Rocky Trail - GP8, Mt Stromlo

I sense early signs of an MTB enduro tragic, or maybe just a mid-life crisis?

I was planning a long training ride in the Brindabella's Saturday, that was until I came across the Rocky Trail GP 8hr race scheduled at Mt Stromlo the same day, now this had to be more fun than grinding out a bunch of miles on my lonesome.  A call to the race organisers late in the week to check entries were still open and a quick on-line registration and I was good to go... the Super Master category again.  Kind of like a day at the office, start at 9 and finish at 5, except the Met' Bureau were predicting 90% chance of rain with 10-20mm forecast, the potential for another mud fest had me a little nervous especially on a course like Stromlo.

Photo by Dave B - the Berm website.

This race was definitely a "gentlemen's" start with registration open from 7am and the race starting at 9am.  I managed to make registration in plenty of time, collected my race number and parked a discrete distance from race central.  I struck up a conversation with another racer Ian who was prep'ing his single speed for the 4hr event, the low and ominous cloud cover had us both thinking the day could easily get worse.

At a guess around 250-300 riders crowded the start area come 9am, the 8hr bunch were scheduled to go off first with the 4hr riders about one minute behind.  Although this didn't make sense to me, everyone was pretty well settled after the first lap.

I'd thought about 8 laps would be a good number to aim for on the day, it'd give me somewhere around 110-120km which I'd planned for on my own in the mountains that day.  I settled at the back of the 8hr bunch so I didn't get in anyone's way, however it seemed no time at all before I had lots of 4hr 'sprinters' up my clacker on the first lap.  The pressure was mounting as we crested Mt Stromlo and headed out along Western WedgeTail then SkyLine and into the Luge trail, it was towards the end of the Luge that I 'burped' a front tyre and came a cropper in the single track, not a good look.  It seemed to take ages to get a tube into the front wheel and sufficiently inflated so I could get back on the bike and complete my first lap, gravel rash and all.  The 29'er was performing beautifully throughout all of this by the way, I can assure you I was the weakest link.

A nice feature of the day was Mike Tomalaris from SBS Sport calling the race, it was pretty cool coming through the checkpoint area and having Mike call your name, number and time out over the loud speaker,  just as if you were at the Tour de France.

I'd ridden trail 2 at Stromlo a number of times before, this wasn't a lot different except the organisers had added a section of track to the start that extended the total circuit out to 12.2km, a lot of hill climbing but with some pretty classy downhill as well, it didn't take too many laps before I became intimately familiar with every rock and bump on Stromlo.  8hrs is a fair time to be racing technical single track so I settled into a pretty comfortable routine stopping briefly at the summit for a drink and a gel then again as I passed through the checkpoint area, my laps were around the hour mark and that suited me fine.

Throughout the day the weather varied from heavily overcast to sunny periods which raised a sweat on the climbs.  The 90% chance of rain really never eventuated thankfully, just a few drops of rain across the whole day.  The single track on Stromlo is really quite technical, this meant the day never became boring as it was always a challenge to nail difficult sections of track no matter what lap you were on.

We'd been warned at race briefing that due to the nature of the weather that day the organisers may cut the race short at 4pm, which they eventually did and this meant I officially completed 7 laps for the race, coming in at around 4:30pm.  What to do, head over to the event centre and a beer or go out for another lap, decisions, decisions?  I eventually came into the checkpoint area around 5:30pm having completed my 8 laps and the very last person on the course, by this stage the race organisers were handing out free beer and there was almost a party atmosphere developing... now that's an MTB race!

I missed the presentations while I was out on that last lap, so it wasn't until mid week that I eventually caught up on the results.  What a surprise to find I'd actually taken out the GP8 Super Masters category on the day, quite a thrill.  It's raining now in Canberra towards the end of the following week and all I want to do is go back out for a few more laps... now that's tragic!

Here's a tip, keep an eye out for Rocky Trails enduro events, they're a lot of fun... ;O)