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.