Cape to Cape MTB

Nick's little friend at Margaret River

The Felt Nine with Sram XX - the perfect bike for the Cape to Cape

A photo from a little while back at Rocky Trail GP4 at Stromlo

A moment with Mike "the man" Tomolaris

The Cape to Cape MTB stage race takes competitors on a journey from Cape Leeuwin to Cape Naturaliste in the Margaret River region of WA. The race has been growing in numbers since it's inception in 2008 and the 4th year attracted 800 riders that came for the 4 stages and 220km of singletrack, forest trails, dirt roads, beaches and road.

At only 40km, stage one from Cape Leuuwin was shortest but it was probably the hardest with a few solid climbs, plenty of sandy trails and a killer section of energy sapping beach.  Fortunately for me, it was one of those days when you just feel great.  On the first main climb at the 6km mark I went to the front to apply some pressure and hopefully cause and split.  It didn’t quite go to plan as I ended up off the front on my own, so I just pushed tempo and hoped that someone would jump across because I didn’t fancy 34km on my own.  I expected to be caught at any minute, but as the kilometres ticked by I started to think that maybe I should go for it and by the time I hit the beach I decided that I was 100% committed.  Despite being low tide, the sand on the beach was terrible.  It seemed to be like quicksand; sucking my tyres down and I felt like I was going so slow.  I started to panic that the bunch would come flying past at any moment and I just focused on keeping the power down & the momentum up, while constantly scanning for the hardest bit of sand which was sometimes in the salt water – sorry bike!  The remainder of the stage seemed to go on forever; the last few climbs seemed so tough but having now gambled so much energy on this stage I did not want to get caught. I pushed all the way to the finish line in Hamelin Bay to take the first stage, with a time gap back to Chris Jongeward, Craig Cooke & Jason English of 7 minutes!

Stage 2 started with predominately bush tracks and single track and finished with a very fast and open 2^nd half on dirt roads.  Predictably it was Chris J who was the main aggressor and he pushed the pace on all the narrow sections, I was super attentive and stuck to him like glue. After loosing time on the fist day he was riding with a kind of reckless abandon that makes him very dangerous; he is one of the best bike handlers normally, but when he rides like he has nothing to loose it is a sight to behold! As a result of Blood’s surging, the main group split and reformed several times, fortunately I was feeling good and able to keep contact.  The lead bunch swelled to 6 riders for the final 20km fast run in to the finish at Xanadu winery.  We all had a few digs to get away, but the day was destined to come down to a sprint where it was Hatto who out-foxed us all with Blood and Lewi 2^nd and 3^rd.

With 20kms of Margaret River’s best single track and the finish at Colonial Brewery, stage 3 was one of the most anticipated stages of the race.  The abandonment of Jongeward meant that it was English that assumed the role of pace maker for much of the first half of the race.  It was in the 2^nd half of the stage that things got serious with Peter Hatton making his intentions clear with several venomous attacks.  With 15km to go he managed to snap the elastic and get away solo with Craig Cooke and English dragging me along in a chase group.  With 6kms to go we hit a steady climb and I attacked Craig and Jason to set off in pursuit of Hatto, but it was too little to late.  Peter Hatton is a classy bike rider and when given a sniff of the finish line he is very hard to beat. He held on for a second consecutive stage victory, but more importantly took more time out of his rivals to move up the GC to 4^th. I came across alone in 2^nd with Craig Cooke popping English for 3^rd.

The final stage to Dunsborough is renowned as being fast and I can see why; the majority of the stage is on dirt roads and with GC positions up for grabs the stage was the most aggressive of the race which ended up with an average speed of 28kph...not bad on a mountain bike! With only a handful of seconds separating 2^nd and 4^th, Hatto, Craig and Jason had a titanic battle to decide the make up of the final podium.  Hatto and Craig were super aggressive, with Hatto in particular launching an unrelenting barrage of attacks on Jason in an attempt to bump him of his 2^nd place overall.  The constant surging kept splintering the main field with some lulls and the odd wrong turn seeing it come back together again time after time. With about 8km to go Hatto finally got away for good and a couple of kilometres later I attacked in an attempt to solo across to him.  I was able to join Hatto with about 5km to go and the two of us worked together; him for a GC result and me for the stage.  Having had a much easier stage than the super aggressive Pete, I was able to take the stage with him on my wheel stopping the clock for his anxious wait to see if he had gained enough time to make the podium overall.  Lewi was next in with English on his wheel doing enough to hold 2^nd overall, but Craig Cooke came in an agonising 18 seconds too slow to drop back to 4^th overall.

I certainly left my first Cape to Cape with some very fond memories; good company, scenery, wine and food, new & old friends, fast & fun racing and a lot of laughs.  Thanks heaps to the Bennets, the Kennedys, the Aubreys and my Swell-Redshift team mate Bosch, for all the support and good times. I can't wait to get back over to WA for the National Series opener in November.

 

Scott 24hr

What a weekend it was for the Scott 24hr; a few small showers over the weekend made the track super tacky and the mild temperatures overnight made it less intolerable getting out of bed for that 4am lap. Swell Design had the usual army out on course with a total of 24 riders in 4 teams. The Swell-Redshift mixed six consisted of Cameron Ivory (fresh back from XC worlds), Nathan Spencer, Nick Both, Peter “Pinky” Kreillis, Rosie Barnes & myself. I opened the account with a double lap and was happy to get the team off to a good start despite a very scary encounter with a massive Eastern Grey kangaroo that actually took a swing at me. Hendo (who was ahead of me) had managed to piss him off so much that he certainly wasn’t going to cop any shit from me and he stood his ground as I approached.  At the last moment I swerved off the track to go around him and he tried to kick me, definately a scary and sureal experience.  From there, the team took control and we soon overtook Anytime Fitness and built a small lead over Merida. During the night Anytime went to bed, but Merida closed the gap.  Just before dawn, Ryan Standish (Merida) passed Rosie on the red climb and got a gap over the top. Sensing that the situation wasn't good, Rosie desceded like a woman-posesed and caught Ryan, eventually following him into transition.  I was out next and managed to get a gap again, and as Merida threw everything they had at us, Cam, Nick, Pinky and Nath lifted and punched out some great laps to get the gap out to 6 minutes again. With two laps remaining Rosie and Standish had a rematch on the red lap. The tension in transition was crazy as AJ and I (and our respective entourages) waited for Rosie and Ryan before we could comence our "ride-off" for mixed-6 glory. 24 hours of racing and it came down to this......Rosie was first into view and the Swell crew cheered, seconds later Ryan appeared!  The gap was 9 seconds.  Pacing the lap was a bit tricky; I did not want to give AJ a chance to catch me so I had to start fairly hard, but I didn't want to go too hard and blow.  Luckily I had the aid of a head start, and Cam & Clarkey out on the track giving me splits so I could measure my effort fairly well.  In the end I was able to do my team proud and hold of the 'flying ginger' to finish the 2011 Scott 24hr with a big skid into the arms of my team mates. Wow, what a way to finish after 24 hours of hard racing! That is what these races are all about; everyone digging deep for the good of the team and the excitement of it all coming down to the wire.  The stoke from this race is sure to hang around for a while.

 

As usual the support from Swell Design was second to none. My Felt Edict LTD with Sram XX was amazing and I was having a ball on both laps. An especially big thanks to my awesome team mates!