Mont 24hr, 2005

MONT 24hr Enduro

Bung racing packed the utes and headed for Canberra for this years mont. This being the teams return, and having won our category last year, we were pumped and keen.

Steve and I headed up on the Thursday, along with our support crew of Annette and Bernie. We set up campsite (very important to get a good possie, close to transition and coffee) on the Friday morn, and then headed back to our cabin in nearby Queanbeyan.

Matt arrived later in the day, and our 4th Bung racer Mike flew in on the Saturday morn (without bike, thanks Qantas for putting the bike on the next flight, that's useful!)

The Friday night it bucketed down and it was looking like a wet and muddy mont. Saturday's skies looked threatening, but not raining yet, so we were hopeful.

So midday is race time, and Matt as always gets voted to do the 800m run to the bike by the rest of the team. First lap is fast and frantic with over 600 riders hitting the single track for position. Matt does a 1.09 lap, and steve's is the next rider to go out. The day before the race, he was sitting in a Canberra doctor's surgery with massive stomach pains and not enough energy to ride one lap. Thanks to the lovely doctor, and the advice of "take these 4 tablets now for a quick fix to get you through" he did his lap in 1.07, Mike's off next with suspected broken wrist and cracked rib thanks to the single track at Lysty, so we dose him up with Annette's anti inflammatory and he's good to go and does a 1.07 also, me next and it seems like the longest wait to race. The course is long, near 20km, and lots of nice single track connected with fire road to help riders pass. The rain the night before didn't help matters, and there were many big boggy mud pits and diagonal tree roots that got very tricky. My lap time was 1.17.

We all did another lap, but my next one was a night lap. This was really enjoyable and I found the tree roots easier to see at night. Then Mike and I took turns in night laps, while matt and steve had a rest (no sleep thanks to the generator camped next door and the general camp noise) My last night lap was at about 11pm, and just as I left the transition the heaven's opened and the rain came down. The track become so muddy and energy zapping, and I got a much closer look at that boggy mud pit and I fell completely into it! My last night lap took 1.31, it felt like forever. Pity the poor 12 years old that was out at that time, he did a 3 hour lap time, that's one tough kid.

Time for some sleep for me, and steve and matt now take turns riding till dawn. It was 2 degrees and still wet. There were 2 types of riders out at night: 1. the very fast elite riders that passed like you were standing still and 2. the very slow exhausted type, sitting on the side of the track questioning why about so many things in life, and how they were going to make it back to transition.

I woke up just before 5am and went out for the next lap. Steve came in from transition to hand the baton over to me and he was looking "a little tired." This lap really started to hurt, with the climbs seeming much steeper than I remembered. And so we continued on. Mike had one more "good lap" in him, before the (suspected) broken hand just gave up. Steve had his last lap, which included the viewing of 2 riders on their knees on the side of the track vomiting! Matt brought the team in for the last lap, and with 19 laps the Mont 2005 was over for Bung racing.

Thanks to my mum and dad (Annette and Bernie) for their support and time keeping during the race, and sorry for any terse words and grumpiness they had to put up with from the Bung team.

Jane Ollerenshaw ||

Mont 24 – A Punters Perspective.

Having done a heap of 8hr races previously but nothing longer, I wasn’t sure of what to expect come race day for my first Mont 24 experience.

Initially the plan was to ride a bit, have a few beers and a pie, then go ride again. That plan lasted all of about 1second once the race started.

In the lead up to the race we lost a team mate to a broken collar bone (damn it, from six people to five) and the constant talk of wet weather had me wondering, “Should I buy some new tyres?”, “Should I just stay home?”. After sorting new lights and camping equipment, we were off to Canberra.

Arriving at the track race day, I knew I was in trouble with one car boot load of gear to move 700m uphill through the carpark to our chosen campsite. Maybe I shouldn’t have bought that quick shade after all. I immediately felt like a new comer struggling with my gear as everyone else it seemed cruised along pushing their gear on trolleys. To top it off, I dropped my towel in the mud, so no showers for me.

With our campsite setup, race time came around pretty quickly and I drew the short straw to participate in the Le-Mans start. I’d been in a few running starts before but nothing prepared me for the chaos of the Mont start. Being the vertically challenged one I am, it felt as though I was in the path of every wayward elbow out there. Halfway through the run and I’m thinking, hey I’m doing pretty good here, only for a poor choice of footwear to spark an old injury (thank you 26 years of soccer) into life, and backwards I went through the field. The upside to this was, my bike wasn’t to hard to find once I finally made transition.

The first lap was pretty slow with the expected bottlenecks at the start of single trail. These sorted themselves out pretty quickly with the fire roads rapidly becoming drag strips as people jostled for position before forming a single line on the single track.

The track at this point was really great fun, a little wet but it gave the impression that is would dry out and we would have a great racetrack. How wrong I was.

The track consisted on a mix of fire road and single trail. Most of the climbs were on the fire road and weren’t huge, although they did get to feel that way toward the end. In the right conditions the single trail would have been sweet, however with the mud it bordered on treacherous.

After 1hr and 20min I rolled into transition passed of our baton and went to work on finding food. The catering at the race was second to none. The green grocer that was set up, not only nice looking fresh fruit but also had the best pies I’ve ever had. For the next few hours I kicked backed, letting the rest of my team do some work.

For my next lap it was dark and the temperature was dropping, but hey, at least it wasn’t raining. This was the first time for me riding with my new lights, so I wasn’t completely sure bout battery life. At night the track was awesome. As predicted it had continued to dry and was quiet enjoyable. In the background there were explosions and flashes from the army practising in the distance, kind of a weird experience while riding at night. Its funny at night how the hills don’t feel as big and my lap was going great until my head lamp ran out of power, back to the 5w handlebar mount for me. 2km later and my lap was over, a few pancakes and sausages (yes I’m an athlete, at least I left the beer at home through some poor packing practices) batteries put on to charge and off to sleep I went.

I awoke at 3am to find a lot of rain had fell and was continuing to fall, then to my horror, I counted five bikes in our campsite. We were all asleep. So off I went with half charged batteries. It’s amazing what a bit of rain and a few thousand riders does to a track. Suddenly it was 20km’s of wet concrete with slippery narrow wooden bridges and wet tree roots. There didn’t seem to be many people out on the track at this hour, but the guy towing the trailer around with the stereo made some of the fire road a lot more enjoyable.

At first light, one of our riders decided enough was enough and packed up to leave (down to 4 riders). When he started packing I noticed he had bought a trolley, shame I wouldn’t get a chance to use it.

One final lap for me just before midday and the race was done. I had a great time (no one else in my team was keen to go again next year) and will be back again. CORC did a great job of organising this and to my eye it ran very well. The vibe on the track was great and I didn’t see any stupid passing moves that had started to creep into the Working Week 8hr Series of late.

My only complaint for the day, I didn’t win the Yeti frame at the end.

Leonard Allen ||