Images from Ride The Divide

I posted up a few weeks back a trailer for a documentary called Ride the Divide, which is a story about a self supported mountain bike race from Canada to Mexico following the Adventure Cycling Associations route of the Great Divide. The concept of the race and the trailer impressed me, so I ordered the DVD and I finally got around to watching it last week. And what a great DVD it is, it’s quite simply inspirational!

I could go on and on and explain everything that happened but the film makers describe the documentary so well in this brief Synopsis:

“Ride The Divide is an inspiring journey about the world’s toughest mountain bike race, which traverses over 2700 miles along the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. The film weaves the story of three characters’ experiences with immense mountain beauty and small-town culture as they attempt to pedal from Banff, Canada to a small, dusty crossing on the Mexican border. Mike, a 40-year old family man who uses this challenge to chart a new course in life; Matthew, a leader in extreme endurance racing who’s competing for his 5th time; and Mary, the first female rider to race this route, will set out to accomplish what very few have been able to. Over the course of a few weeks they’ll attempt to climb over 200,000 vertical feet over the Rocky Mountains. That’s the equivalent of ascending Mount Everest from sea level seven times. They’ll experience mental breakdowns, treacherous snow, hellacious blisters, and total fatigue. Above all, they’ll race with no support – at times in total isolation. The tests of endurance and the accomplished moments throughout Ride the Divide prompt us to reflect on our inner desires to live life to the fullest.”

Once I finished watching it, thoughts instantly started running through my head on how I could compete in such a race. Logistically I could make it happen pretty easily, as I could move to my company’s Toronto office once I finished my studies, then I would only be a few hundred kms away from race start. But would I really be able to ride more than 100miles per day and then back it up for almost 30 days? Not a chance in hell in my current form. I couldn’t even ride 100km in a day based of how my legs felt after the 3 Ring Circus on Sunday. This maybe a different story in 2 years time. Who knows?

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It was a weekend of a few firsts for me. It was my first legitimate mountain bike race (NRMA Careflight doesn’t count), first time riding in Wingello State Forest and the first time riding my mountain bike over the 50km mark in single outing. The day started early, around the 5am mark, so I could meet the guys at Pheasants Nest at 6:30am. I suggested we meet later after doing some research on whereis, but everyone was still keen for a 6:30am meet up. Lucky Jing was running late like always as we ended up getting to Wingello around 1.5hrs before the race was even meant to start, it would have been longer if Jing was on time. Offcourse I had to make the most of the situation and rub in the “I told you so” a few times before we headed off to register and find something to do until the race started.

As the time ticked away we all started to get ready and thought it would be a good idea to warm up, this was another first for me. After a few KM in an easy spin, I decided to do a last minute check went over all my gear and realised I forgot to put a new C02 canister in my bag and had to spend 9$ for a new one (what a rip).

The race was self seeded so I parted ways with the other guys as they head to the front as I’m way slower than them. You always hear people whinging about traffic in races, it’s something that I thought would never really bothers me, and so I had no issue starting up the back. The organisers planned it pretty well with the first loop being 9km of fast flowing fire trail so the race whippets could stretch their legs and spread out the field. I had no issues passing people or letting people overtake so it seemed to work quite well. Once hitting the second loop and walking up two monster climbs we were finally rewarded with some nice single track. But I was stuck in traffic so I couldn’t go as fast as I wanted to, it was pretty clear that a lot of people just ride on fire roads. It was abit of a shame as the single trail was pretty sweet, especially because it always felt like I was going downhill.

Throughout the second loop I was chatting people along the way, I got in a long conversation with a fellow voodoo owner, as well as a guy riding a Kona SS who gave me some tips on the course layout so I wouldn’t kill myself before the finish line and a girl riding a 29er SS who called me soft for walking up a climb that she was already walking up ha-ha. Everyone seems so friendly at MTB races especially at the “back of the pack”.

As I was heading back to the transition to top up my bottle for the last 20km loop I passed a dude on a Uni cycle, I was in shock; I couldn’t believe how fast he was going down a hill. Massive respect to that guy. The last loop was a killer it was all fire road with some large descents that were pretty funny except in the back of my mind I knew “what goes down must go up” and at the bottom of the decent I was faced with the biggest hill I have ever seen on a bike. I was wishing “I didn’t leave the gears at home”. I made it to what I thought was the crest but little did I know the fire road looped around and I realised I wasn’t even 1/5th of the way up the hill. I hoped of the bike and just walked the rest. There was nothing I could do and walking was pretty much same pace as people just spinning up the hill in the granny gear.

Once reaching the top the trail opened up onto fire roads cutting through farmland for the last 5kms or so. I passed quite a few people through this section as most were clearly broken from the 45kms before. I really enjoyed this section as it was a cruisy ride back to the finish line with some nice views of the surrounding farm land. I thought to myself this is what the tour divide would be like.

I crossed the line in around the 3hour 35min mark, which placed me around 450th mark out of the 700 riders. I was aiming for sub 3hours 15mins so I didn’t quite reach my goal. But there will always be next year and I had such a good time just enjoying the ride. The other guys were waiting for me back at the cars, they all seemed to have a pretty good race, except Jing who didn’t look the best, he left early as the rest of headed to McDonalds’ for a post race pig out.

I learnt quite abit from the race and its time to get in some more training before the 110km Highland Fling, there was no way my legs could have done another 60kms on Sunday.

My Garmin somehow switched off half way through the ride, I turned it back on but it didn’t log the whole race, but you can see what it did log at this link:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/41890534

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Amazing images from a classic le mans race

Check out more here:
http://laurentnivalle.fr/LMC2010.html

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Kimi in pre testing for Rally of Finland.

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“Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas, it is a creative art”

Such a famous quote from the great photographer, Ansell Adams. Similar quotes were posted all around the place at the World Press Photo Expo at the NSW State Library. This is the third year in a row that I have gone and it’s just growing larger and larger. Each photo is so powerful, but more importantly full of inspiration.

The expo is pretty much about showing of the worlds best photo journalists. Covering all different areas like feature storeys to sport to coverage of civil wars. Its some of the best work you will ever lay your eyes on.

The main reason I go every year is to see the sports shots. There just simply amazing!

Like how pimp is that shot? a bomber flying over a stadium most likely taken from a remote camera.

Highlight for me was Elizabeth Kreutz feature story on Lance Armstrong’s return to the 2009 Tour De France. They also had a interview with Elizabeth and I just sat down and watched. It was quite inspirational and will form the basis of what I hope to capture at the World 24Hr solo mtb race later this year.

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All photos by Jarod

Last Sunday I planned a ride with the BMU guys with the hope of getting in some decent kms in before this weekend 3 Ring Circus Race as well as sharing some good laughs with the guys. I think this was more my intention then the training part haha. We ended up with a group of six and we hitup the usual 80km route leaving from HOW in Newtown -> Sutherland -> Cronulla -> Kurnell -> Newtown.

Vibe of the group was great with everyone pushing along at the same pace which meant minimal stops all the way to Cronulla. We took in the sights at both Cronulla and kurnell, it was funny watching True get so excited by the view as hes only use to riding along the M7. While stopping at the whale lookout at Kurnell Kevin decided to use the porta loo and so we thought itwould be a good idea to lock him in. He wasn’t to impressed, but laughed it of once we let him out haha. We also enjoyed some nice coffee and an oily breakfast at a cafe in Kurnell.

After time trialling out of Kurnell we just cruised back to the city where we were all starting to feel the pain of the long ride. Im really enjoying the early morning bike rides. Smash out 80km before 11am, with great company and still have the rest of the day to catch up with loved ones, other friends and so on.

Heres the Garmin details

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/40802858

and a map of the route:

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I have a 50km race next weekend and I always keep telling myself that I need to come up with a better solution for carry a spare tube, CO2 Cannister and multi tool during MTB races. So I finally got my ass into gear last week and slapped this together. I some how messed up the calculations so its abit off size wise, but should hopefully work as an interim solution until I can find some better materials and skills.

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The guys over Sydney Sunday Sessions, worked there magic somehow and got a Fixed Gear bike exhbition in the Galleries of Victoria in the City. I went to check it out yesterday in my lunch break. Great effort guys!

Check out a few more photos after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry »

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Pretty funny!

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This is gold and is so true. Found this at Sean Klingelhoefer Blog

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