You can read all about it here, but basically Ride Calendar is about raising money for medical research into brain and spinal cord injury. The calendar is a non-profit initiative and all money raised from the project will go to the Brain Foundation and Wings for Life.
Niki has put together some stunning illustrations, the whole calendar can be viewed online through the wesbite. You can also buy the calendar online and it’s in select newsagents across Australia.
A good cause and awesome illustrations — what more could you want!
The Cape to Cape takes an all-encompassing approach to running a four day stage event. While the riders are treated to well marked and generously marshalled courses, the racing is only a small part being involved in the Cape to Cape.
Upon finsihing a stage of the event you’re pampered with a recovery area including Ascend energy drinks and bars, a selection of iced water (sparkling or standard), a massage tent, a mobile bar with beer and wine, and a lunch tent. But that’s not all: roll your bike to your accommodation, have a shower and then catch the pre-organised bus to the evening’s festive location with all the food, beer, wine and socialising you could ever want. So as you can imagine, it was a challenging four days. Race organiser Chris Heverin did warn us during the welcome dinner though. “We want the days to be a challenge and the nights to be even more of a challenge!”
Racing got underway on day one at the Augusta Lighthouse – still the most impressive stage start I’ve ever seen at a mountain bike race with views across the ocean and along the rugged coastline.
The start may have been picturesque and relaxing but it also lulled me into a false sense of calm because the race on day one was certainly the toughest of the four day event. It featured a long, steep, technical climb early into the race and plenty of short, steep climbs afterward, punctuated by a ride along the soft, soggy and leg-sapping beach. While scenically spectacular, this section was physical torture.
I was swapping the lead with Rohin Adams at this point but for whatever reason (probably skill), he rode away from me in the sand while I had to get off and push my bike. It was demoralising, hard work and as I watched Rohin ride off in the distance I decided to save my energy as best I could over the rest of the stage in the hope of coming back stronger later in the week.
So I finished that stage at Hamelin Bay a few minutes down on Rohin in 2nd place and washed my bike – thanks to the complimentary bike wash – peeled of my cycling clothes and went for a swim in the fresh Indian Ocean which was only about 50 metres from our accommodation. If that doesn’t sounds idyllic enough, after drying off in the sun I headed back to the mobile bar for an ice cold beer and a chat to the other guys who, I quickly discovered, were unanimous in their painful memories of the beach section. We traded our stories of suffering and laughed at what we’d put ourselves through, bring on day two!
But first we headed into Augusta for the second challenge: the post-stage dinner. Some entertaining stories were shared from the day and we feasted on lasagne and salad.
The next stage was longer but less challenging. The beach section of day one was replaced with a green paddocks and a winery, and fast flowing trails replaced steep, technical climbs. We rode in a group for much of the day and it flew by.
We raced three abreast up the last major climb, no one giving an inch, until we hit the last sandy 5km where I managed to get past Rohin and Joel Read and held a gap of about a minute to the finish in Prevally Park. Where Hamelin Bay was quiet and tranquil, Prevally Park offered the full, wild ocean experience with massive waves crashing against the beach and Kombi vans covered in surf boards.
That night was a step up in presentation and ambience with a lavish outside dinner at the local Colonial Brewery. The beers were tasty and the dinner was even better. We chatted about the day – it’s amazing how much riders can talk about riding – and ate and drank like we’d earned it, which judging by the weary faces and fresh, red tan lines all around, we had.
Day three was the premier stage of the race – the Margaret River Special Stage. While the other days had been predominantly open and on fire road, this stage had some long sections of singletrack and plenty of challenging terrain. The singletrack was a welcome addition and certainly set the stage aside from others.
After about an hour there were just the three of us at the front – Joel, Rohin and myself. Joel was happy setting an awesome pace on the front so I sat on his wheel and tried to work out where the best spot would be to try to break away from the two team mates. If I tried to break away too early I knew they’d work together to bring me back which would end up costing me a lot more than them.
So as the end neared Rohin threw plenty of attacks at me but I was feeling strong and was able to match each of them. I managed to get into the last singletrack ahead of him and I built a lead to the two chasing riders. With about one or two kilometres to go though I took a wrong turn because some locals had changed the direction of a few of the course arrows! So I finally realised my mistake and got back just in time to see Rohin passing the same point. I got in front of him again but didn’t manage to re-catch Joel.
So I finished 2nd on that stage and while I was disappointed coming over the finish line, if anyone deserved a stage win it was Joel as he’d basically set the pace for the whole day, it was impressive. So I can’t say I was all smiles at the finish but once I’d quenched my exhaustion thanks to the post-stage luxuries, I was happy to have had a challenging and damn fun day on the bike. The only problem with this event was it was going so fast!
Based on the course arrow confusion, the organisers decided to zero the time difference for the final day between Rohin and I. For the last day we’d be starting dead even on time, as we had on day one, the stage was set for a final stage showdown!
No to get too caught up with the racing though, that night we hit up the local Augusta – Margaret River football club and were entertained with Johnny Waddell’s speech regarding his action-packed history on (and off) the bike. The local owner of the club also chipped in with his own unique motivation to get out on the bike – “I’ve recently been forced onto my bike by the local constabulary.”
While the local club struggled with the demand and ran out of food – I overheard one of the older female employees complaining: “we had enough food for 250 people but they were all loading their plates sky high!” – it was another festive night. Along with riding our hearts out, laughter was continuing as a very strong theme for the week.
Day four was certainly the most cruisy of the four stages. The four of us – Joel, Rohin, Johnny and I – were working well together on the flat roads until Johnny locked bars with Rohin and smashed into the ground, ripping chunks of his arm in the process and smearing himself in cow patties. It was almost funny and after a few minutes I think even Johnny could see the funny side. We all pulled up and called First Aid.
Once Johnny was safely off to the hospital we continued on our way. It was flat and fast and there was really no chance for us to break up until the final last climb. I laid it all on the line on that final climb and managed to get a gap on Joel and Rohin which I held until the final descent and the finish line.
So in the end I managed to take the win over the four days but as I hinted at earlier, the racing is only really a small amount of the Cape to Cape experience. In summing up the Cape to Cape I have to steal a quote from my racing buddy Joel Read: “I’m all about doing things for the story and the Cape to Cape did it for me.” The amount of cool people we met, stories we heard and shared and experiences we had was incredible. The fact that it was all crammed into a meagre four days makes it all the more impressive; almost magical, in fact. And I haven’t even started on the scenery…Thanks Cape to Cape!
Thanks also Giant bikes for yet another great few days on the bike. Also a big thanks to my other major sponsors: Adidas Eyewear, Ritchey, Crank Brothers, JetBlack Products and PowerBar. The WA crew: Jason Dover and Lee Walker did an awesome job during the race and they also deserve special thanks. Thanks also to Travis Deane for the pics.
Here are some more sweet pics from racing at the 24hr thanks to Dan de Witte
With 2500 competitors and an estimated 6000-strong crowd, the Scott 24hr is the biggest 24hr race in Australia (and one of the biggest in the world).
I got together with a bunch of mates: Shaun ‘Lewey’ Lewis (Mongoose), Adrian ‘AJ’ Jackson (Merida – Flight Centre) and Andrew ‘Blairy’ Blair (Redshift Racing), and with the support of local Canberra design company Swell Design, entered in the pro four man teams against the strongest Aussie 24hr teams in Australia. Our competition was highlighted by the Gu-Yeti team which included Olympian Sid Taberlay, the Crown Plaza team including Olympian Dan McConnell and the Rockstar Racing team with World 24hr Champ Craig Gordon and fast-men Hamish Elliot and Matt Fleming.
So we knew we had our work cut out for us but we were also quietly confident we could match (and hopefully topple) these teams with our own blend of tactics and consistency.
The race started at midday on Saturday and Lewey took up the charge on the fist lap with a lightening fast lap which had us in a great position from the very first hour. Lewey managed to put time between the Gu-Yeti and Crown Plaza teams and was duking it out with Rockstar’s Hamish Elliot as he came into the transition area for the first time.
Blairy was next up and he maintained our position as we continued to lead the charge with Rockstar for lap three. AJ was next up and for myself, the nerves were starting to build.
As I was getting my bike kit on for the first time Lewey said to me “we can’t lose the lead, if we have to chase we’ll just blow up, we have to stay at the front.”
With this in my head I was ready to put it all on the line even though this was only the first lap of many for the race – the physical and psychological advantages of being in the lead were worth fighting for!
Luckily, AJ came in with no Rockstar jersey behind him. I didn’t know if the gap between us was ten seconds or a minute though so I pedalled through my lap as if the Rockstar guys were only a few seconds behind.
I had a big scare on the major descent when some air starting hissing out of my rear tyre! Luckily the sealant in the tyre managed to clog the hole but I rode conservatively for the remainder of the lap knowing that a flat tyre at this early stage would be very hard to come back from.
I finished my lap having maintained the distance to Rockstar (about a minute) and got some food and drink into me in preparation for the long night ahead.
After a few more laps news came in that the Rockstar guys had punctured and we had close to a six minute lead about four hours into the race. With that gap up pur sleeves we decided the tactic now was to ride solid but conservatively – that way if the Rockstar guys caught us again we would have at least have more in the tank to take the race to them!
With this strategy in place the gap between us narrowed to about four minutes, but as night fell we put in some good laps to see the gap open to almost ten minutes – the race couldn’t be going better for us.
During the late and early morning night hours we changed our strategy and paired off to do one lap on, one lap off for four laps, giving the other two guys a decent rest (almost four hours).
AJ and myself were the first to pair off and by about 2am I was on my last ‘double’ and dreaming of a bed and a shower. The night laps went really well for AJ and myself though and we rode very consistently to build an almost fifteen minute advantage by the end of our session. I really put in for the last of my double, knowing that I had a good rest ahead of me and also knowing that the larger the gap, the bigger the psychological blow for the Rockstar team and also the more of a buffer we’d have should we suffer a mechanical problem.
So I finished up my night laps, grabbed a shower and tried to get a few hours rest before the morning laps.
I woke at about 530 to hear that we still had a strong lead – about 12 minutes – and spirits were still high. As we came into the last quarter of the race we were in a great position.
I was a bit unsure of how I’d feel on the next lap (my first of the morning) and I rode within myself given our significant buffer and also knowing that one silly mistake on track could cost us minutes. Perhaps I rode a bit too much within myself though because when I got back I heard that the Rockstar guys were charging and they’d brought the gap back down to less than 10 minutes. It wasn’t time to panic yet but we could by no means relax!
As the next few laps went by I watched anxiously as the gap continued to drop to six minutes with about three hours remaining! It was looking tight.
AJ headed out for what would be his last lap of the race saying he was going to “leave it all on the track”. Pumped up by his motivation and eagerness to dominate the opposition, I got amped up for a final lap flyer!
AJ came through in about a forty seven minute lap (super-quick) and if I wasn’t amped enough, seeing him smash it down the finish straight and give me some exhausted words of encouragement, had me absolutely ready to tear up the course! So I left transition with far more urgency then I had on just about any other lap and hit the course hard from the first minute of the lap.
I was puffing hard but feeling great. I got through the rocky technical sections without any problem and really opened it up to the maximum for the last 20 minutes. Judging by my watch I was on one of my quickest laps of the race with about five minutes left and I absolutely left it all out there on the final climb, puffing hard but smiling inside knowing that Rockstar would have no chance of closing the gap we’d opened.
Lewey took the baton for the final time and I couldn’t help but smile – barring any sort of huge mechanical difficulty we’d won the race!
In the end we earned close to a ten minute buffer on Rockstar with the Gu – Yeti team taking 3rd place.
With no team manager, we ran like a well-oiled machine with barely a glitch over the 24hr race, it was an awesome weekend, thanks to Lewey, AJ and Blairy for a very memorable two days.
Thanks to Giant bikes for their amazing support and my XTC Advanced SL carbon hardtail. It was faultless as ever and the bike’s race-oriented geometry and compliant yet stiff carbon frame is like an unfair advantage in races like this.
Thanks also Col and Anton at Swell Design for making the weekend happen.
Also, thanks to my sponsors: Adidas Eyewear, Powerbar, JetBlack Products, Ritchey and CrankBrothers and NiteRider for making my weekend all the more enjoyable.
I’m off to WA in a few days for a four day stage race, I’ll keep you posted!
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