Just thought I'd post a write up that I wrote for my club.
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Before the race:
After being in KL for a couple of days, we ventured out to my favourite MTB shop in KL. It's the place where I originally bought my scandium Fastrax frame around 10 years ago (and it's still going strong!). They have an insane range of bikes and frames - Titus, Pivot, Ellsworth, Lynskey, Santa Cruz, Niner, and more (and that's just the MTBs!). After a bit of a browse, I picked up an XTR groupset, but with XT chain and cassette for somewhere around $1350. SOLD! Mark grabbed some 29" mud tyres, and a tube and we were done. We chatted to a couple of the guys and found out that there was some great single track only 500m away.
So, the next day we assembled our bikes in the hotel room and headed out for a spin. We started trying to stick to the smaller roads, but in the end we were flying down main highways at ridiculous speeds (45-50km/h). Pretty good fun, and the traffic is largely blase about bikes.
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/426418
After popping into the shop for chat and to show that I was still riding the old Fastrax, we rode up to the single track section. It's very tight and twisty through very dense jungle. You couldn't build up much speed, but it was a lot of fun, and very challenging in places (especially sharp switchbacks).
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/426420
Unfortunately on one of the tricky climbs, I lost traction and had to step off in a hurry. The path was narrow and I fell backwards to the downside of the track. The initial result was the back of my helmet hitting a rock or tree root with a fair bit of force. Thankfully FOX helmets are well protected back there, so I only had a slight head ache and a few other scratches. The bike however, was not too good. I went to pedal again and heard a horrid noise and the wheel stopped moving. Looking down, I noticed the rear derailer was at a somewhat "jaunty" angle. Closer inspection revealed the derailer was ok, but the hanger was very bent. With my friend's help I freewheeled back to the bike shop. A replacement was not found, but judicious use of force (hammer, and then using the tool for checking the hanger to bend the hanger) got it back into shape. It was now parallel, but out of line, so the gears had to be retuned aswell. The charge for all of this was $5. Once it was done, we went out, did some more single track but then it started to rain very heavily. The fear of a nasty crash on wet roots was in both of our minds, so we decided to return to the hotel. Firstly we stopped off at another great bikeshop and found they had two spare derailer hangers that I promptly bought. A bit further towards the city I hit a random hole in the ground (KL is famous for these) and got a pinch flat, and a slight dent in my rear wheel. After repairing this, we continuted on. The rain stopped so we kept riding over to the Petronas Towers.
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/426422
The Race
Day One - 60km Marathon
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/426423
A nice big loop around the island. The race started ok - I had a drink bottle on my bike, and one in my jersey. It was too hot for camelbaks, and there were feed/water zones at 15km, 30km and 45km. I realised pretty early on that some of the Asian riders (in particular Team Sri Lanka) were fast on the flats, but were terrible if the going got rough. They slowed down so much it was hard to get around them. Also early on, I had a minor crash. Once minute I was cruising along nicely, the next I was on my side in the grass. I kicked the bike away from me so I wasn't blocking the track, and then continued along. I did get video footage of it (will be up on YouTube soon). I somehow missed the 15km feed zone. I saw the sign, saying it was ahead, but after riding 300m further, I realised that it was just before the sign. I still had a full bottle, so decided to keep going to the 30km mark instead. I made sure not to miss the 30km feed zone, but when I got there, I was shocked to find there was no water available. Some of the team riders had their supports offering drinks to them, but there was no neutral drink! After harassing one of the staff, they got one of their own drinks and give it to me. hmmm 500ml of fizzy electrolyte drink to get me to the next stop. Oh well, not much choice, so off I went. Thankfully at the 45km zone, they had plenty of water and more electrolyte drink. I refilled one of my bottles, and upended another bottle of water over my head before hurrying on. Just after that feed zone was the aforementioned climb. Insanely steep in places, bitumen to start, and then turning to dirt. The view from the top was pretty stunning though, and the tracks were great fun on the way down.
What I loved about this day was that the track went through small villages, along banks of streams, through streams and even through people's driveways! There was some great single track, some killer climbs (check the one at the 45km mark), and some grin-inducing descents.
Result 66nd, 3h25m
Day Two - XCO
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/426419
I knew today would be a short ride for me, as the track was short, and the rules are that if you are lapped by the leaders, you get pulled out of the race. I had done a practice loop of the track - it had some very tough and rutted climbs, and an amazingly steep but fun descent switching through a rubber tree plantation. Picture dropping 2-3m in 1-2m, and then having to make a right angle turn to avoid a tree. Now picture about 6 of them in a row! It was hard going, and I hit the same tree twice.
Unfortunately on the second lap on one of the bastard climbs, I dropped the chain into the rear wheel. Because I was powering at the time, it rammed in solidly. I couldn't get it out easily, and ended up having to turn the bike upside down and remove the back wheel. The chain was still stuck and I was holding the bike with one foot while yanking the wheel with all my might to get the chain out. Eventually it released, but I had lost around 10minutes. Given that a lap was only 20mins, I knew I was in trouble. Sure enough I was lapped just after that and taken out of the race at the end of that lap. This resulted in a pretty poor result for this one.
After being pulled from the race, Mark and I went down to the feed station to watch the pro riders as they shot through. Sooooo fast!
Funniest thing of the day was the winner doing a mono over the finish line and then crashing onto his side. oops!
Result 83rd.
Day Three - Another short course loop
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/427502
This was meant to be a 6 hour enduro, but the UCI officials had decided that a substantial part of the track had to be removed due to stinky water crossings containing buffalo shit and the risk of a lot of very sick riders. As a result of the much shorter loop, they had reduced it down to only 2 hours, and brought in the "if you're lapped, you're out" rule. The organisers had split the field so that Men's Elite ran at a different time than Women, Men's Masters and so on. A good idea, but unfortunately it meant we were riding at midday. Freakin hot! I decided to do a practice lap first though, which was lucky, since I got to find the best line on a slippery moss covered rock descent, and also learnt to ignore the extreme caution sign which was just before a ... well... nothing really, just random. The first half of the track was boring and hot cruising on grass over rough ground. Demoralising and hot. The second half crossed over the road and went into the jungle. This was FUN single track! A lot of mud (I had put on the Medusa's the night before, so no issues), some slipperly climbs and descents, and then a bit of a sprint along the beach before crossing the road back to the start/finish.
Yet again I got occasionally stuck behind some of the technically inept riders which was annoying. To give you an idea - a straight track heading down into a dry creek and then up the other side. You could see the whole thing, no corners, and a slight rut over to one side, but nothing too bad. These guys were braking going down and then powering up the other side! Most of the fast riders would put it into high gear and pick up plenty of speed on the way down and then use the momentum to assist them on the way up. Ah well - I only got stuck there once. I also realised that some of the riders didn't understand "Track!" or "Rider!" or "Get out of the way!". I saw one rider stop in the middle of the track half way up a climb to have a drink, and completely ignore a rider coming up the hill who was requesting him to get out of the way. Ok, English may not be his main language, but common sense and some knowledge of riding etiquette should come to the fore!
It was a great ride though, and I really pushed myself to the limit on this one.
After the race, and some fluid/energy replinishment we went for a ride to the local waterfall and had a swim.
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/427501
It was pretty stunning and got even more amazing when a massive tropical downpour turned the waterfall into a raging torrent that was intense. Things got even more stunning when around 15 girls in bikinis turned up to swim. Great stuff!
Result 49th (pretty happy with a top 50!)
Day Four - KOM
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/427504
The dreaded climb. 14km of fairly flat riding, and then 14km of climbing to the top at 800m. It was all on bitumen, so a lot of riders had popped on thin high pressure slicks for this one. One rider blew apart his Stans rim by putting too much air into his tyre. I was back to running Maxxis Aspens, and pumped them up to around 50psi and locked out my front suspension (yay for running a hardtail!). From the start my goal was to find a good group to ride with and get to the bottom of the climb with plenty of energy. A lot of riders tore off the start line with a plenty of speed. I kept it up for a while and then got down the cruise mode. I kept catching riders or groups, but they were going too slow. Eventually I found a decent group, and I took turns with one of the elite women at the front to keep the speed up.
When we got to the climb, the group broke apart and only a few of us kept the speed going. From then on, it was just a matter of slowly catching riders, passing them and looking for the next group. Not too far from the top I saw a group of riders I recognised and after absolutely busting my gut I caught up with them and held with them until the finish.
It was a pretty scenic ride, with some beautiful views over the ocean, rivers and other islands. There were lots of locals out watching, and also some local monkeys watching from the side of the road. The air cooled as we climbed and was almost cold at the top (ie 25C).
The descent (and accidental long way home) is here:
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/427503
Result: 56th
Day Five - XCC
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/428236
Short course crit race - aka how to burn through four Gu gels in under 25mins. It was an absolute stinker of a day. The track was mainly on grass and bitumen and pretty flat. 38C, no trees, no relief. Again the rule was if you got lapped, you'd get pulled. I figured I wouldn't be out there for long with only a 2km lap. I went as fast as I could though and managed to do 5 laps. An average heart rate of 180bpm gives you an idea. There's a great photo of one of the Aussies sitting in a huge ice bin/esky after the race. A few other Aussies didn't race that day and as a result had started drinking already...it was going to be an interesting night!
Result: 56th
Day Five - Gala Dinner and adventures in a club...
Prolly best to leave too many details out of this. Let's just say that with Absolut Vodka being $10 a litre, and a 10L "Tower" of beer costing $16, there was a lot of dancing, shenanigans, and singing, some vomiting, and a lot of sore heads the next day. Bloody good fun (though being on airplanes or in airports for the following 20 hours was NOT fun).
Anywho, I should bring this essay to a close.
To sum it up. Disorganised in places, but great fun. Some beautiful scenery, and great single track. Delicous food and cheap drinks. Excellent meeting lots of new friends, and hanging out with some great riders (kinda funny dancing drunkenly in a strange club with some of the best riders in the world).
Chris
