The Day after it rained on the track the day before, 13 January 2008
by Jon Presswell
The day before the first race of the year, the Enduro Series (Wet Season), I walked the Charles Darwin track along with a handful of fellow maintenance volunteers. We cleaned cyclone debris from the trails and generally trimmed it a bit for the New Year. It’s cool to wander through the bush waving a machete; it makes you feel like one of the cast members from Lost! Most of them could use a good machete swing or two. The track was hard and dry and for a January race this was to be a bonus. This was to be the first time we would race the track (old and new) almost in its entirety and I was tossing up whether to celebrate this fact by winning the race. Fearing the inevitable drugs test I decided against this.
The rest is history. That Saturday night the skies deposited not much shy of ten inches of rain on the city and the whole context of the race changed. A wet track adds a degree of difficulty as well as effort. I am not sure how many riders assembled at the starting line on the Sunday but I counted roughly twenty. Every time I rode off to string more marker tape in hasty last minute preparations more riders had arrived when I returned.
Finally, when someone shouted Go!, I was still fiddling with resetting my lap timer and admiring my new Sigma bike computer which I had only installed days earlier. With these electronic brain-teasers behind me I was finally away near the tail of the field. Kyle said something just a little unkind as I went by. We encountered the expected first mud puddle at the usual spot just below the drop in past Red Arrow and I was now officially muddy. I settled into a racing rhythm with Phil planted firmly on my butt. I waved him past then sat on his wheel in turn. I can’t stand people riding my wheel in races but I reserve the right to do it myself! Now it was just a matter of finding a good race pace as the field strung out. The pace must have been hot as I know this section of the trail well and there was no-one in sight, except for the occasional helmet flying past through the trees in the opposite direction when the trails passed close by each other. At the point in the trail called Deranged it was mayhem, the big switchbacks having unseated (probably not always voluntarily) a good pack of riders who were milling about like rock-climbers about to descend a steep rappel. They gallantly let us past though we don’t necessarily clean the switchbacks any better than they did. On the quick downhill called Skid Row I get seriously fast, messy and airy but stay mounted. It’s pays to be organised for the left hander at the bottom of this descent. Trust me on this. Then it’s another big puddle past the Molehill (some guy is off the trail staring at his bike like he is seeing it for the first time. Mummy I think it’s wet. Is that mud?!). About this time I realise my front brake has all but quit.... bugger it, who needs one of these on a wet hilly track?! After a quick spurt through the rest of the old track I am into the new technical track with the cool switchbacks. Last time I rode this I had no back brake so things are reversed now. Further on the neat new tracks near the Hazelnuts/Aaron’s Swamp sections have turned to custard. It’s a long low section and it’s already a sludgy muddy river. Screw the Ellsworth, get me a canoe. One hundred yards of hell. Defiantly I pedal through it (didn’t on the second lap, mind you) and almost shout with joy when the track heads uphill and dries out. Just here the trail takes you near the assembled non-participant types who see fit to lounge around and shout things out they either think are helpful or funny. And you are standing around because.....? The remaining new section is a buzz; windy, lumpy and bumpy and a plain hoot. Most importantly it’s rocky and dry so despite the tight climbs and hairpins, it’s relatively easy.
Moments later I whiz past the starting line for the end of my first lap and off into the second. The track has suffered from the first lap and now it’s really sloshy and tough. Proving this point to myself I suddenly bury a front wheel below Kevin’s Rock and have to evacuate the bike briefly before landing with both feet in the muck. Nice. As long as you don’t lie in it you can’t catch melioidosis. Apparently. On again and passing a few more people along the way. Someone below my second pass of the Molehill is fixing a puncture(?)....... anyway he’s rubber side up and motionless. He does a good job because moments later he flies past. He is to be the last rider I see for the rest of my lap. The remainder of the race for me is a lonely, grinding, grunting affair punctuated by a foot falcon sprint through the by now almost unrideable low areas. There are also some beautiful manoeuvres that exude skill and power but no one sees these except me. I make a brief wrong turn near the end adding a couple of hundred metres to the journey, but what the hell. At least I am not lost.... or last. Thanks to Kyle for organising a great race. Racing on these tracks when they are dry is going to be something to look forward to.
