The most important reason to have a light mountain bike is for the hike-a-bike bits. Especially when they are thrown at you with such enthusiasm! During the route briefing last night the race director, Russ, commented on a 7km ridge line section of the track. “It’s a bit like saw teeth”, he said. “You’re either going up or down”, he said. “You may have to walk”, he said. “How long will it take?” we asked. “Dunno”, he said, “we’ve never been across there with bikes”. Crikey!
The day started in drizzly conditions that did not bode well. Happily though the rain held off and the clouds lifted. Riding across the alpine peaks made for spectacular views. The hills were wreathed in wispy cotton wool like clouds and were being unwrapped by the sun. The first section ran along a tar road (bitumen in Aussie speak) from Dinner Plains to the start of sawback ridge. After climbing to Mount Hotham, it dived down a ridgeline with spectacular views. True, it was a bit iffy in the wet but we manage to get close to 80kph at one point.

One of the highlights was yet another insane descent from the above the snowline, down a superb smooth track to the forest region with giant ferns and dense woods. This was shortly followed by the climb to Mount Ebenezer. 800m in 8km. An average of 10%!! Jayson timed it at 1h20m of solid climbing. It hurt. I felt a bit like I was stuck on a drunken pub crawl – lurching from water bar to water bar. “Just one more and I’ll quit!”
As usual, quite far from the end, there was an enthusiastic spectator. Why they feel the need to encourage us with lies I will never know. This time it was “This is the last hill”. Yeah right. Bastards. That hill was a mountain that didn’t feature on the route profile.  It was followed by a rough rocky descent similar to what we have back home so at least it was more familiar that the sticks and stones of the alpine forests.

We did good today. Took first and Increased our lead in the Masters by 17m. 9th overall in the stage.

I mentioned “those girls” yesterday. We met Jo and Fran in the bus on the way from Beechworth to Falls Creek. They travelled from Perth to their first MTB stage race and were perhaps unsure what to expect. Despite this, they are going well and are leading the ladies category.  Having met at a surf club, Jo suggested to Fran that they link up to compete in an adventure race. Jo showed Fran the ropes of the 4 disciplines. As Jo tells it, running was fine, but…. Having never kayak’d previously, that immediately went a bit upside down and wet, and then Fran pitched for the swim – in a bright green diver’s wetsuit. But the best was the MTB. Fran’s bike was a R800 hypermarket special (hey, I had one of those too!) with a sticker that read “Not to be used in competition!” Luckily talent overcame inexperience and Jo did mention that they came good in the race In the end.

Tomorrow is a team time trial. Our start will be around 10am. What to do till then? Beers are obviously out. Are they?