Tag Archives: northam

Kep Track Sunday 1st August 2010

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With the Dwellingup 100km off-road enduro coming up in September I found myself presented with a problem.  I’d ridden my mountain bike exactly once (a 4hr enduro) since the last 100km effort (2010 Karri Cup[1]).  I remember telling myself after the Karri Cup that I’d need to put in some more saddle time on the (near ten year old!) Giant dually before doing something like that again.  The time for action was nigh.

I’d wanted to tick the Kep Track off my list of ‘Rides To Do’ for some time now.  I’d read about Andrew’s expedition and thought I’d like to give it a go.  It’s basically a dirt track that follows the Golden Pipeline from Mundaring Weir to Northam, 75km away.  It’s not technical at all but does provide ample riding distance on dirt which would suit our purpose nicely.  I’m not really into touring and staying in Northam didn’t turn me on so it was put forward that we ride it out and back.  It’s not even hilly but my thinking was that what it lacked in elevation would be made up for in distance.  The Dwellingup100 involves quite a lot of up and down but is only a mere 100km – so surely this would be a good training ride!  A few emails to some interested parties, a short debate on a free weekend and a date settled on.  It’d be good to knock this one over in a day.

By the time Sunday morning rolled around our band of riders had been whittled down to four.   Scott, Lee, Craig and myself rocked up to Mundaring Weir Hotel carpark at 0600 [2] where it was deserted and dark.  Scott and me on dually’s, Lee on his cool Focus hardtail and Craig on his Surly Long Haul Trucker.  After some Mindless Banter™ [3]– mostly about how chilly it was, and jibes about me and Scott not having lights we set off shortly before 0630.

Three of us heading up the road and then we wondered where Scott got to.  He had done this ride before and knew the way.  He did the first half klick on the track whilst we plodded up the road and then joined the track.  Jumpers and jackets were discarded shortly afterwards.  The 7km or so to Mundaring township is mostly wide-ish sniggletrack [4], crosses the road a couple of times and very pleasant to ride, even uphill.  It was dark, with just enough moonlight, and a bit of mist.  A favourite part of any ride, I was just waiting for the Tauntauns to appear out of the white haze…

Negotiated the unsigned dogs-leg at Mt Helena with no hassles thanks to Scott’s prior knowledge.  Most of the track is easy to follow but this intersection could be a trap for first timers.

Past the BMX jump track at  Chidlow The rest of us resisted Craig’s call to ride the jumps.  I’m useless in the air.  Once my bike wheels leave the ground I may as well be a triathlete [5] for all the skill I have.

Section of flat path that was dry but quite bumpy.  In the not too distant past it seems a horse or two had been through here when it was wet and left many hoof marks which had now dried hard.  Kind of like corrugations but different. Certainly not the most pleasant surface to ride on.

Went past Baker’s Hill and it’s over-rated pie shop (IMNSHO) It was somewhere about here that I first started to feel it.  Yes it wasn’t that far into the ride but lack of mtb saddle time and yesterday afternoons racing was reminding me that the effects were still present.

Nearing Clackline there was a fun downhill run ending in a gully across a stream. Video

Six or seven kilometres of deserted road provided Craig with a chance to stretch his Surly’s legs necessitating him to wait for the rest of us at a lovely paddock edge.  Reminded our two ex-pats of Wales apparently.  It is quite scenic in parts and all the sheep were out with their lambs following them about. We continued past the West Northam water tanks followed by a nice run of sniggletrack just before Northam.  A cool, rough downhill, complete with dodgy pipe crossover before a short pathway blat into Northam town centre where the Garmin told me we had done 75km on the dot.

Not much doing in Northam on this lovely sunny Sunday.  I was looking forward to the mountain bikers lunch of choice [6] but was sadly disappointed with what was on offer.  A bakery, a cafe or Chicken Treat.  We settled on the bakery which was empty when we arrived but within a minute of entering it was filled with more than a dozen locals.  Purchases were made and we adjourned to the local park by the river to scoff down our sausage rolls, pies, buns, pastries, milk & Cokes.

After refilling CamelBaks and bottles we headed back out of town and climbed the steepest part of the ride.  The rough track next to the pipeline wasn’t as hard going up as I thought it might be when I was barrelling down it earlier on.

A regroup at the Wales-esque paddock took place before the short roll down the road to Clackline.  We waited there too as it seems Lee had a puncture.  Craig went back to help him out with me and Scott heading off up the track.  It wasn’t too long before Craig and Lee caught, then passed us and we were off the back again.  This might have been the last time I saw Craig until I finished the ride!  Lee I could see in the distance for some time and almost caught him at a road crossing but then he disappeared into the yonder again.  I was really hitting the wall at this point and it was somewhere around the 135km mark that I stopped and waited for Scott.  I was knackered and inhaled my emergency gel.  Scott turned up after a few minutes and we had some more lollies.  A lady rider heading the other way said she hadn’t seen anyone else on the track.  I figured Lee and Craig must’ve finished.  We re-mounted , determined to finish off the day.  I spent most of the remaining kilometres back to Mundaring township yo-yoing off the back of Scott’s wheel.  I perked up once we reached the downhill sniggletrack back to the Hotel and we bombed down it, legs forgetting that we’d already asked 144km of them.  I finished the last of my water somewhere around here.  Rolled into the carpark, band was playing in the pub across the road, with 150km on Mr Garmin.

Craig was waiting for us – and had been for 25 minutes!  Strangely, Lee turned up a few minutes later than us.  Turns out he stopped to fix another flat and then got lost, probably missed the dogs leg mentioned previously at Mt Helena on the way back.

I was completely spent.  I’d drunk 1.5 litres of water on the way out,  3 litres on the way back, a small Coke, sausage roll, small mocha milk, two bananas, two fruit & muesli bars, two Coconut Rough’s and my emergency gel.  It was a bit before 1645, slightly closer to my self-imposed limit of 1700 than I’d planned.

The ride was certainly harder, or perhaps it’d just taken more out of me, than I’d anticipated.  The mission was accomplished (which was to get some time on the dually) but if I was doing this ride again I’d definitely take my commuter (the Salsa ‘crosser of Orangeness).  It’s much better suited for this ride.  Hopefully I’ll get in a couple more sensible rides on the Giant before Dwellingup.

Scott will be along shortly with his version of events and possibly some cool video footage of the final piece of singletrack into Mundaring 🙂

Cheers,
Dave

[1] Karri Cup Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4

[2] “It’s 0600. What’s the O stand for? Oh my God, it’s early!” – Adrian Cronauer, Good Morning Vietnam

[3] Meaningless MTB-OZ reference

[4] Sniggletrack = singletrack

[5] Let the flaming begin… (but if you’d rather read something funny try this)

[6] burger with the workx & caramel milkshake

sunday 12th oct – northam classic

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race report by peter.

 

handicap races.  i haven’t had a good trot with them this year as it is a totally different style of racing.  the first was menzies to kalgoorlie where i hit the cramp wall at about 85kms and had to pull out.  the group i was in was smashing along at 45km/hr from the gun and i just couldn’t hold that pace for 132kms.  the next was the collie-donnybrook race where i had no legs left once the group hit the final climb.  one of the guys in our group wanted to go hard from the gun to try to stay away from scratch.  we didn’t have enough of a handicap for that to happen over 100kms.  at least i finished that one.

 

this race at northam had the potential to be a hell of a lot worse as it was five laps of a circuit that contained the main climb out of town.  it wasn’t a particularly hard climb, but over the 125kms it was going to wear the legs away each lap.  so it was all going to come down to who was in our group and what handicap we would get.  we being mike who was the only other spr rider to front up for this event.  brendan and steve were racing as was davina who was going with the plan-b team.   the rest of the spr crew were chasing mountain points around perth.

 

the day was pleasant enough with only a sprinkle of rain as i approached northam.  the predicted top of 20ish was easily achievable and with a start time of 11:00 we would be racing in the “heat of the day”.  not that it would be too much of a problem today.

 

i pulled into the start finish area as they were setting up tents and tables for the race and went looking for the sign-in point.  hmmm.  not here.  apparently it was up the road at the visitors centre where they start the avon descent.  back in the car as it was too far to walk.  well too far if i was to do a 125km race as well.  handed over my licence, collected my number and found out the handicaps.  the plan b girls were off at 11:00 with another group 4min later.  mike and i were off the 8min mark  with hamish and dean from squadra barista off 12min.  brendan was off 17min and steve somehow managed to be thrown in with the 21min group.  after that there were the usual “a” grade boys in two groups back to 27min.  on a 125km course with 5 hill climbs, i was sure that we would not be staying away from scratch to the end.

 

as we rolled up to the start line one of the guys in our group tried to set the ground rules.  he didn’t want us to go too hard and smash the group apart early, but try to stay together for as long as we could.  mike and i said that we were just trying to get to the end so weren’t looking at attacking and going on a 125km solo effort.  as we set off, we had aussie crates guy who set the ground rules, lpr dude, knightfrank, melville fremantle guy along with mike and myself.  a pretty small group and it would be interesting to see how well we did together.

 

the first couple of laps were pretty uneventful.  the climb we tackled at an even tempo although on the second time up there were calls to take it easy.  this was usually when mike went to the front to set the tempo which was generally higher than the other guys.  i sprinted around to get on his wheel, but he wasn’t attacking, just going faster.  these laps were really just getting an idea of the course and the wind direction.  we did work well together and everyone did turns on the front without really missing a beat.  the only problem was that they had started the juniors and they were now on the road in front of us, making it hard to know if you were gaining on our 4min men or not.  at the top of the climb one of the young guys must have put a wheel in the dirt as he was sitting on the road edge with the bike on top of him.  didn’t look too bad and there were some support people not far behind us, so we weren’t stopping.

 

at the start of the third lap we saw the group ahead of us on the climb.  we had already pick up one of their number earlier on and i heard him say to one of our group that they had smashed it to try to catch the girls and he fell off the back on the hill.  there were three or four riders in that group and when they saw us they kind of sat up and waited.  we continued the climb together and i think we lost melville freo guy on this ascent.

 

we kept up the same tempo riding down the side of the hill and along the flats.  pretty soon we saw the girls up ahead and the tint-a-car lead car just ahead.  we swallowed up their group and our numbers hit that point where we could actually start rolling through instead of just doing turns.  unfortunately this didn’t really work too well as some of the guys would smash off the front for their turn then stop pedalling causing a kind of sprint situation to close the gaps.  this made the pace irregular and we eventually fell back into single turns at the front.  unfortunately the pace change had caused us to drop a few more riders and when i looked around mel and josie were not there.  we still had davina and claire with us along with half of the two other groups.

 

at the start of the fourth lap, we lost claire as the climb started but the rest of the group hung in there.  after the small plateau halfway up the first section of road, an old guy from the 4min group in a ag2r kit took off.  no-one was really keen to chase him as we were forcing a tempo up the hill and still had one more lap to go.  mike and i did some turns at pace setting on the hill but i coped a mouthful from the crates guy who for some reason was accusing me of going slow to let the other guy get away.  i have no idea what he was talking about as i was still just setting the same tempo. 

 

as we crested the hill and headed back down, the group set up an informal roll through to chase the ag2r guys down.  informal cause it is hard to get a proper roll through happening when you are all going at speed and also the pace was continuously surging.  as the road flattened into a series of rolling bumps the group still tried to chase down, but it was really all over the place.  a guy in front of me would literally sprint when he hit the front and then i would be left with a huge gap.  i wasn’t sprinting and tried to close the gap without forcing another one to open behind me.  after this happened a couple of times, the crates guy started yelling at me calling me a poofter and claiming that i was deliberately riding slow to let the other guy go.  i’m pretty sure i told him what i thought and blamed him for not consistently rolling through and braking the group apart every time he hit the front.  i was tempted to just sit in now as he had really pissed me off.

 

we kept going though and hit the flatter part of the course where we could get the roll through happening a lot smoother.  about halfway back into town there was a yell from behind as the scratch group had caught us.  there was a sprint to jump on board the train then i we were all content to sit in and let them dictate the pace.  we came back through town and headed for the hill again.  davina dropped off after the feed zone as the group rolled through the lower slopes.  the pace was not extreme as we started the hill, but picked up with a couple of attacks which dislodged me, crates guy and mat from melville-freo who we picked up from the 4min group.  just prior to that the crates guy had apologised for earlier on, but that’s just racing in the heat of the moment.

 

the main group slowed a bit on the plateau and i managed to claw my way back on.  mike was still in that group as were a few others that we were originally riding with.  the scratchmen kicked again and it was all over for me.  i set a tempo to the top and worked with mat and crates guy (who never did a turn on the hill) to get over the climb.  once at the top we started to the descent and started my cramps.  the higher pace started cramping my calves and i had to ease off and let the other guys go.  i made my way down the hill and actually stopped for a call of nature that i had been wanting to make since the 2nd lap.  as i got underway again, davina along with three other guys picked me up and i joined in the roll through.  i only lasted about three or four turns before my hamstrings began to cramp and i fell off the pace.  the 45km/hr was too much for me that late in the race.  i fell into damage control mode and made my way home.

 

it’s times like this i think i need some oakley thump sunnies that have the built in mp3 player.  i get a bit bored riding the rest of the way by myself.  there were two things that kept me interested.  a huge lizard ran across the road in front of me.  i hadn’t seen one that big since i lived in the plibara.  and within 300m of the finishline, as i past a yellow car on the side of the road and three kids jumped out to frighten me and scared the utter crap out of me.  lucky i didn’t fall off.  i was glad to be finished.

 

no idea where i came except the crates guy and mat came in 8th and 9th so i think i came in 14th, but not sure until the results come out.  post race i chatted with mike, to find out that he got dropped on the last pinch when the scratchmen attacked again.  but he kept going and should have got a top ten finish.  brendan pulled out with a coughing fit and has since been told by the doctor that he might have a sinus infection.  steve avoided a massive crash at 60km/hr by locking his brakes up so much that he wore a hole right through his tyre.  me, i got changed and headed home, tired but satisfied that i held on to the last lap and finished the whole thing.