I entered the Mt Beauty 6 Hr MTB Enduro as a solo entrant. This was my first enduro as a solo. I didn't prepare too specifically for this, but thought I would have enough base in the system to get through OK. After staying in Beechworth the night before at the Newtown Park Motel, Jo and I arrived pretty early at 'Big Hill' in Mt Beauty. I rode the first couple of k's of the course to see what it was like and thought it wasn't too bad.
Back at transition, the BOM radar was showing storms coming our way, this wasn't adding to my motivation, and when the rain started before the race start, I wasn't keen at all! But by the time the call went out to assemble for briefing, the rain had stopped and the weather wasn't too bad.
I had already decided to burn some bikkies at the start of the race to avoid the slower riders, so I started near the front and tried to stay there as the gun went. This wasn't too bad, but as always, once the trail starts heading upwards, there are people going backwards, and I had to be patient. I was sitting behind Andrew Olle for a bit on lap one and occaisonally had some issues cornering to the left and on one corner, came to a stop. Putting this down to a brain fade, I kept going so as to not shit the people coming up behind.
As we got to the highest part of the course, the track headed back down over some easy obstacles, before climbing back up again, this repeated a couple of times before the course starting heading back down to the start/finish. It was on this last downhill section that the guy in front of me crashed on a rocky descent. I was cautious after seeing this, but somehow followed his (bad) line off the course and crashed, landing hard on my hip. We both collected ourselves and our bits and pieces, and stood there waiting for a gap in the line of riders that were streaming past. We saw 2 more crashes in front of us. This was posing to be a section to watch. The rest of the course consisted of a basically downhill corners, berms and off camber trail. Descending on the MTB is not my strong point, and post crash, I was very cautious over this last part, letting quicker riders past.
Through transition, and onto lap 2. Lap 2 was interesting as the rain started to come down, in conjunction with lightning. Riding along behind another rider I was thinking, 'should we be riding with all this lightning going off above our heads'. The rider in front kept hammering along, so I did too. The rain was making some of the timber obstacles quite treacherous, so the pace was slower. I think the fall, the wet conditions, and still a tendency to have issues turning left on berms/bends was killing my motivation to continue. I had a step off/close call through the rocky descent I crashed on lap 1 as well. Back in the pits, I stepped off the bike and wondered what I was doing there. I was hurting from the crash, wishing it wasn't raining and looking for motivation to continue. Jo helped with that and I was off again.
The rain didn't last too long, and eventually the course started drying out, and I started feeling a bit more comfortable on the bike. I was getting used to the course now, overcoming this left turn issue, and letting go of the brakes a bit more on the descents. Eventually, after 3 hrs, the halfway mark, I pulled the pin. I certainly improved as the day went on, but the lap one crash and I think eventually, not drinking/eating enough to ride solo, meant I had had enough.
It was not all to no avail though. Watching some of the other solo riders and what they do with drinks/nutrition has given me ideas for future races, and I still raced 3 hrs on a MTB which is still a fairly good workout.
The Mt Beauty course is certainly not an easy enduro course, you are either climbing or descending, this means there is no real quiet parts to cruise for a bit to grab a drink/down a gel. One fire trail section about halfway was the best option, but this was a climb as well.
Well, with an early day, and a long drive home, it was good to be back before dark and we got to see the kids before they were down for the night. Thanks Syd and Katie/Ben for looking after them.
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