BMC Mountain Bike Endurance Race 2008

Appin Race Course

This is a trip report about the third part of the 8 hour Mountain Bike Endurance Race in the BMC Bright Orange Events Series following Lindsdale in January. For details go Here.

Third part of the BMC Working Week Series 2008 was held at Appin on the 25th May. Following the first part of the BMC series held in January on the Lindsdale course in the Blue Mountains this was the second time that we entered a geriatric team to show the young ones how its done on hard tails. None of that soft dually stuff but good old back-breaking, cocyx-shattering Hard riding. The Lindsdale was concerned in style by Bryan, Mat and Roman whereas Appin was ravished by Leo, Mat and Roman. Looks like two of us thankfully have short-term memory loss and forgetting about the pain went for a second helping. Not to worry we won't forget this one so easily especially since most of us had a hard time walking in straight line the next day. Let alone attempt something called 'work'.

As is tradition we left Sydney the night before to stay at a well-known pub nearby (Mount Victoria Pub for Lindsdale) the race course and 'try' not to drink too much beer. This was made more difficult than ever due to the fact that we stumbled across the "George IV Inn" - one of Australia's oldest pubs. As it turned out this pub has its own brewery and produces "Sharers Lager" based on a German family recipe from the 15 Century. I was certainly impressed when I checked the German menu and found some of the stuff I grew up with back in Vienna (Leberkase). Just in case the beer wasn't good enough, the food was also suburb and we retired back to our not so splendid Picton Hotel two bed room. After finding a bed for Leo we had an early night and rose early heading straight to the local bakery.

Then it was just a short drive to Appin where somebody forgot to place a sign on the main road for the proper turn-off. By the time we got in the registration queue the start was 10 minutes away and we decided to have a cup of coffee and let the hard core guys go out first. Lucky we did because shortly after the start we watched the main field crawl past us on the single track start. So after everybody else had left the true hard men decided to have a go. The course was a technical single track loop that crossed several water courses through about 10 km of Aussie bush. Overtaking was often difficult and there were some dangerous drop-offs which caused several serious accidents. Mat definitely deserves the first prize for the best falls on lab one and two. He went over the handle bars several times and landed 'comfortably' and solid rock. Its a miracle that he got up and kept going in fact he appeared to be getting stronger and finished relatively fresh on lab number 4 after a solid 40 km of hard trail. Leo was just as inspiring and on Will's bike without clip-ins, equaled every technical bit we did with style. At the end he was ready for lab number five. Personally I didn't do quite as well, I loved the first two labs and enjoyed lab three most of all - maybe because I was riding a 6000$ dual suspension bike. Unfortunately I had to get back on my hard tail which by then had lost its rear break. Struggling not to break too hard on my front wheel, I had a simple log and went head first. Tired and weary I struggled home and had nothing left in the tank.

The obstacles on the course matched some of the hard spots on Manly Dam and eclipsed with a hard uphill section through a river bed. Then there was the skull and cross bone descent which many people just walked. Finally there was a double dip over two huge boulders which had an A (Bike God) and B (chicken) option. A mistake on any of these tricky bits would have been quite serious. At two PM after our fours laps we looked at each other long and hard. I was praying silently that Mat and Leo would not want to do another lab and thankfully they agreed. One more lab would have been nice but could have been quite damaging to our well-being especially because at that point you don't know how you will feel tomorrow.

Tired but with big smiles we already thought of the next race.....

Address:

Old Hume Highway, Picton NSW 2571
Phone: (02) 4677 1415 - Fax: (02) 4677 2466

http://www.australianbeers.com/pubs/george/george.htm

Home of Scharer's brewery

Roman 03 June 2008