Back Yamma Bigstack

Driving home yesterday afternoon I thought that its nearly the end of the year and I’ve finally finished a 100K race (this year’s seen a Dirtworks DNF and a Husky last min change to the 50) sure I did the nearly 400K Mountains to beach, but the longest MTB race stage was “only” 90K’s.

This race is the easiest 100 that I have done so far and probably the easiest 100 going around? but that’s not to say that its easy peezy.. the flatness of the course and lack of technical riding means that the challenge is grinding in the big ring and trying not to wash out on corners and the high speed berms… and fighting a headwind in a mountain bike race??

No camping this time for us, it would be an awesome spot for camping but the length of the drive pretty much sold us on the hotel thing this time.

After an evening loading up on the pre race required coopers and a glass or two of red we arrived at the start line, proceeded to line up about mid pack, off we go and it’s a congo line to the first fire road, a very slight climb here spreads out the field, I gain a lot of spots here and we are off again into the single track, making good time and I’m chasing a few guys when we come to the first dam, my heads down following the guy in front and it’s here that the guy in the front of the pack goes around the dam (I swear its just like a super duper high speed berm) busy chasing him we all miss the sign (about 10 of us) and head off into our own private backyamma.. after a few min racing we pass a bunch of trails that don’t have signage, its then that I work out that we are off track and I turn around and back track to the dam and rejoin the race. (the others kept going??)

I have lost perhaps 10 min and I’m now a whole bunch of spots back in the pack, I start overtaking a lot of riders and spend a lot of time in the bigger gears, I’m perhaps going too hard as I’m still annoyed about the wrong turn, the pack is starting to thin out and I’m still overtaking a lot of riders, it’s not much of a hassle as there’s loads of spots to overtake and the riders (apart from the dude with the ipod who couldn’t hear anything???) are friendly and are letting me through (when its safe for them).

A bit after the 25k mark I have a high speed stack (would have been awesome as a spectator) I think my right pedal hit a tree stump? But all I know is that I’m lying on the track after flying through the air and having done perhaps 2 forward rolls and my bike is still bouncing end over end down the track, I check myself and to my great surprise I’m OK to ride on, the exploding Gu’s in the back pocket of my riding top acted as a kind of air bag for my lower back, I have a few deep scratches but I’m OK, thanks to the riders behind for checking on me.

I roll on very slowly for a few K’s still wondering when the pain will sink in as surely you can’t just ride away from a stack like that.. but the pain never comes, after a few K’s I’m back on and overtaking all those riders for the third time.

I stop at the 50 for a long feed and drink and then the 2nd 50 is much more fun than the 1st as the track is now pretty much empty, the track is actually much more fun when you can ride it at your speed rather than being pushed along or held up.. it’s an awesome track actually, a nice carbon/ti hardtail would be perfect (I had a 13+KG AM bike..). midway through the last lap I overtake some of the riders that rolled through the 50 stop, with the stops and all there were a few people that I overtook 4 times during the race, I was only overtaken (while on the track) by the one guy that took us all on the wrong turn at the dam

Towards the end of the 100, I’m surprised that I’m starting to get early signs of cramps in my calves as there’s been pretty much no climbing, it’s the flat grinding that perhaps uses the muscles a bit different? But I'm not feeling the usual "I'm going to die any second I wonder what songs they will play at my funeral" feelings that I've become used to having at the end of something like the fling.. do they call that bonking?? anyhow I'm pretty sure for a while there I was on to beat 5 hours, but the stack and the wrong turn had me coming in a bit after 5 (didn’t get the official time) so I’m saying 5:10 for now.

Fun race and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be there next year.