Paul Petch

Ground Effect Cyclic Saga – “when I’m angry I can read maps”

Friday night

Hectic would describe the events after arriving home from work on Friday as I found myself changing the Cove’s pedals from the “totally dead” Crank Brother Candys back to Shimano, swapping the rear wheel and seat, cassette and brake pads to sintered, and then giving the bike a much needed check over and tune. I knew that I had a heap of climbing….. and my AM bike would have to do!

I also had to pack for the weekend and with MUCH patience and support from my Wife (thanks Amy x) all was in order by the time Craig arrived for 8pm. With a short list of supplies to pick up “on route” in hand we were off! The plan was to arrive at the Ashley Forest camp site before 10pm to register and then setup camp ready for a good night sleep for the epic weekend ahead. Easy right? I mean we had a detailed route from the organisers….and an estimated travel time of less than an hour to Ashley Forest nr Mount Grey. Well….on the way to our maiden orienteering event…. we of course got lost! After driving around for a few hours we “by chance” discovered signage that pointed us in the correct direction of the grounds to make it just in time to register! ohhhh the irony!!! In all fairness though, the events organisers had provided an absolutely terrible map…. I mean totally useless!

During the brief registration a full check of our gear was required that included a fair list such as a first aid kit, 20l pack plus 2+l water carrier (bladder/ bottle) survival blanket, compass, thermal beanie/ under gear and of course a helmet. Once everyone was happy we headed off to setup camp in the large open and lush grassy field in the dark :/… which actually went really well considering. I had major concerns about putting up my tent as it has been sometime since I last erected my tent… never mind in the dark! By midnight we were both in our “toasty pods” and asleep….oh what a crazy evening!

Saturday – Day One

I slept surprisingly well considering my dislike for sleeping rough and by 7.20am I was showered, dressed in the days gear and sipping on one of the many coffees of the day by the time the rest of the happy campers stumbled out of their tents. Craig awoke considerably later than most of the people there but after a coffee he was good to go. After several more coffees we were at the start line by 8.30 with a field of 200+ riders that ranged from serious athletes to families. Underground coffee were also there… and their triple shot latte worked a treat to get me going for the day ahead :D (but with no price discount as a sponsor and $4 for a SMALL?? hmmm come on guys!).

Heading off we were in good spirits with a plan to have fun and head for the largest point markers…. which equated to alot of climbing all day…. and boy oh boy did we climb! Infact the whole course consisted of near constant climbing… which we chuckled out loud about as we spun up stuff for most of the day. Things went pretty much to plan until after lunch when we missed the marker on this side of the map that had the highest points available….100 to be exact! This point was of course located at the highest point of the map and required more than an hour of climbing to reach! We were so caught up in the fast and sketchy fire road descent that we totally forgot about it.. haha! At the bottom we looked at each other and just fell about laughing at how stupid we were and then considered for about….. um…2 seconds about climbing back up… before heading onwards :D

After getting over our terrible observational skills, we spent sometime heading towards what seemed a point rich part of the map and decided that while everyone seemed to be heading in a certain direction that our track choice ( well Craigs :)) would yield more points. This track was a disastrous choice and the one that broke me mentally….. with 1.5 hrs of pushing our bikes up a gradient similar to the Craigieburn scree fields I soon got bored and the negativity started to creep in. As much as I tried to quieten the negative voices in my head… they did get to me….. with this question “why am I here riding up steep fire roads collecting shit? why?” By the time we got to the top of this nightmare climb we were both totally exhausted and really not coping to well with our choices. Thankfully, the “mental game” had been won and after some more food and joking about- we wer back in good spirits and heading back to collect points on the way.

After grabbing a few more points and then hitting the flat road back to camp we were greeted with a brutal head wind the whole way…. but thankfully taking turns to take lead so we could get some respite by drafting helped us to motor past heaps of weary riders which was alot of fun! At about 2 KM from camp Craigs legs just told him that “enough was enough” and he started to fade….but pushing on we made it back with time to spare. After fueling up and then a welcomed shower…..we were chilling with drinks in hand, checking over the bikes and laughing at the days events. Craig insisted on a few Bourbon and cokes to ensure that he would sleep and I enjoyed taking advantage of his fragile state by flashing a camera in his face as random times….hehe! As the temperature plummeted we headed off to bed by 9.30 and hoped that we could both walk the following day! After 8 hours in the saddle, 65+ KM and an elevation gain of over 2500m it was going to be a gamble the next day…….

Sunday- Day Two

I slept really well considering how cold it got overnight (5degs?) and I was up by 7am to a fantastic dew with cold finger and toes as I headed over to the showers with the sun rising. Once dressed and full of coffee and muesli the rest of the camp started to awake and his morning Craig had a pan of water boiling away ready for his morning cuppa which he really appreciated. By 9am we were off once more and feeling quite positive about the day ahead with another glorious forecast of 19degs and sun…. perfect! For the second day we decided to focus our energy on the centre of the right side of the map and after 30 mins or so of (more!) fire/ farm tracks we entered a sweet grassy singletrack that took us on our way. After the first marker we stopped to put on sun screen and take off arm/ leg warmers while chatting with a few familiar faces from the day before who looked a little worse for yesterdays efforts. Our plan was to simply tag along with some friendly teams and socialise while we grabbed some points. Such ideas soon disappeared after the refreshing woodland singletrack warm up as we realised that we had a tad more in our legs and lungs than we expected….so it  changed. The new approach would be to just hit it hard and head off to do our own thing (again)….with the track  once more characteristically  heading UPWARDS :D

A few markers and KM’s later and still full of beans, we were bombing down a forest fire trail towards some easy points….. when I sensed some serious deja vu as we were hammering downwards at serious speed. I had not seen any markers for some time…..and after stopping for a whinge, we soon realised that we had taken a wrong turn (again!). After the previous day I was not impressed at all! and Craigs “idea” was not working once again so rather than spending the whole day lost I decided to take control. Taking the map from Craig I then had a moment that was a bit of a revelation for me- that when I’m angry I can infact read a map :) We had to re-trace our steps and find the correct turn off…. so off we went. The  long climb back up was also the time that our “team spirit” was tested as we re-assessed Craig’s original plan… and how it was simply not working :/ Fortunately by the time that we had found the “wrong turn” the game was back on and the team was in.. um….good spirits (ok ok Craig was not impressed with words such as “epic fail” “learning by our mistkes” and “I did try to tell you”…. and did threaten to punch me :D)

From this point of the day we both continued to totally “luck out” as we bagged some serious points with our choices of routes providing nowhere as much “severe” climbing as other choices would have done. We also had much more in our legs as we rode the hills in a higher gear than the day before…. we just seemed to be nailing it and the points steadily ticked over. By lunchtime though we were nearly out of water and the sun was starting to cook us….which was not good at all. Unfortunately every time we found a stream that was on the map it was dry…. or not flowing…..and we were starting to feel it. We decided to head towards the higher points which would also give us some water (as we had been told at teh morning brief) and then give us a leisurely spin back down the singletrack that we started the day on to camp.

Heading towards the higher areas on the map we hit some huge climbs and descents that went on for ever through some logging rich areas. On particular steep descent the Gravity dropper and PIKE fork came in handy as I made fun of choosing lines that were in the sun to ensure some better traction as I hit trail litter and ruts at full speed. But of course…. what goes down has to go up right? and we soon hit the “bitch climb” of the weekend that took us upwards for over an hour in granny with the sun baking us like ants. By know Craig was starting to unfold and by half way he had to get off and push…..we were now feeling really parched and totally out of water! (but what a fantastic climb it was!!!) Resting for a few minutes at the top we headed off to grab the high points that we had worked so hard for and also discovered (once again) that there was no water at the place where there “should have been.” We  started to head back to the single track and then the finish with another nice head wind :) Food, shower, packing of gear and the presentation followed before we headed back to the city sun kissed, and buzzing from some serious saddle time over the weekend.

Would I do it again? For sure! and next year I’ll know what I’m doing won’t I? :D I had a great time and what a fantastic way to return to the MTB event scene.

p.s. to the organisers- you need better directions to the camp, and more water stops……..$145.00 entry should cover this ;)

Related posts:

1. Ground Effect Cyclic Saga 2009
2. Craig is back!
3. Hanmer 12 hour by Blue Dog Events
4. Port Hills into Taylors Mistake
5. Lake Taupo. North Island trip. Ride five

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 at 7:14 am and is filed under Bike Rides, Featured and tagged with cove, craig, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.