Well, it's done and dusted. My first bike race in about 14 years and I didn't disgrace myself by coming last, or, as in the last event I rode, getting censured by the marshalls and losing my position for the day*
The Careflight Oaks Classic for 2012, down 25km of the extremely popular Oaks Firetrail, featured somewhere in the region of 400 mountain bikers and started out, in the cold of a mountains morning, from Woodford Station. I travelled up in the company of Gaby Mayo and James Taylor, both fit riders who've raced before, and Jo, who was playing the role of support driver for the day. We met Dave The Happy Singer at the start line. Dave hadn't raced before, and was on my spare bike. Still, he brought me coffee, which made me a grateful rider indeed. I swapped him coffee for hardtail and we got ready to go. Somewhere else in the pack was Brian, the fifth rider in our loose grouping.
For my part, I was suffering a mixture of mystery respiratory virus and secondary oral candida infection, meaning my chances of putting in a fast time were limited, so my initial intention was to ride with Dave and see how things shaped up. I'd been off work for three days in the leadup, and my doctor had told me - in a firm brook-no-excuses voice - not to race, but I had no intention of not riding at all unless I felt like death. And I didn't. After the coffee, at least.
The Elite group was soon underway, followed by the 20-somethings, then our group shuffled forward to await the buzzer. And we were off.
As expected James soon stretched his legs and we lost touch. Gaby, Dave and I cruised through the first few corners. There is a certain skill to pack riding through bends, but no major carnage ensued and we were soon on the firetrail itself. There was, however, evidence of some failure to ride well as a group - at least one dazed rider was spotted at the side of the trail having taken a spill in the initial dirt. I also saw a few water bottles make their escape from cages, something this trail tends to do. I lost a bottle here myself back in the summer, with a hangover and a leaking backup supply. It's not a great thing to happen, though today there were refreshment stations every 2.5kms staffed by friendly and dedicated careflight and RFS volunteers.
For my part, I wasn't feeling as bad as might be expected after the start, and decided it wouldn't be terrible to pick up my slack pace a little. Gaby and I tagged on to some riders we recognised from earlier Oaks runs, but lost touch with Dave in the crowd. At this point, I realised I'd forgotten to start my GPS, so I started it up and found my pace to be not entirely unrespectable, but way outside the target for a personal best. Unsurprisingly.
The upper part of The Oaks is undulating, lots of downs and plenty of ups immediately after. I found I was getting good pace on the downhills and the few flat sections, but losing a bit of time in the climbs. My target switched from sharing pacework to merely following Gaby's blue jersey, but after a while I started into a decline. My rear suspension was creaking loudly and my lungs were hurting. My mouth was sore, and it hurt to drink. It's fair to say at this point I began questioning the wisdom of riding at all.
In the midst of all this, I got hung up behind a rider who decided to get off and push just as I was coming up to his back wheel. I lost rhythm as a result, and started to suffer. I dropped back quite a few places in the next few kms, especially as the lead riders from the following 40-49 category were coming through the field fast. It got a little chaotic as I was caught in the midst of some less experienced riders as the 40-somethings hit. My only option was to stay out of the good lines, keep my head down and spin the pedals.
Still, I toughed it out, and after a horrible, painful couple of kms I was back in a good headspace and overtaking riders again. The creaking suspension had been taken care of by an old racer's trick called "pour some feckin' water on it", and my focus started to come back. I was able to pass a decent number of riders on the big downhill, and keep ahead on the climb that followed. I started picking off people who'd passed me earlier and it's fair to say I was starting to feel positive again.
There were lots of riders with punctures or minor mechanicals, but my kit was working well and soon I was at the helipad, the start of the very fast riding. I knew I could pick up some time here. My average speed at this point was well under 20km/h, and my top speed was a disappointing mid-40s. On a good Oaks day, that's low 20s and high 50s, so I knew I wasn't exactly on for a PB, but I put the hammer down anyway. I passed a couple more riders on this section, but the nature of the trail means the pack was really spread out. By the gate at the singletrack I was within sight of a pair of female riders I'd seen earlier, and entering the unfamiliar (to me at least) Euroka trail.
The riding here is smooth and fast, so I focused on maintaining the most consistent speed I could, and soon passed the small group, and was on a clear road counting down distance markers. I was short on leg power, but moving at a decent clip nonetheless.
Gaby had warned me of a couple of tricky corners near the end, and I had a minor glitch on one of them, the front wheel washing out slightly as I hit a mid-corner bump, but then I was into the Euroka clearing, tippy-toeing through the last muddy section and out of the saddle for the short uphill finish.
Gaby and James cheered me in. James had come in just under the 52 minute mark, 8th in category and 55th overall. Gaby had arrived just over three minutes before me, in 1:02:15. My time turned out to be 1:05:32, putting me in 35th place in category, on race number 35, 184th of 372 starters overall. Considering I'd nearly fallen apart in the upper section, I wasn't too disappointed, and I'd got my average speed back up to over 23km/h. Dave The Happy Singer came through in 1:23:01, a very respectable time for a first race, 66th in category and ~18km/h average. The fifth member of our group, Brian Stokes, came in at 2:01:06, 34th in the 50-59 category - a not bad time at all considering Brian's legs are probably more pin than bone.
The average time in the 30-39 group was 1:12:23, so for a bag of virus I didn't do too badly. The overall average was 1:14:33. I did, however, finish slower than the slowest Elite rider, something which will need to be rectified next year, when I expect to be fitter, faster, on an even lighter bike and not recovering from multiple infections.
* Long story. Two day MTB orienteering event, missed check-in time on day 1 and were docked all our points. A pub may have been involved