I'm still on a little high from finishing this event, despite being pretty tired and sore, so it would be nice to share my experience for anyone interested.
There were maybe 15 to 20 of us on the start line, although some with varying intentions of racing, riding, or just doing part of the course as time permitted. I had packed as light as I dared for my first go at a 'bikepacking race', although as I intended not to sleep but to ride right through until it was done I'm not really sure that qualifies as bikepacking, but more just a really big ride. The forecast was for thunderstorms and a lot of rain but optimistically I thought these forecasts are often exaggerated. Besides, it never rains on the Goldfields Track.
Bendigo to Harcourt was pretty cruisey, legs were still fresh, had a few people to ride with and pass the time and the scenery around Harcourt with all the granite boulders was amazing. I stopped there for 5 minutes with Jess Douglas before heading out again, she soon disappeared up the first big climb as I forced myself to back off and try and find my 400km pace. Brendan and Justin who was on a SS caught up to me and we cruised into Castlemaine together, stopped only briefly and then headed south on some classic goldfields single track towards the back of Guildford. Because Justin was on a SS as soon as we hit some downhill smooth fireroad I was able to push on in a bigger gear while I assume they just had to roll along. I wouldn't see another rider until Bunninyong at the 200km mark.
Darkness fell long before I got to Creswick and I was out in the exposed open farming plains around Dean where I detoured briefly off-course to get some water from the recreation reserve. It was strange that I was only 10km from home and I was out on my regular training roads but I had to stay focused and remind myself that I was only part way through this event and that I had to just keep on following this purple line on my Garmin. On hitting my local singletrack around Creswick I felt pretty confident that I was making up some good time and it was a real boost to find the supporters out on course following the blue dots. This was some of the most technical single track of the course, with lots of narrow water race, lose quartz and lots of turns, and made even harder in the dark, however later on the weather conditions were to make even the simplest of trails an absolute nightmare to ride.
I rolled into Ballarat at 8.30pm along the Yarrowee Creek walking track which was some rare easy miles and stopped for about ten minutes at the supermarket to get some bananas, chocolate bars and a Big M. Athlete food. I wanted to be brief in Ballarat as having grown up in the town I was painfully aware that the drunk bogan danger period runs from 11am until 5am. My road rage risk was heightened by the fact that I had lost my rear light and now a long section of road all the way to Bacchus Marsh was coming up.
There was a detour off the main road through the bush of Canadian and Mount Clear and I was surprised to find myself riding on long forgotten singletrack that had been used in old races and training loops from my early days of mountain biking, and the quiet solitude while looking over the lights of Ballarat from a distance was very calming.
I was surprised to catch up with Gareth Pellas whom I hadn't seen since he took off at the start with Martin Grannas and Liam Crowley. The blinking rear light of Jess was just a bit further up and the three of us rode together, and at times spread out along the bitumen road to Mt Edgerton, which roadies will know is a bugger of a climb. I don't know about the other two but I felt I was going a bit hard along here and thought I surely would pay for this effort later on but I wanted to take advantage of the only easy part of the course. But even the easy part was into an ever increasing headwind as all the tell tale signs of the mother of all storms, as forecast, was forming in 360 degrees around us. Jess punched on into the darkness and I would not see anyone again nor have an easy pedal stroke.
I had to pedal the descent into Bacchus Marsh and resupply at the 24hour Apco where nothing at all was looking appetizing, but needed to stock up my chaff bags for the long drag up to Blackwood in the direction of the wind and the ominous black clouds. After pushing all the way up the grass climb behind suburbia the lightening intensified and the heavens opened up. It was 1am at this point with a huge storm moving in and the last thing I expected to see was bogans driving their car up a barely formed track in the grass field about ten meters parallel to me. They flew past and when they got to the top of this observation point with communication towers proceeded to indulge in a bout of circle-work. There was also another car parked up there occasionally illuminated by the flickering of a cigarette lighter. In my tired and vulnerable state I turned my lights off (damn standlight on the k-lite dynamo wouldn't die) not wanting to be detected by the crack-smoking hoon-driving Bacchus natives but also been frustrated that the clock was ticking and I wanted to be on my way. Eventually the hoon vehicle drove back down, the other car was still idle, so I started my lights and slowly made my way over the now sodden and sticky clay track and into the driving rain where I knew hell was awaiting up the Blackwood Range Track. I had reconned this section a few weeks back and rode most of it but tonight there were rivulets running down the track and I used the erosion channels with exposed rock to use as footholds to inch my way up there. For 2.5 hours it was like this until the rain eased off enough that I could put on some warm dry clothes and begin the O'briens Road cliff edge walking track which was now functioning more like an aqueduct.
I arrived at Blackwood at 6am, a ghost town at that time with nothing due to open until 9am. I sat on a bench outside the post office for ten minutes to eat a banana and drink some Gatorade that I bought in Ballarat about ten hours previous. My Spot tracker had not worked all that way from Bacchus Marsh and I realised I could not have got rescued if I needed to as there was no GPS signal. They only way was to keep moving forward to keep from freezing. The next section of trail to Daylesford was mighty unpleasant. It couldn't just take you to Daylesford, it had to circle around, go up and down, hike up here, scramble down there. I arrived at Daylesford at 11am for a sit down breakfast to ponder my life choices. A new rainstorm provided a lovely soundtrack to my pondering. My conclusion was that I just had to get this done because I didn't want to be in the position where I had to try this again next year to get a finish. Also, I had left my car in Castlemaine.
I had ridden this section from Daylesford to Castlemaine many times in normally around 3.5 hours, but never after 25 hours of continuous riding and in diabolical weather. Of course it was not to be so straightforward. There was standing water on nearly every meter of track and mud in every corner and then there was an unexpected detour off the relatively groomed Goldfields Track around Fryerstown and into some god-aweful clay mud terrain that involved unrideable moto ruts and scrambling down into gullies to ride for about ten meters only to have to scramble out again. I was also questioning my choice of rigid carbon fork for this event. Sure it dropped a lot of weight but the rocky nature of a lot of the trail and the shear amount of time on the bike meant that your arms and shoulders and back took an absolute beating and increased your overall fatigue. On the second day I spent nearly as much time walking as I did riding.
I finished at the Castlemaine train station 31 hours after departing Bendigo and that was with no more than 10 minutes stopping at the towns, plus a longer break at Daylesford on the way back. I rode onto the platform full of commuters waiting for the next train. I must have looked like a bleary-eyed homeless bum covered in mud and looked around for a sign of what I was supposed to do now. I sat down on the bench as everybody boarded the train and as suddenly as I had rejoined civilization I was alone again. At least the spot tracker was working now.
This course is much harder than it looks on paper, plus the weather and trail conditions didn't help matters either. I think everyone who did it will agree that it was painfully slow and that it was a battle to contain the negative thoughts in order to allow yourself to keep inching forward, knowing that you would eventually get there.
Other than that it was a great weekend of riding. Hope I'm not putting anyone off.
