in a jar in my backpack so I now know I did 42.8km in the 4h47 minutes spent moving during the metrogaine yesterday. In the end we came in 14 minutes late. After our score was adjusted for the loss of 140 points we had 830 points.

Early on in the event my camelback bladder burst when I slipped walking down off Mt Ainslie and landed on the backpack. Fortunately our course was taking us around 500 metres from my house so we made a detour 20 minutes later and I got a new bladder and changed out of my soaked jersey. Later on on Black Mountain we made a small nav error coming down from the summit trail looking for a 40 point control. We started looking for it too early above the fire roads. It took us about 8 minutes of searching and looking at land features to realise they did not match, look closer at the map and realise we had to head down another 100 metres in a gully to find the control.

Paul was a strong team mate and we got through the day well, today I hurt a lot I can definitely feel I did something on the weekend.

[/mtb/events] link

Sat, 27 Jun 2009

Some races this weekend - 17:01
Today I went out to sparrow hill and raced in the CORC 3 hour race at Sparrow Hill, it was kind of fun. Though my lack of long rides in the last year or two shows, I was pretty good for 2 hours keeping my speed up and heart rate above 150, then my last two and a half laps I just did not have any oomph left in me to go hard. Still a good event, huge turnout, thanks to Paul, Sue, Sherri, Russ, etc for putting it on and to Kent and Bec for the coffee and Leanne for the food out there.

Tomorrow I will be doing the 2009 ACTRA Metrogaine with a friend Paul. As Paul is fit and keen to have a good crack at it I suspect we will both be pushing ourselves pretty hard for the 5 hours of the event. Ahh well I need to do more stuff like races this weekend to HTFU from time to time I think. Fun has been and will be had.

[/mtb/events] link

Fri, 12 Jun 2009

Fairy Geo - Geoquest Half 2009 - 12:12

The snake I stepped on (fullsize) 		Okay so the name Fairy Geo may not be entirely fair, however I heard Pete (from Entropic who won the half) start using the term (largely due to the Fairy Bells at Hells Bells) and I liked it. This year I had no plan to enter the full Geo, so when my cousin Scott asked me to be on his team I was kind of interested. Largely because the race was not at all daunting or challenging sounding to only do the half with a team not trying to go faster than the full course teams.

So I went up there last weekend and had a fun 29 hours of racing. Both my team mate Greg and I took photos which I have uploaded to a 2009 Geoquest Photos page, thanks to Scott, Greg and Su for a good race. Many thanks to Kim and Terry for support and I hope everyone enjoyed it, I did.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 18 May 2009

2009 ACT Cyclegaine - 16:15
Yesterday Keith, Danielle and I competed together in the 2009 ACT Cyclegaine. I took some photos (not many) I have uploaded. I think we came 4th over all and 3rd mixed team (just a bit behind Wayne and Matt in mens, behind Randall, Selina and Mark in mixed and a long long way behind an on fire Chris, Nathan and Heather also in mixed).

A fun day out on the bikes in perfect Autumn weather and enjoying the Cotter Dam/Pierces Creek area in ACT.

[/mtb/events] link

Sun, 03 May 2009

My first Yerrabi Multi sport - 20:22
This is a race I have been keen on doing for a few years, however for a few reasons was unable to the last few years. I finally got my chance today, it was a perfect Canberra day, cold enough to go hard but sunny and calm. The results are up already along with a photo gallery.

I rode my cyclocross bike in the race and I think it was a perfect choice for this course, I managed to do the 28KM bike leg in just over 1 hour including transitions and felt pretty comfortable for the entire leg. My total time for the race was 2h8m (for a 4km run, 5km paddle, 28km mtb and 4km run) which I was fairly happy with. Fun was had, thanks to the local Sri Chinmoy Race Team for another good event.

[/mtb/events] link

Sun, 19 Apr 2009

Morning run in Sydney - 09:14
So because I am in Sydney for the weekend and still wanted to do some exercise I asked my friend Zoe if she was keen on a run somewhere over the weekend. She said she was keen to head out with the Sydney Striders for their Iron Cove Bolter run and cut it short to have a 20 km run. This sounded good so we headed over there this morning for the 6am start.

Starting with the slow group we had a pleasant 20.7km of running at 5:40 pace chatting with the people there and enjoying the cool nice running conditions the morning had dished up for us. Now for the rest of the day in Sydney after some good morning exercise.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 06 Apr 2009

First 24 hour race since February 2006 - 11:12
Well that was interesting, due to being involved with organising CORC events and generally only travelling long distances for Adventure Races or the Gravity 12 hour, I had not competed in a 24 hour mountain bike race since February 2006 (when I raced in the NZ0 24 Hour race in Rotorua, NZ). So this weekend I lined up to compete in the 24 hour race out at Sparrow hill that had nothing to do with CORC.

I was in a 4 person team with Marea (with whom I have competed in Polaris many times), Ian (Marea's partner, who has raced the Scott 24 hour solo and other such things) and an ex Canberra now Brisbane mtber Ged. All was going fairly well until Ian after doing 1 lap on Saturday decided he just could not get his head around the idea of racing 24 hour races any more and wanted to simply do other riding, thus he was not keen to ride any more. This left us as a 3 person team.

I headed out for my 4th and 5th night laps doing a double at around 10pm with our new race plan to do doubles until around 4:30am then singles until dawn and maybe get a friend, Dave A, to ride some laps on Ian's bike in the daylight. However while I was doing my double lap Marea and Ged decided we should rest overnight. I was not incredibly keen on many more night laps so we all went to sleep for a few hours. In the end I rode 6 laps, a total riding time of around 5h40m and felt alright afterwards, though a little bit flat and energy drained today.

Paul set a fantastic course and the rain dump on Friday night was perfectly timed, there was no dust all weekend and the course was tacky and cornering was fast and secure the whole race. I rode one lap on the single speed, however with the chain coming off three times I discovered I needed to take a link out of the chain to get enough tension into it, I did not feel like doing that so rode the geared bike the rest of the time at the race. I was reminded that a duallie would have been faster as you can keep full power down the whole time over bumpy terrain, however it was one of the best hardtail courses around anyway especially with good line choice.

[/mtb/events] link

Thu, 19 Mar 2009

Jindabyne Multisport Classic 2009 - 17:28
Last year I wrote one of my longish and reasonably detailed reports about this race. This year I managed to finish the event solo, however do not feel like writing too much about it. As always the Jindabyne Multisport Classic (they called it a classic, even the first year they ran it...) is a fantastic event. After being pulled out of the water more than 11 hours in during the final swim unable to breathe and cramping up last year I really wanted to finish.

Fortunately I did, though I did not speed up much on last year. I felt fantastic for the first 6 or 7 hours of this race, then sometime during the long run up to sawpit I no longer felt I had enough left in the tank to go hard. I had been hoping that pacing myself I might finally feel I could start putting some effort in at this point, however I was unable to get my HR over 130 for the rest of the race and pretty much crawled all the way to the finish.

Once again my worst leg was definitely swimming, compared with good swimmers in the solo field, such as Alex, I lost almost an hour. Looking at times for excellent swimmers such as Shanyn I lost more, however I can not imagine I will ever swim as well as she does, and I was racing solo anyway. My current plan, rather than stopping swimming again until I start getting ready for this event again next year is to continue to go to at least one coached squad session every week.

On a seeming tangent now, I notice in my GPS/HR training data that since I bought the Garmin in August 2007 I have the distances of all sessions I have done (riding, running, paddling) listed to inspect and view the maps and data from. In that time I have only done a session in which I travelled more than 100KM on 6 occasions. This is pretty pathetic when you consider how easy it is for me to do a road ride over 100 KM. Two of these sessions were the Hawkesbury classic paddle race in 2007 and the Jindabyne race I just finished on Sunday. So I think we can see when compared to how I used to do long road rides at least once a week, generally a longish mountain bike ride every fortnight or so my riding is definitely down on what it once was. Sure I kayak and run now days but none of them tend to be longer than 2 hours very often.

Getting back to the race I think my body just was not ready for more than 6 hours non stop and was not working as well as it could after that time. Also the multi discipline nature of the event was something I had not prepared for well in the lead up. For next year I will definitely need to do more long stuff and make sure I am feeling more ready for such a long stretch out there at intensity.

I must thank my support crew, Kerry, for her help all day. She did a spectacular job and was organised all day and got kept me going despite never having done support like this before, also thanks to Ron for helping her out most of the day. Without their help and some generous help from many others I would not be able to do the event solo.

I did do more swim training before the race this year and I think it showed as I was able to get out of the swims reasonably fresh feeling and was not even the slowest solo competitor in them all. The long ride though I was once more crawling through it, really is spectacular and I recommend it to any mountain bikers who like epic feeling bike legs and big hills and alpine country. The long run is also though a really lovely walking track and when not suffering worth admiring.

Race coverage wise, I have a few photos on my camera but am being a bit lazy to upload them. Sri Chinmoy's gallery page for the event has a fair few (those with me in them are finishing the second bike, transitioning to long run, start of first run, background behind Libby running, start of fun (techy) bike leg, running through Thredbo river picnic area, first swim start with Julie and Alex and getting out of a swim.

There are good shots there of Alex (who won solo mens) and Julie (won solo womens) and a lot of my other friends up there racing. Also there was a professional photographer up there, Greg Long and his event photos are pretty good.

Anyway I enjoyed the event and have a definite interest in trying to do better next year, a spectacular (and hard) day out. I still think more people should enter, it is more fun than Triple Tri, shorter legs, better scenery, something different (though triple tri is itself a lot of fun). Also more solos would be cool (lets hope Zoe, Danielle, Libby and others may be keen to enter next year so it is not just Julie in womens).

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 10 Nov 2008

Gravity again - 14:48
I was once more able to go down to Victoria this weekend and compete in the Gravity 12 Hour mtb race with Sam and Ben. I think we are all pretty happy with our race. Of the 195 teams there racing on the day we came 29th overall. The mixed threes category was again pretty hot, the overall winning team also won mixed threes. Interestingly the rest of the top places in this category were all on the same number of laps as us (19, compared with the 22 laps of the winners), though the team in front of us finished their 19 laps 10 minutes in front of us.

I keep going on about not having much speed at the moment, and it is kind of true that I was going at a pace further below anaerobic than I probably would with more bike time in my legs, I was still remarkably fast. With pretty much an identical loop to last year I managed to do most of my laps only 2 or 3 minutes slower than the same laps last year. Also interestingly my lap times got a bit faster as the day progressed, first lap above 38, second two below 37 minutes, fourth and fifth around 37 to 37:30 then the final lap (only half in gathering darkness) was only a minute slower at 38:30. My cycling base is standing me in good stead and now I just have to build up again and get some speed back. The build up of good endurance will be helped by riding to Goulburn and back a bit. The race speed I am not sure I will get around to working on as I never seem to any other time.

Previous years are 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and a mention of 2007 here.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 08 Sep 2008

Another Angry Doctor Done - 16:49
Last year I headed down to Mogo on the south coast to race in the Netti 100 KM Enduro known as the Angry Doctor. Tom and Alina of AROC Sport run this event and do a damn fine job of it. I headed back to ride again this year, with even less riding in my legs than last year I was in cruise mode to a much greater extent than last year.

Thanks to Dave and Helen for letting us stay with them down there again this year. Thanks to Tom and Alina for putting on another fantastic 100 KM race. This year the first 50 KM was a lot more interesting and I thought somewhat more fun than last year. However due to access issues, land clearing and some other issues the second 50 KM had less single track and some other changes, though it was still good it was not quite as much fun as last year.

A bonus from the weekend was I again had Matilda my Pink Mirage Double Kayak with me and we headed out for a little paddle in the inlet just north of Mossy Pt on Saturday afternoon and we found a dolphin playing around in the water between Mossy Pt and Tomakin. Lots of fun, chasing the dolphin, watching it swim under Matilda, and moving all around us for a while.

The Angry Doctor itself was good fun, I knew I would be on cruise mode as I had not ridden my bike much since March (Broken collar bone and sick through a lot of winter), I think the last time I did more than 70 KM in one go, even on a road bike was back in February or March. So I headed out for the first 50 KM taking it easy, not pushing the pace. Stopped to help one person with a mechanical, stopped for food and drink for a bit at the Aid station, chatted away with people near me on the course had fun in general. By the time I got to the end of the first 50 back in Mogo I realised I was actually going faster than expected as I arrived spot on 3 hours back into Mogo.

So I hung around the half way point chatting away for a while and hanging out, then with cruise mode engaged even more I headed out to do the last 50. I stopped a few times to eat and watch people ride past, I kept on being far more cheerful and laid back than people around me probably wanted to hear and stopped for a while at the aid station too. Eventually I rolled back into Mogo in around 6h 56m with no soreness anywhere and having had a really enjoyable and fun cruise around a really fun and interesting course in a lovely part of the country.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 31 Mar 2008

Lifestart Kayak for kids on Sydney Harbour - 10:25
My first paddles on Sydney Harbour went well on the weekend. Great weather, a cruisy paddle on Saturday and a fun race on Sunday. I put all the photos and a few words online from the event.

Lifestart Kayak For Kids 2008.

[/mtb/events] link

Tue, 25 Mar 2008

Polaris Challenge 2007 - 12:21
Well I mentioned late reports recently, I guess this time I have given up any pretence of ever writing a report for this event. However I did take photos and put comments with them shortly after the event. So I have finally decided to upload the photos from my 2007 Polaris Challenge. I wrote a report with photos for my previous three Polaris events I competed in with Marea (2004 Murramurang/Clyde, 2005 Comboyne, 2006 Delegate).

For some reason I just never felt like writing this one up, maybe it was our lacklustre performance (coming in late on both days), maybe it was my mood toward the event at the time. Then when I still had not written a report by the time I found out the event was never going to happen again, I was not in the mood to write it up. Anyway the photos are interesting (or scarring depending upon how you look at a Rocky Horror themed Polaris and lots of men in stockings).

[/mtb/events] link

Thu, 20 Mar 2008

My 2007 Triple Triathlon report - 16:49
Wow, last year I did not publish my triple tri report until Feb sometime, this year it did not happen until March. I had better be careful with this lagging report habit, November is not that far away.

Anyway Bruce, Larissa and I competed in mixed threes last year and continued the stream of not coming first, who cares though because it is an excellent event. We had a heap of fun and were surprised at finishing well considering I did some running and Bruce some riding to see if we could go slower.

The report is in the normal sort of place, 2007 Sri Chinmoy Triple Triathlon, To The Teeth.

[/mtb/events] link

Tue, 18 Mar 2008

2008 Sri Chinmoy Jindabyne Multisport Classic - 16:59
With a really nasty cold, a bruised hip and not much swim time in the last 6 years I went and tried to finish the Jindabyne Multi Sport race solo on Sunday. The previous two years I had competed in a team doing all the mtb legs. As I have been saying to just about everyone, if on a given day you are so sick you would stay home from work, don't go out and race swimming, kayaking, running and mountain biking for 11 hours non stop, it really is a silly way to try to rid yourself of a cold. Even if it is a really beautiful course and a spectacular event, don't try this at home kids.

Anyway if you want to read about it I put my 2008 Jindabyne Sri Chinmoy Multisport Classic report online in the normal sort of place.

[/mtb/events] link

Wed, 31 Oct 2007

Hawkesbury Classic 2007, Danielle and Steve paddling Matilda - 21:13
As mentioned in the recent post about choosing the name Matilda for my Mirage Double Sea Kayak, Danielle and I paddled in the Hawkesbury classic on the weekend. As I often do I combined a bunch of photos taken with a word or two and put it all online. So anyone who wants to can see how our race went.

Here is our 2007 Hawkesbury Classic Race Report. Enjoy.

[/mtb/events] link

Wed, 26 Sep 2007

No more Polaris Challenge - 14:52
In the latest news from Wild Horizons that arrived in the email today Huw announced that they will no longer be running Australian Polaris events after the Urban Polaris in Canberra in December.

The Australian Polaris Challenge was the first mass participation endurance mountain biking event in Australia, pre dating the Canberra based Australian 24 Hour Mountain Bike Race by two years. By first I am not ignoring events such as the Simpson Desert cycle classic, simply saying mass participation in that the logistics of competing in earlier events such as the Simpson were often as daunting, as the riding component of the event.

I can understand why the Paddle Polaris did not make sense to run, it never had a huge number of entrants and yet would still have had a lot of logistic issues behind putting it on. The Urban Polaris though fun is not an overly challenging event and is only on one day. Also now it has been held in the same city for so long it is no longer as interesting as it may have been the first time or two in one location.

The original event was still the best. The Polaris Challenge, 2 days out there with a friend navigating around the place on your mountain bike. Carrying all your camping gear for an overnight camp somewhere on a 25km by 25km map of some new and interesting location in the Australian bush. The event is modelled on the UK Polaris Challenge (now there are a few other events in other countries also), this started back in 1991 and has run over in the UK since. Huw, being from the UK had competed in the event there and when he arrived in Australia found the lack of a Polaris style event something that needed fixing, thus he started running one here.

There is no other event on the Australia mtb calendar quite like it, cyclegaines (rogaines on bikes) only tend to be one day events, Adventure races have other disciplines than just mountain biking. Mountain bike races do not have much in the way of mental challenges, without the route planning and navigation while out there you can simply head out and push your body with out any thoughts of where you are or how to get around entering your head. The added challenge of packing gear and being able to handle the extra weight and the consequent slow down in your route choices just adds to the fun and challenge.

I had heard for a few years now Huw had been attempting to interest some event organiser in purchasing the rights of all the Polaris events, it appears no one has bitten. I am unsure of what branding issues there are between the UK Polaris and any of the others (they all use the same logo), however I do hope there is another event that comes along in the coming years (and soon) to fill the hole left by this. The effort involved in running an event like this is considerable though as you have to spend a great deal of time in the area the event will run in, get the community on side, get permissions from all land owners involved. Create the maps and arrange all the other logistics. The fact that there has been a drop in numbers attending the event in the past few years probably did not help. It may not need to be branded "Polaris" but the format of camping, teams, navigation, all in one discipline, new and interesting location each year are necessary I think.

Anyway thanks to Huw and the rest of Wild Horizons for all your efforts over the years, I know I had fun (2003 Burraga, 2004 Murramarang, 2005 Comboyne, 2006 Delegate, 2007 Black Springs (have not yet written my report or uploaded the photos)). The fun of the event will be missed.

[/mtb/events] link

Mon, 24 Sep 2007

Fun courses - 10:51
The Scott Australian 24 Hour Mountain Bike Race (this is the race run by CORC that used to be The Mont Australian 24 Hour Mountain Bike Race) is on soon, the 13th and 14th of October. We moved the race back to the Mt Stromlo area for the first time since 2002, this is because we have the amazing new Stromlo Forest Park recreational facility with a huge amount of single track built for riding and racing.

It probably comes as little surprise to hear that I have raced and ridden a lot of different tracks all over the place, and I have to say the course we have put together for this up coming race is one of the most fun and interesting to ride I have seen in a long time. Back in April 2005 I had a bit of a comment on mountain bike race course design, though the Kowen course did improve, last year it was a really interesting course for a lot of people. I still do not think it lived up to enough of the need for an incredible mountain bike course that a race like our large 24 hour needs.

I am happy to say this has completely changed with the move back to Stromlo. We have two loops in the course this year which you or you team alternate laps around. One loop (the red loop) has some climbing and is not technically very challenging at low speeds. The other loop (blue loop) has less climbing, however it has more rock sections and twisty technical bits though out the single track of that loop.

Friday morning I rode the red loop and I must say it still has me grinning a lot 3 days later. Sure there is some bumpy flatter track early in the lap (bumpy because it is only a month or two old and not ridden in solidly yet) and then we have a climb up the trunk trail to the summit of Mt Stromlo. However all that can be forgiven, it is a fairly easy climb after all, and at this point we get the pay back for all that climbing effort. Descending non stop to transition for between 5 and 20 minutes (depends how fast you can ride down) on some of the most amazing sections of single track I have seen in a long time. Wheeeeeeeeee.

Yesterday afternoon I headed out with some friends and we rode a lap of the blue loop, I can definitely see that it is a bit harder technically, however I loved it, the extra challenge by some of the twisty or rocky sections. The grin worthy section on the back side of the mountain below Slick Rock, the flowing and swoopy tracks coming back toward the event centre. Sure it is not 10 minutes of non stop descending but it definitely gets a grin. I almost wish I was racing in the event rather than helping to run it. At least I can go ride these trails any time. Bring it on. :)

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Fri, 20 Jul 2007

Out of Range at the 2007 Geoquest Adventure Race - 14:51
As mentioned a few times the report from Geoquest 2007 has been a while in coming, pretty much all involved in the team have now seen it and have no problems with it. In it are 99 photos, 5 videos and a fair chunk of text. We had fun and I am hoping to be back next year for more of it. Thanks to Bruce, Danealle, Craig and Brendan for racing and big thanks to Jane, Zoe and Jaymz for supporting. Also Gran and Jude were fun to have around the race.

Anyway for anyone who wants to have a look here is our report from the team Out of Range at the 2007 Geoquest Adventure Race. Enjoy.

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Wed, 11 Jul 2007

Far too verbose - 21:58
As I mentioned at the end of June, my Geoquest report was on the way. I finally finished writing it tonight and after a quick spell check sent it along to the team and support crew to have a look at and approve or modify. I am currently almost hoping they tell me it needs to be cut down.

Last year my Geoquest report was around 4,000 words. This year I somehow kept writing until I had almost 10,000 words. What the heck did I blather on about for so long? The other day someone rather amusingly suggested they never bothered reading reports a common friend wrote as they went into too much detail. I had better reread my report and check I have not suffered from the same problem. Anyway once the team and support crew have glanced over the report and assuming I am satisfied I am not boring everyone to tears (I am sure you will all just look at the photos and video and ignore the words anyway...) I can finally upload it soon.

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Fri, 29 Jun 2007

Geoquest was fun, my report is on its way. - 17:30
So I had a good time up at Geoquest, thanks to Craig, Danealle, Bruce and Brendan for racing and to James, Zoe and Jane for supporting. Also to Aunt Jude and Grandma for moral support, additional help, all the food, etc.

My report is on its way, I know no one wants to hear excuses so I wont provide any... I thought I had only written a few words but wc claims I have 5500 or so in there already and I am only half finished. 

[17:15:59] 126 oneiros sjh /tmp/digicam/geoquest07>wc index.html 
 1139  5501 41252 index.html

I have 99 photos and 5 videos with the report this year too. Anyway when I finish writing the text, hopefully this weekend sometime, I will let my team and support crew have a geeze and then if they like it share it with everyone.

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Wed, 16 May 2007

We have a team, a support crew, some boats, some bikes, cool lets go hurt ourselves. - 16:36
Last year I competed in the Geoquest Half adventure race with Lina, Michelle and Ian. This year I wanted to go back and compete in the full length race. The half is a 24 hour race (effectively), the full has a 48 hour time limit to complete the course. (well the half also has a 48 hour time limit, however it is approximately half the distance).

This race is a fairly large commitment of time, training and money to compete in, simply getting through 48 hours without sleep while navigating and racing in different disciplines is not trivial. Unfortunately none of my team mates from last year were able to compete this year (Knee Injury for one, another in South Africa, and the last not wanting to try the full length race this year).

Fortunately I have been able to convince 3 other friends to come along and race. Bruce, who I compete in Triple Tri with and other events over the past few years. Craig who has been doing some rides with Bilbys recently and has done a 24 hour mtb solo and is a damn tough bugger. Danealle who raced the full Geo last year with the Pink Ladies and thus has experience and proven toughness. Rock on, one hell keen team out there to have fun on the full course.

For support crew I have Jane (sister) returning, Zoe a Bilbys friend who wants to find out what Geo is about with the aim of possibly competing next year, Tom (Zoe's partner, who is likely to be roped in as support next year), James a mountain biking friend with bike mechanic experience to wrench and stuff and Louise (Jane's flatmate) who sounded enchanted with the support thing after Jane described it last year (I hope Louise fails to realise last year Jane had a remarkably easy support job due to the course structure, but hey if you wont tell her I wont...)

Next we had to get a pair of double sea kayaks, preferably fibreglass (lighter and generally thinner and faster) and ensure we had the rest of the gear needed (lights and batteries sufficient to last two nights in a row when we may be separated from our support crew for a long time), and generally commit to doing the race.

I have a new toy I bought which will take care of one of the above requirements, I will probably mention it next week when I get it, other than that we have been out doing some training and sussing out some of the gear and talking in the team about what conditions have been like previously and will be like this year.

Our main goal is to have fun and complete the course, we think we stand a good chance of meeting both goals. Bruce is overseas for work this week, however last night Craig, Danealle and I went out for a hill hike on Mt Ainslie which was fun, this was after a paddle yesterday morning with Danealle. This morning Craig and I both rode with the Bilbys road bunch and then headed to the lake for another paddle. I guess if nothing else this gives me something to get off my lazy arse an do some exercise for <g>.

The team motto for the event is "Because its there and fun will be had" and the bio I put in with the race entry was

4 Canberrans who constantly find there is more fun to be had outdoors than in our loungerooms.

We know each other from the Canberra AR community and the Bilbys Tri club, though none of us are triathletes.

Steve and Danealle have raced at Geo before and both have an affectation for the colour pink, Craig and Bruce will probably attempt to counter the pink gear (boat, mountain bike, some clothing, etc) of half the team.

Bruce and Steve have been doing events in teams together for a number of years, including some AR. Danealle has done a lot of AR, Craig is a tough nut and likes to try new stuff.

Our aim is to have fun and complete the course.

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Mon, 26 Mar 2007

Jindabyne Multisport Classic 2007 - 12:10
Bruce, Shanyn, Randall and I competed again in the Sri Chinmoy Jindabyne Multisport Classic this year. Just as we did last year we had a fantastic time out there. Gorgeous surrounds, some fun legs, great feeling among the teams racing, etc.

I took some photos and wrote a few words at the top for anyone to see our day out 32 Flavours at the 2007 Jindabyne Multisport Classic

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Sun, 25 Feb 2007

AROC Sprint in Canberra - 21:45
I took my camera with my while doing an AROC Adventure Race on Saturday. This was just a short one, what used to be called a Sprint adventure race. I still like to call them Sprints, it is all a matter of perspective after all. When people frown at you and say "but a sprint is a fast anaerobic effort, maybe 30 seconds max" you can just say you are simply looking at it from a point of view of duration and comparing it with the 48 hour or 5 to 10 day races.

Anyway Bruce and Ron raced with me, I made some Nav errors and we lost a bit of time, but who cares we had a great time and I learnt a few lessons to make note of for next time. Bring on the 12 hour at the end of March.

Oh and the photos from the race are all on my AROC Adventure Race - Canberra, 2007-02-24 photos page.

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Fri, 23 Feb 2007

The Polaris Challenge encouraging mental scars - 23:00
Oooh the location for the 2007 Polaris Challenge was announced today, In Black Springs just near Oberon, however this is not the interesting part. Marea and I have had no idea what to do costume wise this year. One other thing that was announced with the final details today is the theme.

The Rocky Horror Picture show is the theme of the Polaris Challenge this year. I see soooo much potential to inflict even more mental scarring on people than I have in past years. Ahh this theme could be oh so wrong.

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Mon, 12 Feb 2007

Triple Triathlon 2006, 32 Flavours report finally online. - 16:15
After waiting for a few months for the final shirt to arrive I finally decided it was not likely to happen in a reasonable time frame so I wrote my 2006 Triple Triathlon report. Shanyn, Randall and Bruce have all read it and liked it well enough so I spread the word last night.

So if anyone wants to know, this is the 2006 Triple Triathlon for the 32 Flavours team. Fun was had, thanks again to Shanyn and Bruce for racing with me.

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Mon, 05 Feb 2007

Working Week Series 2007 - Lithgow - Round 1 - 16:45
Well I have to say I enjoy racing in Stu's Working Week series races, 8 hours is a god length of time to race. Either solo if you want to do a bit of endurance, or my preference in Pairs for a good hit out. Sarah and I decided to head on up and compete in round 1 of the 2007 Working Week Series at Lithgow.

We camped at the course and met up with a few other friends, some form Canberra, some from Sydney when we got there on Saturday arvo. Then come Sunday we rode around for 8 hours and drove home. Much fun was had. I wrote a few words to put with a few photos an have them up on a Working Week Series - Lithgow Round 1 page.

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Mon, 29 Jan 2007

2007 Audax Alpine Classic - Bright, Victoria, Australia - 15:58
As I did last year, I went down to Bright this weekend just gone to participate in the Audax Alpine Classic for 2007. Gorgeous scenery, fun riding, big climbs, big descents and to top it off this year we even had perfect conditions. Sunny, not too hot, not too cold. Heck we could call it the Mama Bear's Porridge edition of the Alpine Classic.

Anyway I took a bunch of photos and made comments on them, they are online in the normal location where I would put 2007 Audax Alpine Classic photos.

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Mon, 13 Nov 2006

Good consistency where Gravity happens. - 14:58
In this case I am referring to the Gravity 12 hour mountain bike race held at Rosewhite in Victoria every November rather than the Scientific property of matter. This year I teamed up with Gail and Alex, we had a great time at the race. The course was dry, I did not overheat, all worked out well.

I have photos and a few words up on my 2006 Gravity 12 Hour Mountain Bike Race page. As for consistency, I was happy with my performance, being able to do 6 laps with the following lap times: 37:54, 37:33, 37:20, 37:13, 37:36 and 41:48 around the 12.3 KM slightly hilly lap.

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Mon, 09 Oct 2006

The Scott Australian 24 Hour race is done and dusted - 20:42
What used to be the Mont 24 Hour Race was this year known as the Scott Australian 24 Hour Mountain Bike Race, though I have competed in this event previously, last year, and now this year also I was CORC's Site Manager for the event. (largely because as the CORC vice president I feel somewhat guilty if I do not help out a lot with the club's premier event).

Anyway as I mention in the title the event is done and dusted. The term dusted applies rather literally this year as it was the dustiest 24 hour race we have had yet, there were many people wearing dust masks, all people, tents, bikes, everything else out there was coated liberally with dust even at the beginning, by the end of the race there was a lot more dust everywhere. We had the biggest 24 hour mountain bike race in the world again, with 3031 riders entered, around 180 solo entrants, by the end of the race over 11,000 laps had been ridden which is about 241,000 KM (6 times around the circumference of the earth).

Russ had the preliminary results up yesterday afternoon before he and I had even finished packing up the stuff we had to get packed last night. A big thanks to all the volunteers out there who helped us run the race, and to all the riders I hope you all had a fantastic time and are already thinking up plans to come back. Next year we return to Stromlo on a brand new course almost in the centre of town.

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Mon, 21 Aug 2006

RRR Classic 2006 - 18:48
I took a few photos at the RRR Classic mountain bike race yesterday and have now put my photos from the event online.

Definitely a fun course, the thick bull dust down the bump track was very different to most riding I do anywhere. Apparently that will clear up during the next heavy rain, though with the grader having gone down the track most of the interesting rock gardens and their ilk are gone for a few years.

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Fri, 18 Aug 2006

Herberton 8 Hour mtb race - 23:07
Or how I adjusted to the Cairns temperatures slowly, by doing a mountain bike race in the tablelands with rain and almost Canberran temperatures.

Sam and Ben are not going to be competing in the Gravity 12 hour race this year with me as they are living up in Cairns for a year. Thus I was keen to do a race with them at some point. When I saw this appear on the Cairns MTB club calendar it was appealing, then I saw the RRR Classic on the following weekend. That pretty much sealed this holiday for me, so we did the 8 hour race last weekend. As I saw in the few words I write about it, fun, pretty cruisy, could use more interesting singletrack but on the whole worth doing if you are up here.

Anyway if you want to see the details (photos, some words) have a look where I put them.

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