The state of play

It has come to my attention that riders in enduro races have begun shirking IMBA rules when it comes to tagging a team mate.

Section V (iii) of IMBA regulations state that all tags must consist of a vigorous butt slap. Section V (iv) does allow for teams to tag with a kiss, but even this has been snubbed in favour of hand slapping.

This weekend at the Kona 24 hour I hope to see a correction of this unsportsmanlike behaviour.

It wasn't me, honestly officer!

The officer 6 hour saw a pile of Baum riders (that's right the collective pronoun for Baum riders is a pile) descend for a day of tough climbs and wickedly fast descents. Ryan and David raced together while Jim and I recruited independent contractors to make for 3 teams in the 2 man category. Steve Clausen made the long trip with his brand new Cubano to race in mixed pairs.

The track was short and fast, climbs were steep and loose and the descents rode best when you felt right on the edge of control. This was one course that seemed to reward an aggressive style and short, hard, precise braking before laying into the loud pedal(s) once again.

It took us some time to find the mid race results, in fact it was within the final two hours that we discovered that Jim and Erin were holding 2nd, Ashley and myself 3rd and Ryan and David were in 7th. With only 24 minutes to go Ryan and David had climbed to 5th and Ryan headed out on his final lap, ~20 seconds later Ashley came through to send me out again, I screamed back at Ashm to stay in his cycling kit, I love hurting myself to make a team mate go out again. I was worried that Erin was due in soon and Jim would be right on my tail. I tried to block the thought of 3 Baum riders chasing each other through the twisties, and concentrated on the one in front, Ryan.

I caught Ryan just before 'heartbreak hill', and he stuck with me until the trail pointed downhill and got rough. Twice during the remaining few ks Ryan, an unstoppable climbing force, bridged back to my wheel on hills. The effort to beat each other lead to our fastest laps of the day. I crossed the line to see Ashley dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, I’d lapped in 23.09 (14 seconds of the race to spare) and while our 3rd place was secure I still demanded he changed to go out again. Sadly he was too comfortable in civies so I had to console myself with the BBQ put on by the scouts.

Mens Pairs:
2nd: Jim and Erin {Team = TripleDouble}
3rd: Neil and Ashley {Team = When Ash & Neil Kombine(WANK)}
5th: Ryan and David {Team = Baum}

Mixed Pairs:
6th: Steve and Jodie Clauson {Team = Pink Bits}

Full results.

B(a)um Bandits

I apologise for the lack of pictures, my point and shoot camera is hiding... somewhere.

Jimmy, Ryan and I headed to Rosewhite for the Gravity 12hr. We'd decided this would be a great training race for all of us, especially on single speeds (hard man decision #1).

The rain was coming in sideways and heavy on Friday night, which caused concern that we'd be sitting around in soggy kit for hours on end. The decision that we'd ride in two hour blocks was made (hard man decision #2), that way each rider could change between their laps and stay comfortable. On the fast course this equated to 3-4 laps in a row then 4 hours of sitting around enjoying the increasing pain expression on the face of the team mate who was out lapping.

Well the morning dawned and it turned out to be awesome weather, a couple of small drops visited us for 3-4 minutes then continued on their merry way. The course was a flowing affair with nothing too technical to hamper speeds. We all ran 2:1 and this seemed to work ok given the up or down (few flat areas) of the course. A slightly smaller gear would have been nice for some of the pinches.

Jim went out first and had to contend with the LeMans start and the first few laps of traffic. He did a great job of putting Ryan in to clear space so that he could pound out some consistent roadie laps. I'm serious about consistent too, his first three laps were separated by 7 seconds total! I got on course around 12:30, and my first impressions of the course were mixed. I walked/ran up heartbreak hill and the red carpet hill, but felt comfortable with my pace. The next couple of laps I cleaned the whole course, but it took some deadlift style pedaling to get up heartbreak and carpet hills.

By the second round of laps we had put ourselves in a group of around six teams all vying for a top 3-5 place. Our hard training session was in danger of turning into a race. After Jim had punched out his last few laps, Ryan had once again proven that as a roadie he makes a mighty tough mountain biker, he tapped out ultra consistent laps all day on the rigid Ristretto. My last set of laps crossed the day/night barrier, and I rode the last two under lights.

When I finally crossed the like 12 hours and 15 minutes after the race had started they guys had packed up. I quickly threw my gear in the car and began the journey home without any idea of our final placing. Dreams of a warm comfortable bed and a hot shower carried me down the Hume towards Melbourne at 1:30am.

The results have been posted and showed that we managed to chase down 7th and 6th placed three man teams in the last few hours and we finished only 12 minutes down on 3rd in the category. Overall we placed a respectable 11th and I think everyone was pretty happy with these results considering the decisions we made.