Punished

Capital Punishment was held last weekend and there weren't many things that went right for me. Getting out of bed was the first mistake. Missing the start was the second - it seemed everyone else was a bit slow to get moving in the pre-dawn rain. I lost my front brake at about the 10km mark and it was about here that I decided I'd wait for Po and cruise the race until we got near enough to home. Cruising was pretty fun. Tucking in to the food at the feed zones was awesome! Choc rum balls yum-scrums!

Ah AROC, my first impressions meeting you guys - lost, looking for the Mogo trails, in a car with maps, laptops and GPS's - wasn't a good one. This one wasn't much better. The course leaves much to be desired. So too your treatment of trails and volunteers. I'm giving you one more chance - the Angry Doctor this September. Please don't stuff it up.

Still smiling though;)

Red Centre Enduro Pics

Po from the year 2000, post-time trial. It was a short one - 300m uphill sprint.

Jrad means business.

Po on Stage 5, 23km time trial on the East Side tracks.

Fin! Po, Julia and Suze in very schnappy ASCC kit at the end of the final stage.

Red Centre Enduro

A mad flurry of bike washing, house packing, farewells and flights and i'm back in Canberra, sitting on the family sofa watching Rosellas wash in the fishpond. Time to reflect on the Red Centre Enduro...

D1/S1 - 50km
The first stage got away after a parade behind a police car through the streets of Alice. I fulfilled a dream by giving high-5s to the school kids that lined the streets to cheer us off. Awesome way to start! Unfortunately it got pretty shit pretty quickly. After a dusty few kms of fireroad following the train line north, we turned west over the tracks and got on to 'the infamous Hell Line'. We were warned that this was the worst piece of track that we would ride all week, so to take it easy. (In retrospect I can think of quite a few other bits of trail we rode which would qualify as worse, but I digress).

The 'Hell Line' is actually the 'West Macdonnell Mountain Bike Track' - possibly the shittest, rockiest 4wd track ever to be called a 'mountain bike track'. The only good things about it were that it's 14-ish-kms seemed to pass by relatively quickly, and that it led in to the good west side single track. Unfortunately my mate Al came a-cropper here, hurting his shoulder and cracking some ribs. Terrible luck to happen on the first day, but atleast he didn't snap his bike in 2 like some other dude did!

I didn't have the best day on the bike. I underestimed the track's length and ran out of water, and also didn't eat enough so faded in the last 10km or so. Still, it was good to arrive at the velodrome for the finish and get stuck in to the post-race oranges!

D1/S2 - 0.3km ITT
Stage 2 was an easy and fun, but brutal, tick - a 300m sprint up Anzac Hill. The knicks were in the wash so Po and I took the opportunity to get in to some glad rags - me in my brown ensemble, and Po in her Qantas Cup skinsuit from 2000. Tops!

D2/S3 - 50km
Stage 3 was a fun stage, possibly the highlight for me, and where I started to come good after the struggles of the first stage. We started from the Telegraph Station, and after a few kms of pretty fast fireroad got on to the singletrack of East Side, and pretty well didn't get off it until the finish at the Casino. I made sure I stopped at the water point to get more fluid, and also managed to eat more on the track. Still not quite right, but definitely an improvement.

The afternoon was pretty busy. I had a great farewell work lunch at The Watertank and then had to clean and pack the bike in time for it's transit out to Trephina for the next days stage.

D3/S4 - 95km
Up at 4:30am to catch the school bus out to Trephina Gorge. Our dopey driver thankfully realised headlights were a good idea at about 20km in, and we arrived safely to a pile of cold, dewey bikes. We got underway at 7:30 and tried desperately to savour the extreme smoothness of the first 3km of bitumen. The rest of the day would be a mix of rough goat tracks, river sand and fireroad.

Despite a little Lara Bingle in the last couple of kms (I rode in to a 30cm wide, 50cm deep ditch: pitched over the bars, cracked my helmet and scraped my leg and nipple), I had a great day on the bike. The endless kms of sand proved hard for everyone, but I think with my long legs and a few good pacesetters around me, I managed to ride or run through enough of it to keep some sort of a rhythm. I ate and drank just the right amount and was rewarded with a top 20 finish which I was happy with. Dinner that night at Casa Nose-bags with Po and my auntie Melissa was a nice reward too!

D4/S5&6 - 23ITT&23km
The track for these 2 stages was identical, but to keep it interesting S5 was run as an ITT and S6 was a mass-start night stage. The trail used was the 'golf course loop', a fast and fun bit of singletrack - probably my favourite of Alice Springs.

D5/S7 - 45km
Last day! Hooray!.. although it was hard to breath easy as I was thinking about just how much packing I had to do between the end of this stage and my flight the next morning.

We set off from the Chifley in town and quickly got on to the singletrack on the east side of town. The trail mapped north and west around town, pretty much picking up any bit of trail that we'd missed in the previous 4 days of riding, finishing at the Telegraph Station. It was a fun trail, and once again I was feeling pretty good, picking up the stragglers that had gone out too hard too early. The one downside this day was the inclusion of THE shittest bit of rock-strewn, barbed-wire-bordered 'track' in the last few kms of the stage, when there was a perfectly good bit of trail around the corner (that we'd ridden on S3). This almost ruined it for me, and unfortunately it did ruin it for some.

All in all it was a great 5 days of racing. The format, as far as i'm aware, is unique for a stage race - being based in one spot with all the racing happening around you. It certainly took off any pressures usually accompanied with logistically complicated stage racing. (Plus, we got to sleep in our own bed, shower in our own shower..!). But to be honest it couldn't happen any other way in Alice - there just aren't any trails beyond those that were used.

The race is organised by RapidAscent, an adventure-race company. They did a great job, but there was definitely an adventure-race 'flavour' to the event. Really glad i've done it, but pretty sure I won't be back next year:)

Pics to come...

Regular Alice

Ah Saturday in Alice, 12pm. I just melted taking the washing off the line, so it's time to stop, sit down, drink a nice cold bevvy and recap on the week that was.

Mum and Dad have just visited for a few days which was awesome. They came up with their 4wd on the Ghan from Adelaide last Thursday. Unfortunately I couldn't get out of the office at the right time to wave them in with my white hanky. Next time maybe. We had an action packed weekend with them, getting out to see a few of the sights closer to town. Saturday we drove out through the East MacDonnell Ranges visiting Corroboree Rock, Trephina Gorge, Arltunga and (almost) Ruby Gap. Sunday morning we spent a few hours at the Desert Park, and then in the arvo took in a concert at the Telegraph Station. They started the drive back to Canberra Monday morning, and I believe are currently getting rained out in Mildura.

The rest of the week was fairly standard, but was highlighted by 3 not-so-standard occurances.

#1: Giant Flying Condom. Unfortunately the GFC doesn't show up too well in this photo taken from the office window - it's the tiny white blip top-centre. Supposedly it was a huge weather balloon that was being built for ages here, and launched that morning from out near the airport. The skys were pretty calm that day so it took ages to float away out of view. Also, it looked 'used'.

#2: The Traick. The only way to get around the bush. ..as long as you only want to go North or South. I spied this speedy beauty the other morning whilst out riding. I just hope they timed it right (to miss the south-bound freight train)

#3: Exploding beer bottles! While loading the shopping on to the treadly at Coles the other night, I had the pleasure of having 2 beer bottles thrown at me. The first exploded just in front of me, the second flew passed and hit a parked car behind me. Nothing to do with me - they were meant for a porky white dude standing next to me. The exchange:
(Probably racist) white dude: "You drunk!"
(Probably drunk) black dude: "You racist!"

Rolly rolly

I was lucky enough to see my first roll cloud formation this morning while out riding Ross Highway. A pretty rare occurance for anywhere in the world, except over the Gulf of Carpentaria where the famous Morning Glory forms pretty reliably.

Remembering Willo

Last Friday was Willos funeral in the Southern Highlands. Unfortunately Po and I couldn't make it so we thought we'd do something special for him up here. Jumping on the bikes we went for an awesome 3hr night ride on the east side trails. We found a beautiful little elevated spot with views south to Alice, and on all sides to a gathering lightning storm. There, planted in the red earth, we both left him a candle and a message.

See ya Jimi. You were an inspiration.

Santa Teresa

So unfortunately, I've been getting pretty bored with the riding around here lately. The mtb trails were good. Great, even. But a combination of unsuitable terroir, unsustainable trail works and shite loads of rain have played havok with the singletrack, leaving behind either deep rocky ruts or rivers of deep deep sand.

Rideable? Barely. Enjoyable? Nope.

There's work being done of course (it has to be - just 4 shorts weeks away is the 5-Day Red Cenna Enduro!), but as far as I can tell it's been concentrated in one small area and has generally been of the create-new-trails-to-bypass-the-eroded-ones type of trail work. Sustainable practice?..

(Geeze, I didn't mean this to turn in to a rant now!)

Anyway, the short of it is, I've been venturing further afield for mtb riding pleasures. The other weekend Po had to drive out to Santa Teresa to drop off a TB patient, and so I put my hand up to keep her company on the return journey by riding out there in the morning. The ride promised somewhere between 80-100kms of fireroad, of unknown condition, through some scenic country, with the reward of a sports carni at Santa Teresa and a free lift back to Alice:)

I got lucky on the first one - it was only 80km - but lucked out on the second, the corrugations, but I now have a much tougher arse to show(?) for it. The scenery was great with beautiful rolling hills and barely a blade of Buffel grass in sight.

The ride did drag on a bit. Running out of water and food an unknown distance from Santa Teresa probably didn't help, but passing 2 fellas sitting on an esky full of tinnies under the 'Prescribed Area' sign certainly told me I was close. They gave an awesome wave too!

I got to within 5km of ST when a white 4wd pulled up along side and the driver tried, and succeeded, in picking me up. Luckily it was Po:) ST, and the carni, were great.

The famous church in ST.

"Carn you bloody Hawks!"

The drive back to Alice went smoothly at first. We did manage to convert one of the tyres to a low profile version. Unfortunately it was just the one, and probably a little too low profile to impress the chicks outside Bojangles. There was a slight hiccup in changing the tyre as the jack handle was playing hide-n-seek somewhere in the car, but we weren't far from Alice so a rescue by Po's boss was relatively quick and easy.

jarrad writes notveryregularly at the moment

..yep, it's true, and so its recap time! Hooray! I think i'll start with the most recent and work back as far as my memory will take me.

Kings Canyon.

What a rad place to spend a few days over Easter. Po and I piled our selves and our extraordinarily large esky in to the back of Jess and Geordies Suby and we hit the road. It's about a 300km drive SW of Alice, the middle 100 being dirt, and G kept us suitably entertained with his awesome driving (and Jess on the way back - thanks guys!). After arriving mid-arvo on the Saturday we set up camp and went for a drive to check out the deal-i-o. We managed to squeeze in the Rim Walk on dusk, which proved a magic time to do it. No flies, no tourists (except a few buzzing around up top in them whirly birds), perfect temps and magic light. (Damn, 'magic' twice. Ah well, it's a rad word).

The unfortunate flipside to this was that we had now exhausted our legal options for Kings Canyon.

Bring on the 'stealthwalk'!

I won't delve too much in to the meaning of our newly-coined pursuit. Suffice to say, Kings Canyon is a massive massive park with some amazing amazing things to see, or so we hear..



Now, with that done and dusted, it was time to hit up the town! Bring on $40 steaks and toneless renditions of 'Home Among the Gum Trees'! Yeehoo!

ok, NOW its flowing..

It's been raining on and off for a few days now, sometimes quite heavily, and you could tell that everyone was expecting - hoping - that the Todd would flow. I don't know when it last did flow, but I do know that in the 6-odd months we've been here theres been barely more than a drop fall from the sky. According to BOM we had 0.1mm in the entire month of November, and i'm quite sure that 2009 rated as the driest on record for the Alice. And we don't even have water restrictions!!

Well, Po and I got quite excited by the trickle of beer cans and empty cartons that was the Todd flowing 2 days ago.

The river had dramatically widened the next day, certainly qualifying as a flowing river. Yippee! But the rain had eased. The clouds were rising and dispersing. We went to bed thinking the levels will be dropping back down to the festy trickle of the day before...

Damn no! Piffing down rain over night and through the morning. The fact that gutters here are viewed as a pointless extra meant we had a curtain of water sheeting down all around our apartment. The yard was going under. My thongs even started to float away (just like Rachs at New Years..!)

I got an excited call from Po at 11am. "Stop studying! Get your arse to the bridge! And bring the camera!". The river was thumping. Everyone was out, and excited, to see the Todd flow. One guy on a surfboard was floating down the river near Heavitree Gap. Police, ASTC and SES were out in force blocking the crossings and warning would-be lilo-ers about jumping in.

It's another quirk of Alice that 4 of the 5 river crossings (for vehicles) flood when the river really flows. The Todd effectively divides the town in two, so when there's closures, a traffic jam 100's of metres long forms either side of the one bridge across. Amazingly though, not an angry 'beep' was heard. (This, from a town that gets pissed at having to wait 1 minute for a train, or having to change lanes for a cyclist.. mind you, they probably ARE all pissed)

Ok, now back to the study..