Scott 24hr Canberra Australia

This event starts long before the others do, while Jude sorts out the flights, accommodation,  rental car etc, I still have to do my part including cleaning bikes, after Gav has done the final check on the race bike, 3 bikes have to be packed in to bags and boxes, along with tools, clothes, race food etc, Now to keep baggage to a minimum all 4 bags have to be under 23kgs, we do have a little bit of extra with carry on, but still its no easy feat…..

We flew out on the 1^st flight Tues morning so it out of bed at 3am or 1am Aussie time, Caught a bit of kip on the plane, Customs at the other end was all good, having clean shiny wheels and soles of bike shoes helps with this.

 

Sydney to Canberra is almost 300km of 4 laned highway with a speed limit of 110km

It passed by pretty quickly, (this is the southbound lanes the northbound lanes are way over to right somewhere)

 Our rental car for the week was Kia Carnival, actually“Grand Carnival” no less!

 Was this a sign of the week to come?

 at the motorcamp where we had a cabin booked (behind the fugly mobile), I built my bike and Jude’s training bike up and we headed out to Stromlo Forest Park to check out the red lap…..

I just love the descent back down of the mountain on the red lap….

It was super dusty, but nice to be riding in short sleeve shirts

The tent village was also already being set up, we are somewhere in the middle of that lot.

Day 2 Wednesday, Time to check out the blue lap, this lap seemed to take for ever, it just seemed to wind and wind and wind on for ever, it also had number of tricky spots in it that would need sorting out, finally we arrived back at the field where all the Roos were

The blue lap while it didn’t climb as high as the red, I’m fairly sure it had more climbing in it as it undulated the whole way around and the trail seemed a lot narrower than the red lap, it was also 2km’s longer at 14km, so there was 26km of track in total to sort, lucky most of the red lap used the same trails as the worlds 2yrs ago.

Day 3 Thursday. Charlotte arrived, and it was raining but we headed out for another blue lap. We found was the rocks were still very grippy…good thing or so we thought

Day 4 Friday..last day before race day. We did  2/3’s of the blue lap with Jude, it had cleared up today which showed up another issue, the rocks that where clean and grippy yesterday where now covered in a fine layer of grit making them very slippery. Being the last dial in day we didn’t want to spend a long time out there tiring out Jude’s legs so she was going to have wing it from here on out,

Probably gained about 15m in height here,  the rocks where very stally

Day 5 Saturday, 1^st half of race day.  We woke up to a nice fine day, but the forecasts were for evening showers, while Charlotte opted to ride down to the venue Jude and I drove down. Like worlds 2yrs ago we had to park about 1km away from our tent. They had said they would put a shuttle on for the gear but it was nowhere to be seen, I had kind of suspected this, so had loaded most of the stuff we need into two big bags, I slung one across the top tube, I couldn’t get my feet to the pedals, so it was seat down and roll…..lucky it was down hill, while Charlotte managed the other one.

12noon race start, Lucky for Jude it was a rolling start, with there being some 120 odd solos and 340 odd teams, they split the start with aprox half on the blue and half on the red lap, with team starting with a lemans start 5mins after the solos but race timing didn’t start till the first rider was on a bike……..

We were expecting Jude to do the Red lap in about an 1hr, she arrived back at the tent in about 54mins so things were on target, the blue lap we estimated it was going to be about 1:20 1-30, but cracked the first lap out in 1:08 sweet……

As I have said in the past in 24hr racing anything can happen…..

Our the first problem, Jude’s drink/food tasted off , but it was a brand new tub, check water, yep that’s ok, check bottle, no it seems fine, both Charlotte and I think Perp tastes like crap at the best of times so how can we judge if its off or not? Hmmm….

Compared it to the other new tub and yer it tasted different, ok so it the powder, next problem, 1 tub won’t last the full event, so it off to town so find some more. Lucky we had called into the Speshy shop earlier in the week and spotted Hammer products there, but they only had a small tub of  “Caffe”, what other flavour to grab orange/vanilla, strawberry/vanilla? Basically it was “Eenie Meenie Minie Mo”, the orange won…its either that or the manky stuff at the end of the day…(and stuff I brought was the ‘Oz’ blends which tastes different to USA blends we have here…just to add to the dilemma)

The next few laps went with out issue, the rain arrived just before dusk,

 and if nothing else it meant we got an awesome sunset.

Day 6, Sunday, 2^nd half of race day. Just after midnight Jude came in saying her rear tyre had gone flat and she had to pit stop it back up, and she had had a heavy crash, hurting her ribs. We sent her out on her spare bike with arriving back at the tent 20mins later with no bike (she had left it on the side of the track – unsure of the rules about leaving the track – so took the safe option) saying her helmet light has gone out, swapped to a new battery, but we were to find out about 1:40 later the head unit was packing up…a massive time loss on that lap

The follow lap she was back on her main bike, only for the rear tyre to go flat again, and another crash, ending with nasty cut on her finger. So I fired her spare bike wheel into her main bike and put the wheel of my bike into the training bike...can anything else get thrown at us?

Sunrise, not as good as sunset but still cool never the less.
in saying that, sunrise's are always good at a 24hr!

As soon as dawn arrived I sent out on her spare bike for a lap as he main bike was looking very dirty, giving me a chance to clean it and give it a once over, At the end of the lap she came in and said hope don’t have to ride that again the rear brakes not working, quick squeeze and the lever was coming right into the bars, check pads ok,

Yep pump lever a few times and came up but wouldn’t stay up, pulled the cap off the lever and pumped heaps to try and remove as much air as I could, but I think its time to give them a full service.

All night we where hearing reports from other riders the track was packing up and becoming un-rideable in places, even that they had cut one section out ‘cos it got that bad

I don’t believe this happened, wishful thinking on someone’s behalf.

Once full daylight had arrived Judes lap times had dropped down to around the time we were expecting at the start of the event, this is a good sign and probably the first time this had happened, normally the night takes so much out of her she has nothing left to pick up the pace again in the daylight. It also meant we may have been getting something right in the tent…food levels correct.

The 21hr mark Just when we think we are home and free, 3^rd place has woken up and pulling Jude in fast, now the rules they work a little different to home.

You must finish your last lap after 23hrs and before 25hrs
You can not start your last lap after 24hrs.......confused yep the kiwi way is easier

At this point 3^rd was about ¾ of a lap down on Jude, and what we had to work out was at what point could Jude stop? She finished her 2^nd to last lap at aprrox 23:35 now if third finshed her 2^nd to last lap before the 24hr mark and could get another lap in before the 25hr mark she would pass Jude…….you try and work this out on very little to no sleep

We played it safe and against Jude’s wishes sent her out again, but as it turned out 3^rd finished her last lap just after the 24hr mark…oh well

We did it and a big thanks goes to Charlotte

It was a hard earned 2^nd place, I guess-ti-mate Jude probably lost about 1hr -1:10 with her light and tyre issues, Not enough to change the result but it may have given 1^st something to think about,  again we learned a lot……..wonder what the next one will throw at us ?

We-ow the event Mascot

About 8 am on Facebook I wrote:
 

Still in second but needs to keep moving if she going to maintain it
At the last stop she made a comment she never felt so broken, has nasty gash on one finger. She had couple of big spill last night....but spirits still seem to be ok....
Its been a tough race for her....."smashed" I think is the word


The first reply back was

smashed is exactly how she should feel. tell her that means she is putting in big time. keep smashing!!!!!!!!! 4 hrs is nothing!

Thanks Jess