A month or so ago Jo from Giant emailed me asking if I could lend a hand at the upcoming Liv/Giant Demo Day held at the You Yangs on December 11th. The day would involve taking 2 groups of girls out for a skills session. Sure would was the reply and I found myself looking forward to it as getting to ride a heap of other chicks is a rarity for me.
GMBC 3 hour Enduro
That week I was scrolling through a cycling forum and discovered that the Geelong Mountain Bike Club would be holding a 3hr Enduro at the You Yangs on Saturday 10th. Perfect timing, I felt I had recovered from the Scott and was ready to race again. I was also looking forward to riding the You Yangs as I had never been there.
I left Marlo after school on Friday and stayed at my brothers in the city, unpacking the bike I realised my back tyre was flat. Upon closer inspection I noticed a tear in the tyre and when I tried to put more than 30psi in it would spray sealant everywhere. I hoped it would reseal overnight. I was up early and arrived at the You Yangs with plenty of time to get organised.
I was a little nervous about the race as I had heard the You Yangs were massively technical and rocky but luckily the race was on the other side in Kurrajong. I came back from a practice lap to find a packed transition area, over 120 people had turned up to race! My tyre had held air during the lap however it hadn’t sealed. I wasn’t sure what to do, put in tube or not...? I ummed and arrrrdd and after asking a few guys for advice I chose to leave it and hope it wouldn’t go down during the race.
I wasn’t feeling at all confident as I had hardly been on the mountain bike in the past month and the course contained a lot of sandy corners which have been known to cause me some carnage. I noticed a serious amount of bike bling going on. Everything and everyone seemed to be carbon!!Most riders looked like they rode for a team and I was hearing a lot of carbon wheels roll by making that intimidating sound. A combination of not riding much, serious bike bling and being by myself meant I went against the advice of my coach. I am always told to get up the front at the start as to ensure you don’t lose time trying to pass people. There’s no way I’d be trying to pass these guys though, they looked awesome!! So I put myself about 3/4’s of the way down the field. However that old adage of all the gear no idea shortly came into play when I found myself frustratingly trying to pass quite a few people on the first lap. I reminded myself what the MC had said at the start of the race “Sheep stations were up for grabs a few months ago at the Yowie, if your here to race for those then you better go home”
Three hours is a relatively short time to be racing your bike when your last race was a 24 hour. My race plan was to race hard the whole race, however after the first hour I realised that racing flat out for 3 hours would actually be incredibly hard so I backed it off and found a nice tempo for the next hour and a half. The course was loads of fun, it contained lots of berms and turns. The first half had 1 slight uphill and the second half was all downhill. Although it was a fairly flat course it deceptively made riders tired as we always had to keep pedalling. The weather also made the race harder as it hit 34 degrees and 80% humidity, no wonder I was sweating profusely!! I decided to stop every 2nd lap for a bottle refill as it was taking me roughly 28 minutes per lap. I made sure I put in a massive effort up that 1 climb and managed to overtake quite a few people each time however was frustrated when they caught me on the downhill more often than not. Must work on those cornering and descending skills over summer!!! I had no idea where I was coming in the field or even how many girls I was racing against (turns out there were 17 which is AWESOME as I had never ridden against that many girls in 1 race before!!!) On my 2nd last lap I overtook a girl and decided against grabbing a drink bottle for the last lap, it was only 28 minutes without a drink I decided and I didn’t want that girl to catch up. Poor call. Turns out you do need a drink in 28 minutes when it’s hot. Drinking PureSport throughout the race meant I didn’t cramp like I saw many others doing as it was just so hot and humid that the amount of electrolytes lost was insane. My jersey was covered in salt marks!! One highlight would have been on my last lap when I came up to a male rider who said "would you like to pass" I responded with a "when your ready mate" to which he said "Oh man Im about to get CHICKED arent I?" my reply: "dam straight" as I passed!! :P
I went as hard as I could for my last lap and came in over the line in 3 hours and 5 minutes, 3 minutes behind 1st place and 18 minutes ahead of 3rd place. Won a piece of rocky road the size of my head, some nice local wine, honey and jam and had an awesome time. A big thanks to Geelong Mountain Bike club for putting on a awesome race ($20 entry fee you can’t go wrong!!) and thanks to Giant and PureSport for their support.
LIV/GIANT DEMO DAY
After the race I headed into Ocean Grove and stayed with my friend Suze who would be coming with me on Sunday. Woke up early and headed into the beach to try to freshen up the legs before heading back to the You Yangs to hang out with the Giant crew and take some girls out mountain biking for the day.
After meeting the other Giant girls we set up all the 2012 bikes including the new Trance and Anthems Giant has and were advised what our roles for the day would be. Sarah and I would be taking the intermediate group out where we would do a lap of the course 2-3 times giving the girls a chance to learn some new skills, test out the new Giants and ride with other ladies. There were about 10 girls in this group and they had some decent skills. I rode at the bike and chatted to Giant rider Stef Hanson for a bit, I think I distracted her asking her loads of questions about her Ironman training that she stacked it into a rock only a few minutes in. All good though she sprung back onto the bike and we proceeded to roll past a group of fully sick Mother drinking downhillers who were looking pretty pleased a group of ladies would be riding past all day.
After the skills session we cooked up a barbie then Norm showed the girls how to change a tyre and break a chain. Shortly after they left another group of girls arrived and we took them through the same as the morning group, with a few of them already raced in a crit that morning. It was awesome to see some of them overcome their fears and go over some decent sized rock drop offs. There was lots of whooping and squealing noises come from the girls and its seemed they were having an awesome time. I really hope they get in to mountain biking now!
We packed up the Giant Van and I headed home. A fantastically fun weekend spent riding, racing and meeting new people. I loved riding with other girls, it was awesome!!! Thanks Giant for letting me be a part of it, can’t wait for the next one!!
