BMC Classic

The BMC Classic is a 100km MTB Marathon held on the cool trails of the Wombat State Forest near Woodend. This was the 2nd running of the event, and the friends that did it last year said the trails are not too technical, but there is a lot more singletrack than the Otway Odyssey. So with this in mind, I had a more relaxed approach in the lead up to the event and did no where near enough training. That said, I still attempted to prepare well for the race in the lead up, and tried to implement some changes to my race plan from lessons learnt in the Odyssey.

There is bugger all accommodation in Woodend, and the venue for the start/finish of the race 'Cammeray Waters' had long sold out of its cabins. Camping on site was an option, but I was looking for a good and warm nights sleep prior to the race, and with Jo and the kids in tow, we found a place in Lancefield 30mins drive from the course.

Although 30mins from the start, this still meant getting up at 5:15am, consuming half a tonne of Sustain cereal, packing bike, bags, sleepy kids and whatever else into the car to leave to get to the start by 6:30. The queue into the start was long and slow, and leaving the extra 10mins earlier, was a good idea. I was just ready to go by 7am, race start 7:05, but due to the backlog of people running late and caught in the queue, the start was delayed 30mins. After 30mins of shivering in the cold Macedon Ranges air, with only arm warmers on top of the standard summer kit, we took off at 7:35. I was about 5 rows back from the front, which meant a fair bit of getting around people once the race started. This was hard, heart rate going through the roof and cold everything, it wasn't ideal. We then hit the first bit of singletrack which was through the pine forest. This wasn't enjoyable at all, the trails here were quite narrow, very rooty, and the dust under the pines was very fine and slippery, but that was soon the least of my problems.

My lower back started aching badly, and the pain became nearly unbearable. I thought it must have been because I was riding with the Hydration Pack. This was only the second time I had ridden with it, but it just seemed to be crippling me. I kept riding through this hoping it would go away. The acute pain eventually did go, but I had lower back pain pretty much for most of the race from that point on.

During this first section of trail, as soon as I started shifting gears for some of the pinches, the gears were not shifting or they were trying to shift out of gear. WTF! I had just had it serviced, this can't be happening, not this early in the race! The mis-gearing was affecting my ability to stay on the wheel in front up the short climbs, once over the top, I would catch up again, but then it was a bit sketchy because of the terrain. I had to stop at one point when I had a total drive train lock up. Seeing bikes fly past this early and losing position was not ideal. Back on the bike and back riding again, I was unsettled and not riding very smoothly.

Shortly after, in my half panic state, I veered to the edge of the trail at one point, hit an unseen tree root, and launched myself over the bars, hitting my head in the process. Damn, I quickly jumped back on and kept going, noting only one rider passing me at this point, but plenty more coming up putting the pressure on as my confidence had dipped badly. I kept persisting.

With the gear shifts not working for me, I thought I would settle for a gear that was working OK and ride single speed for a while. This was loading up the quads on the climbs, but I wasn't losing position, and started enjoying the trails a bit more because I didn't have gears clattering around. By this point, one of the guys that had passed me earlier, was riding at a tempo that I was comfortable with, so I sat on him. I was quicker up the hills, but he was quicker on the descents, which suited me, as I could watch his lines and take the descents quicker than if I was on the front. Eventually a 3rd guy joined us and we settled into a bit of a rhythm together, chatting about the course and various things.

Eventually, after about 20ks into the race, I decided I would assess the gears a bit better, as the racing had settled somewhat, and I was at a comfortable pace. I realized I did have a climbing gear that would work, plus some other bigger gears for the flats - all good, mostly!

We all rode through the 32km drink station, I was conscious of drinking from my hydration pack as much as possible this race, and drinking from my bottle on the fire trails. I knew I didn't have to stop for drink at this point but also had to down a power bar to keep the fuel up.

It was great to leave the crappy pine forest section and ride on more normal bush trails. Most of the trails were quite good to ride, I was still a bit slow on some of the tricky descents, and extra cautious when approaching the professional photographers on course. Not the time to stuff up when the camera and flash are going off!

As the race went on, the 50km mark was passed and I was feeling a lot better than the first 30km. I still had some lower back soreness, but could see light at the end of the tunnel. At the 62km drink stop, I pulled over to get more electrolite drink in my bottle. Someone asked if I wanted chain lube, I didn't hesitate in answering yes to that. I scoffed down some watermelon and half a banana and was off again.

The lead guy in our trio took off and was well up the road, so then it was me and the other guy for a while. He also descended well, so I let him lead the way until he eventually noticed a slow leak and had to stop and change. From this point on I was on my Pat Malone and looking at the speedo to start counting off the k's in 10k increments. I popped a couple of gels during this period and tried to ride as efficiently as possible to maintain a decent speed and not blow up.

The 80km mark eventually came by. I stopped quickly for more electrolite drink and shoved a handful of jelly beans in my mouth. I wanted to keep going as I had recently past 3 or 4 people and didn't want to lose any more positions. Now with 20km to the end, I was pretty pumped and keen to chase down anyone else up the trail.

The 50km race used the last 20km of the 100km course so catching more people at this point was hard to do. The riders still completing the 50 were at the tail end of that race, (not very quick) so even though most people let you through pretty quickly, it's not as quick as an open trail. Shortly after, the 90k drink station came up, I was still feeling OK at this point so I kept going. Shortly after, I spotted the guy we were riding with earlier about half a k up a fire trail. This spurred me on even more, there was probably 5k to go at this point and I got to within about 10m of him when we hit more singletrack, and then more 50k race riders. He got away from me again, but soon it didn't matter, as the venue entrance came into sight.

I crossed the line in 5h 31min. This was 51st overall (of about 700 riders) and 14th in my age category. I was pretty happy with the result. I knew it could have been better without the hassles early in the race, but overall a good result.

Now I know what the trails look like, I should expect a better result next year.