Friday 30 December 2011

The Southside Epic

Well finally it's done and dusted. What started out as an idea to link up a few of the MTB parks on the southside turned into an 82km Group ride of Epic proportions.
The idea was to go from Capalaba thru Daisy Hill, Cornubia forest, Bayview, Mt Cotton, Scribbly gum, and then back to Capalaba. Going via as much as dirt and single track as possible.
First major stop was Daisy Hill where we picked up a few stragglers leaving the park with a total of 26 riders. I took the group down Stone Henge, Turning Japanese, Tunnel of Love, Joala Trail, Ripley's and Gillians. Before heading up the big red hill.
Next on the list was the untamed wilds of Cornubia Forest. Where we wound our way down Stupidly happy and then on to West MT Cotton Rd for some tarmac riding thru to Bayview.




Bayview was always going to be hard work. Due to its exposed tracks and the heat starting to hit. We made our way up Bensons and down Grass trees. Then up a rough climb and onto the killer climb of Doom Hippy ( hard after 40kms and some heat thrown in) Then we regrouped at the top before a split up decent down Blow and Fluffer ( probably my favourite tracks) and thru some rough stuff out onto Days rd and Lunch.


My lovely wife Michelle was good enough to put on a spread and deliver down to us for a quick lunch break and much neeeded rest before the real climbing begins.
Next challenge was the long climb up to the Mt Cotton Summit for the Eastern Escarpment "Granny Ring King Challenge". This was always as I feared the hardest part of the ride. Due to the long slow climb of around 10km along the road and the up thru the MT cotton Gardens.

At the top of the hill those with the will and the lungs to do so attempted the EE. Very Technical and steep climb which only the bravest and gutsiest of riders can make it up. As expected only Jason and Jim were up to the challenge where Jim smashed it up followed closely by Jason. Who made with only putting a foot down once. Hell of an effort for his first attempt. Althought some parties will argue that they didn't complete the true EE challenge as they only did the top section. But anyone who can make that section with 60km's on the legs is dam good in my books.

Picture does not do the hill justice. From there we hammered dwn the track past Karingal and onto Thornlands. There we ducked into Scribbly Gum for some more single track and thru to the Bike path and Home for a much needed BBQ and drinks.
Huge thanks to all who turned up to make this a Great ride. And to my wonderful wife for getting up before the sun and getting me and the food organised.


Otago Update: 8 days to go. New bike bits have arrived- New pedals flats with clips. New shoes-A lot more grippy for running when needed, New cassette, rear deraillieur and have new Cranks on there way. Going to change to a 2 X 9 setup with a bash guard. hope it to be a bit more reliable.
NZ here we come!!! Forecast for Wanaka on the day we land is 5-16 Gunna be cold!

Friday 23 December 2011

Yarrabilba Photo shoot

Sunday I managed to drag a couple of mates out for a spin at Yarrabilba. None of us was up for a big ride so we decided to do a photo shoot instead.
Halfway up a single track Craig spotted an obstacle we had to have a go at getting over.

Don't know why but I like this piccie

Up the top of the hill we found some fun drops amongst the boulders. I didn't realise I wasn't wearing my helmet for this one.

Another big rock Craig had to tackle. Doesn't look it but the rock is about 5 foot high. He was using all 150mm of travel so I wasn't having a go with only 100mm of travel.

This is probably the best shot of Yarrabilba I've seen. Captures the mood of the place perfectly. Rocky and side by side riding. Choose your own adventure.

And one of my dodgy Pics This track is really steep and now has the nickname os S.A.B.I.P. Steering and braking is pointless.

Hope you enjoy the pics. All the good ones are Gav's. More here More Pictures Here.

Update for the Epic. Only for those that read this. Shhhhhhhhhhhh


Tuesday 13 December 2011

Duck Creek Rd Kerry

Sunday saw a group of us heading up Duck Creek rd Kerry. After a foggy drive down this is the view which waited us as we headed off.

The first few climbs are quite a battle. With a 1000m of climbing over around 14km with road adding a further 4km to get to Oreilly's

 Andrew aka Hootsman ( All shots courtesy of him)enjoying the friendly and persistant birds at the Cafe at the top. Pancakes were the order of the day but the milkshake is not advisable when you've got 18km to go back down.
 A Beautiful shot of one of the trees at the lookout halfway up.
 The sign at the main lookout which spells the end of the main climbing sections.
 Troy doing his Superman inpersonation at the lookout.
 The view from the top over Oreilly's farm.
 The crew at the bottom. After the high speed decent, we decided to have an impromptu road race. Which really hurt the legs averaging over 35km/hr for the last 10 minutes immitating roadies.
Thanks to Jason for putting it together always a good ride and challenging ride. And to Andrew for the use of his piccies. I was on Video duty. And to everyne else for an enjoyable ride.

Last thoughts- BRING ON NZ!!!!! After a 60km ride Friday and then Duck creek rd Sunday I finally feel ready for NZ and The Southside Epic.

Monday 5 December 2011

The week so far

It appears that I have done some real damage to my ribs after the Explore ride. Don't think they are cracked or broken just badly bruised. So that's making life farken hard.
So didn't get a lot of riding in last week.
Did a 25km explore /night ride at Scribbly gum. About 3km of which was repeats over a set of jumps, a natural bowl we found and a really technical log roll over ( nearly 4 foot high).
Some really cool little tracks in there. Little being the word, at night they are quite hard to follow because they are quite fast and narrow. This was almost my last ride as the chain slipped on the way back home at around 35km/hr I got up to give it some and came very close to coming off straight into a park bench. That would have really hurt.

I finished off the routing for "The Southside Epic" on Sunday with a 32km explore ride between West Mt Cotton Rd and Mt Cotton rd. Turns out the road that is meant to be "isn't". Ended up getting lost and found my way thru to Karingal where I got abused by some old guy for tresspassing. Sorry I didn't mean to get here and I didn't pass a gate or any signs so BLAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Then went up Wodlands drive to Thornlands and thru the tracks and bike path back home. There's a really cool track thru to the path I am taking everyone on. The epic is now around 85km long and around 1400m of climbing!

We are having a pump track competition afterwards to crown "The Pump Daddy" Trophy winner. If I lose on home soil I'll never live it down.

Now scarily enough I've started thinking of the next big ride and it will be HUGE!!!!!. More details next year.

Only 4 and a bit weeks to go till NZ. CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

Thought of the week... Apparently trying to shoulder barge big thick trees out of the way while riding can be painful.....Might be better to try and avoid them in future I'm thinking...

Tuesday 29 November 2011

Video from the Explore ride

Heres a cool video that one of the riders from last Sundays exploration ride has put together.
Nice work Dave
http://youtu.be/i7ttlvsuj6E

Sunday 27 November 2011

Training has begun

So training has begun properly this week.
Schedule this week was-
Tuesday- 20km road ride to Daisy and back and 1 hour pump track
Wednesday- 17km group ride around Daisy hill
Thursday- Just weights at night
Friday-20km Explore ride to Scribbly gum
Saturday- 27km Explore again of Scribbly via a road loop to enter from the south entrance
Sunday- 51.5km EPIC ride.
Total for the week- 138km and I'm stuffed now.

So today's ride was all about working out the link routes between the different mtb tracks around the place. We started at cornubia and then over to Bayview. Steep dam hills there. Then over to Mt View rd at Mt Cotton where the hills turned into MOUNTAINS!!!!!!!!!!!
We then did a loop of Karingal XC course, Yet MORE DAM climbing hills.
Then over to Daisy where we went straight for the exit up Red hill and back over to Cornubia.
Where I had a gumby stack, Chain slipped as I gave it some welly and straight over the top and flat on my face. Bit scratched up but the worst part was the buckle on the backpack jammed itself into my ribs and am now quite sore.

Then we headed down resurrection in Cornubia forest and back to the cars and a much needed swim.
Ended up doing 51.5km and over 1000m of climbing over a period of 6.5 hours in the heat.

Day off tommorrow and back into again on Tuesday.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Update time

Well Sunday was an ABSOLUTE BLAST!
Imagine going for a ride with 90 mates. Al feeling the pain of the climb to the top of Mt Joyce, then one by one SCREAMING down it as fast as possible. Was such an amazing event. It fits in between the Serious Down Hill events and the Cross country events and combines a mixture of the two. A lot of riding skill is needed to decend quickly but a lot of  fitness was also needed to be able to get down Quick!
i came in at 10th in C-grade which I was reasonably happy with. I can go a lot faster which annoyed me, but my legs just weren't 100% which really Pissed me off. Anyway was a great Event and I hpe they can get the series off the ground next year.

Alrighty Decided yesterday that I really need to get fitter so proper training for Otago has begun. Did a 20km road ride this morning with the dualie and Knobbly tyres.  Was quite amusing chasing down the roadies. Then did a 1 hour Pump track session.

Pump Track Update
AWESOME. I can now average 10km/hr around it consistently both ways with ZERO pedalling ALL PUMP BABY!. Got a top speed tonight of 16.8 which is about max speed for the track and my bike.
Really got the hang f it now and am at the point where I'm accellerating out of the bottom berm going up hill.
Anyways thats it for now. Planning on doing a ride in the morning at Daisy and a Biggy on Sunday all over the redlands, about 40km.

Tuesday 15 November 2011

The weeks Riding

So this week , well last week I managed a few different rides.
Did a 20km night ride at Nerang. Great fun the place has some serious hills which suck going up but fun going down. There's also a heap of Trail features there, bridges, log rolovers, drop offs etc etc. The beauty of going at night is you don't have time to think about it just hit it and hope. Which is great cause you don't second guess yourself.
Saturday I did a 20km Daisy ride nothing special just testing out my Toy a RockShox Reverb Seat dropper post. Means I can press a button on my handlebars and drop or raise the seat hieght on the fly. Works FANTASTIC!!!!!
Sunday we Hit up Mt Joyce again This time we did Bovine then Sergeants then Bovine again. Starting to really get the hang of bvine now which is a really fast track with a heap of tech stuff. But after 11 minutes you are absolutely Buggered!
Bikes going in for a good service Tomorrow arvo ( better get it back Friday or I'll be pissed) Then taking on my first Down Hill Race event on Sunday. Still very wary of Sergeants but I'll take my time on it to get down safely then PING it down Bovine and Black rock to try make up some time.

54 or something like that Sleeps till Otago!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday 6 November 2011

Mount Joyce

So went out for a spin at Mount Joyce today with a mate Craig. We talked ourselves into havng a crack at this http://www.eventmanagementsolutions.com.au/the-team/escape-enduro.
Basically its a 3 stage downhill race where you at 45 minutes between stages which means you start at track 1 and get 45 minutes to complete it and get to track 2 etc. Sounds easy enough but at Mount Joyce that means 200-300 metres of climbing between each stage.

So we went out today to see if we could ride the Downhill tracks. First stop Seargeants WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! What a rush!!!!!!!! What an amazing ride! Full on rock gardens, BIG drops, sweeping corners and HUGE jumps!. ( Thank godness for B-lines LOL) So whats better than doing Seargeants for the first time?? DOING IT AGAIN!
First run was around 5:50mins but we stopped to scope the line a few times and run 2 was around 3:40. The real Downhill Boys do it aaround 2:30.
Finished the day off with a run down Black Rock which is another Down hill track but around 10 minutes long. Some really fast and flowy sections combined with some serious Drops.
Video from last time we went there.
http://vimeo.com/27506081
Can't wait to hit Seargents again. What a rush!

Thursday 3 November 2011

Update time

Righto so lots to tell. On the weekend Saturday I headed out on a group ride from Cabolture train station to Mooloola Train station. The idea to cover lots of km's ride lots of dirt and get the train back.
Was a hell of a ride totalling 78KM! My first ever ride over 40km and surprisingly i actually felt pretty good at the end.
Heres a great blog with pics and a better story from the guy who organised the ride. Thanks again  Neil.
http://blog.neilennis.com/index.php/mooloolah-xc/
And more pics from another rider http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii34/hootsmon_album/2011-10-29_Caboolture_Mooloola/?albumview=slideshow
Geeze I need a shave :P

Then went out riding on Sunday as well. Took Michelle on her first MTBO event at Scribbly guym reserve. Some nice tracks thru there and quite a nice little course for a CATI event.
Think Michelle enjoyed herself so hope to drag along to a few races next year.
So the km's are back on track and the weightloss is starting to happen.

PUMP TRACK UPDATE:
It's SO dam close. Problem we've been having is that the bottom berm which is the most important part to maintaining speed for a continuous loop. The problem was that the exit tightened which caused the bike to either float out of the berm ( hard to explain) or shoot you off into the trees. Most of the time I would be dabbing the brakes to be able to take the corner. So after much debate we opened up the exit got rid of the end roller and steepened the face of the berm.

Result:
HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! we have full loops!!! Now can take at full speed most of the time without any issues and maintain the speed u to the tabletop and the top half of the track. Tabletop has also been chopped and changed now has a new roller on the side wall to allow pumping to the top half.

Next trick will be to work out what we need to do to get more speed. Track is GREAT FUN! with a few pedals thrown in can really whip around it. Hoping to get dirty tomorrow arvo and make some of the rollers BIGGER and LONGER. Theory being that flat ground is bad.

Quote for the day: " If I learnt form My mistakes , I'd be a f@#ken Genius"

Thursday 20 October 2011

Slacker

Yeah so its not quite going according to plan.
Tickets booked and I'm entered after a few issues. Last weekend saw me and a few mates, Gav, Mitch and Craig Do the hard yards and build a pump track in the backyard.

Early pics of the track.

Since then we've been tweaking it to try to get it to a stage that we can pump the whoe way around. Been doing a few sessions on the track which are only 10 minute spins but bugger you and are reat for cornering practice.
Did my first decent ride since the last MTBO event. We went out Bayview for a night ride. First time I've been there in twelve months and my first night ride out there. WHAT A HOOT!!! 30km/hr in the dark down a single track inches form the guy in fronts rear tyre. Had an absolute blast so we are going to try to make it a regular ride.
Thats all for now will attempt to update more regularly. But doubt it. LOL

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Day 2

Ok so I missed doing anything here yesterday. Oh well.
Righto so my starting weight ( which I'm not real happy with ) is 95.6kg and 25.2% Fat. Yep I'm a fat ass.
Goal is to get down to around 85 by January.
Day one I managed 10 km on the bike (road) and bugger all else Due to a witch doctor appointment ( Physio) Knee is getting there slowly. Also Got my first load of Dirt yesterday for the track. SO work has begun and looking pretty good.
Today I did 10km again this morning (road) Not happy with the road riding and lack of time to do anymore kms.. And NO Lycra was NOT worn!
Did soem more on the track starting on the first 2 rollers. Got the first one good but couldn't get the distance right for the second. Helps if I read the e-book I bought. Had them way to close together.
Hope to step up the kms later in the week and a big push over the weekend to get the track finished.

Quote for the day "Lycra- It should have  a weight limit"

Sunday 2 October 2011

Introduction

Hi all and welcome to my BLOG a.k.a Attempt to keep myself on track. The goal of this blog is to keep myself motivated to getting fit for Otago 2012. What's that you ask? THIS http://www.otagomtbo2012.co.nz/
You see I'm slightly obsessed with mountain bike riding and especially MTBO racing. MTBO racing is basically Orienteering races done on Mountain bikes. Typical distances can be as short as 15km and as long as 40km +.
So this Blog is my story/Diary of my road to Otago 2012 and getting fit enough to compete at a respectible level.
Current state of fitness is ok but not spectacular. I usually ride between 20-30km but not doing enough rides for my liking at the moment. Goal is to do at least 100km a week and to do at least one 60km+ ride before Januray. Longeest to date is about 38km- Duck creek rd and also Round 8 of the MTBO at Beerburrum last week.

Training begins tomorrow........