The Mont24 Hr - 2011, Mt Kowan

[FatGuts]

I thought the climbs were not that bad but I guess I am comparing them to the likes of Three Ring & Tathra. I dont even put Stromlo on the same league as those two unless there are fire roads involved.

Man, Tathra was a climb fest & Three Ring has "The Wall" & "Halfway Hill" that seemed to go on FOREVER..........

The CP even had one fire trail climb that bypassed Bluegums & Cockatoo switchbacks, man that sucked in the rain at 45km in.

Most of the climbs at the Kow are gradual & the steep ones are really short. Its all about pacing yourself.

Anyway, it was a good event & I had fun even though I dont do well on bugger all sleep

 

[hiredassassin]

Have you had a chat to your dealer or Commencal yet? Are they going to come to the party?

yeah spoke to the dealer - they had a hard enough time looking after me last time this happened, and as such they don't deal with commencal anymore so if I want to chase it I'll need to go to commie direct. I don't expect to have much luck!

The dealer offered me a discount on a replacement frame but I'm a bit torn now... I really enjoyed that hardtail... maybe I should go hardtail? or (gulp) 29er..?

 

[DiscoDan]

second that

Okay, Rider 7119 went out and did a 54 minute lap on the back of that runner. Now I am jumping to conclusions here but that runner looked a little older. The results also have the age of the riders, lets say that the runner was the oldest in the team who's average lap time was around the 1 hour 10 mark.

Advantage gained by a good run who knew he didn't have to ride and a pair of fresh legs on the bike for a hot lap? Most definitely.

Case closed.

Plus the fact that if you pace yourself on the run, as I did, you end up in the middle of the conga line of the first lap and never get a chance to use your legs. If someone had sprinted for me so I was at the front end of the pack and I had fresh legs it would have made a huge difference

 

[Madge]

Top course - top event - top organisation

I've just read this thread completely. My first observation is that the course and it's gradients must have been close to perfect as everyone, representing a wide range of abilities, seemed to find bits they liked or disliked.

My second observation is a personal one. As an unfit overweight 49 year old on a SS I found the first few km a good heart starter each lap. Even being sent out at 1145am on Sunday for my 6th overall and 2nd muddy lap I was dreading the Organ and Angle Grinder (Al should have called them the defibrilators). After that it was a blast on every lap. A few sharp pinches around 3km to go and then a bumpy but fun descent back to transition.

I take my hat off to the trail builders to do all that work IN THEIR OWN TIME in under a year after needing to find a new location. Hat's off also to the event organisers and volunteers.

Bring on Mont 2012 - Team "Get Your Gears Off" will be back

One more observation - I need to train more. A single 14-18km night ride once a week followed by beer and pizza is not a good training regime.

 

[Madge]

the great thing about this is that a whole bunch of new area has been opened up and the amount of trail will only increase, as will the quality with luck (and shovels).

I just hope the motos don't get in an rip it apart over the next 12 months. The rest of Kowen has been trashed and it won't be long before this is discovered. Takes me back to one time when Paul Cole was working on the old Kowen 24 course and some mid teen comes along on a moto. Paul tells him he shouldn't be on these tracks. The dude comes back with "What do you mean man, these were built for us!"

 

[inetpics]

My first Mont (not first 24) and loved most of it

My first Mont (although done a few 24's at Forrest and other single day events) and for the most of it had a ball despite snapping my crankset on our Friday recce run

The Pluses:

• Camping setup and car parking at campsite
• The track; great flowing course with a reasonable amount of climbing per lap and nothing too steep
• Unbelievably good passing by the elite level riders
• Great food and coffee
• Amazing bike service and supply of spares (broke my 2x9 crankset on Friday - sure I had to pay full retail for a replacement but they had one!)
• Great organisation for such a huge event

The Minuses:

• The bumpiness/roughness of the track. On a hardtail my back got smashed. Partly my fault for riding a hardtail - mostly down to the new track
• The wannabe elites - if you call track and I yell NO I mean NO and if you try and pass me while I'm avoiding a rock or trying to thread through two trees you haven't seen yet, you will hit me and/or it! (and I'll do my best to make sure it's IT and not me)
• Riders who can't judge your braking without the audible clue of you locking up the rear. I don't lock the rear often but would appreciate you not riding into my rear wheel on every corner
• Toilets - plenty of urinals but we need more shitters for the blokes, especially when we're all OD'ing on gels and energy drinks and bars!
• Showers not open till midday Saturday so had to start stinky
• Organisation for first lap run - seems to be a common theme at MTB races that every official you ask seems to have a different idea of what's happening and where you should be and it was pretty hard to hear the pre-race briefing. Once things got going it was great!

While some seem to be complaining about the climbing, there wouldn't be any more climbing than any of my usual MTB rides (in fact a lot less than most) and the gradients were pretty low. As others have pointed out, without ups you don't get downs and the downs were pretty damm cool!

If it doesn't clash with work again I'll definitely be back next year!

 

[spiderpig]

I just hope the motos don't get in an rip it apart over the next 12 months. The rest of Kowen has been trashed and it won't be long before this is discovered. Takes me back to one time when Paul Cole was working on the old Kowen 24 course and some mid teen comes along on a moto. Paul tells him he shouldn't be on these tracks. The dude comes back with "What do you mean man, these were built for us!"

I ride moto's and mtb's, will do my best to keep any moto riders out of the track that i see... but as usual its a minority that give alot of groups a bad name. Some of the single in old kowen has certainly been torn up a bit my the moto's, but we need somewhere to ride too and are loosing alot of areas to development and the fun police. Fortunately through alot of good work by the mtb community, there is alot of good areas to ride around the ACT, hope we dont loose too many more moto areas, cause there are less and less places these days to get the moto out to.

Overall i thought the 2011 Mont was A grade all round! Showers at a mtb event, how good is that! We are stoked just to get porta loo's at a moto event. The track is awesome, gives us lucky ACT area people another top place to ride. Now i can do a lap of the new track, scoot across the road and do a lap of the old track for a nice 35k session. My wifey scored a 1st place in the womens 4 team in her first ever 24h event, cant get any better than that, she had a great time and will be back for sure.

2 thumbs up to the Track builders, volunteers and everyone who got the Mont happening this year.

 

[Anti_Trainer]

One more observation - I need to train more. A single 14-18km night ride once a week followed by beer and pizza is not a good training regime.

If you spent more time riding and less time chattin up my wife you guys might have pulled out the win

 

[cha_cha_]

[*]The wannabe elites - if you call track and I yell NO I mean NO and if you try and pass me while I'm avoiding a rock or trying to thread through two trees you haven't seen yet, you will hit me and/or it! (and I'll do my best to make sure it's IT and not me)

not being critical of you at all here, but "NO!" sounds a hell of a lot like "GO!". for future reference, Perhaps it may be better to tell a rider behind you to "WAIT" rather than using the word "GO"... It's an easy mistake to make, I'm a frequent passer and i have in the past accidentally passed people at times they deemed inappropriate because of this simple misunderstanding (fortunately, without consequences).

ultimately, the best answer is patience and conversation from both parties. I will always have a chat with someone before i go past and it makes my job much easier if you talk back (99% do) but we all know that there are people who aren't going to do this so loud clear communication from the passee is essential (they're the one who most likely will be rattled by any incidents so they should be defensive and do their best to take control of the situation even though they shouldn't have to)

that said, i personally had zero problems this year, though i did see some very douchey passing while sitting towards the back of some trains.

 

[struggles]

not being critical of you at all here, but "NO!" sounds a hell of a lot like "GO!". for future reference, Perhaps it may be better to tell a rider behind you to "WAIT" rather than using the word "GO"... It's an easy mistake to make, I'm a frequent passer and i have in the past accidentally passed people at times they deemed inappropriate because of this simple misunderstanding (fortunately, without consequences).

ultimately, the best answer is patience and conversation from both parties. I will always have a chat with someone before i go past and it makes my job much easier if you talk back (99% do) but we all know that there are people who aren't going to do this so loud clear communication from the passee is essential (they're the one who most likely will be rattled by any incidents so they should be defensive and do their best to take control of the situation even though they shouldn't have to)

that said, i personally had zero problems this year, though i did see some very douchey passing while sitting towards the back of some trains.

I am a frequent passee and normally just say I will let you through when i get a chance then tell them what side to go past on. I had no issues at all over the weekend.

The track was great and while the hills hurt me, they were nothing like that massive fireroad climb at the 2003 Mont. After the 8th time I was walking that one all the way.

 

[FR Drew]

It's generally not difficult to hear someone coming up behind and to start spotting a clear area where it'll be safe for them to get by that you should come up to pretty close to their arrival time. By minor adjustment of speed either up or down, it's very rare that I can't let another rider by pretty much immediately with almost no detriment to either of us.

Usually it's me making the call for them to pass in a given section, not them having to call track. A bit of consideration from both parties makes a world of difference.

 

[FatGuts]

Man Aurora Images are slow..........

 

[scootabug]

Man Aurora Images are slow..........

Yeah it's like pulling teeth at the moment. I've reloaded their MTB gallery about 83,345 times. *sigh*

I was doing a lot more passing than getting passed. 99% of people gave me the track within 50-100m, sweet as, no stress, everyone's happy. Some people immediately "freaked out" and punted off into the bush, leaving me thinking "wow, that wasn't really necessary!" but I'd give them a big "thanks!"

But the one that I remember most of all was calling track (and I say "track when you can thanks") on someone TWICE. I waited patiently both times, had to be more than 500m between calls. Still no result. I was like, is this guy deaf or what? I know you don't have to just "give it up" but it's just rude if you don't think you can find time to miss a pedal or two to stop holding me up. It forced me to make a hard pass on a corner. It was a clean pass, but if I had've somehow knocked him off, I'd have been the a__hole. And also, it was a long way to the next section of fire road. Frustrating!

And also to the guys who pull aside before someone calls track, this is a great idea except for when you're not really ready to pass them. At the end of the day, my legs weren't too zippy, and passing was hard work. So I had a few who tried to give me track straight away, which is awfully nice, but in the same respect I'm like "sorry, not ready" or just passed anyway but I was shot, so was almost literally crawling past them. I dunno if it's any advantage to just try to give someone track before they need it. Especially when it's me, sitting on your wheel, just having a rest!

 

[StanTheMan]

Man Aurora Images are slow..........

are the photos from the Mont24 2011 up?

 

[FatGuts]

are the photos from the Mont24 2011 up?

Nope, that's what I mean, the last couple of events I have done the pics have been up within 48 hours. Last year after the CP Aurora took a week, looks like its that same this time.

 

[FatGuts]

Yeah it's like pulling teeth at the moment. I've reloaded their MTB gallery about 83,345 times. *sigh*

I was doing a lot more passing than getting passed. 99% of people gave me the track within 50-100m, sweet as, no stress, everyone's happy. Some people immediately "freaked out" and punted off into the bush, leaving me thinking "wow, that wasn't really necessary!" but I'd give them a big "thanks!"

But the one that I remember most of all was calling track (and I say "track when you can thanks") on someone TWICE. I waited patiently both times, had to be more than 500m between calls. Still no result. I was like, is this guy deaf or what? I know you don't have to just "give it up" but it's just rude if you don't think you can find time to miss a pedal or two to stop holding me up. It forced me to make a hard pass on a corner. It was a clean pass, but if I had've somehow knocked him off, I'd have been the a__hole. And also, it was a long way to the next section of fire road. Frustrating!

And also to the guys who pull aside before someone calls track, this is a great idea except for when you're not really ready to pass them. At the end of the day, my legs weren't too zippy, and passing was hard work. So I had a few who tried to give me track straight away, which is awfully nice, but in the same respect I'm like "sorry, not ready" or just passed anyway but I was shot, so was almost literally crawling past them. I dunno if it's any advantage to just try to give someone track before they need it. Especially when it's me, sitting on your wheel, just having a rest!

+1

I was torn between being uber grateful they had given way to "bugger me legs, WORK!!!!"

 

[alchemist]

If you spent more time riding and less time chattin up my wife you guys might have pulled out the win

I know Jeebus is a man of peace, but that's playing with fire.

 

[LastMile]

Nope, that's what I mean, the last couple of events I have done the pics have been up within 48 hours. Last year after the CP Aurora took a week, looks like its that same this time.

Considering how many photographers and automatic setups they had out there on the weekend they probably have tens of thousands of images to sort through and tag

Can't wait to see some of the night shots.

 

[Dreggsy]

Nope, that's what I mean, the last couple of events I have done the pics have been up within 48 hours. Last year after the CP Aurora took a week, looks like its that same this time.

give them a bit of time mate,

I went out and took some pics for only a few hours and I ended up with close to 2000 pics.

Organizing/ cataloging them is a hassle and takes a-lot of time. then you have to upload them.

 

[iscarrr]

Considering how many photographers and automatic setups they had out there on the weekend they probably have tens of thousands of images to sort through and tag

Can't wait to see some of the night shots.

This is true, but the problem is, a lot of people, myself included, will compare them to Sportograf (Scott24hr) guys - and yeah, no waiting a week for those guys to get their photos sorted. 100% pros.

Anyway, hope they're up soon, looking forward to them