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...
