Wildside Tasmania Day 1

Morning greeted us with a cool mist again, felt quite Vancouverish in my opinion. After breakfast and plenty of nervous milling about, we finally mobilized for the cruise stage out to the actual race start. The 450 participants were randomly arranged into start blocks A-M in about thirty each, A's being previously seeded riders, and the rest just in random assortment. The goal was to get the groups off at 2 minute intervals... and after the morning's stage everyone would be regrouped by their times.

I was in F with Mike Murphy, we decided it was F for fun. The organizers went on at length about not ruining your race in the first 20m as it was a downhill grassy right hand corner. As it turns out, I lined up on the inside (right) hand side of the banner as it was further from people, so I could run off into the brush to releive myself ahead of the start. I eyed up that slope and for the life of me couldn't see anything hazardous about it. 30 seconds to start is announced, I punch my watch, and go for the inside corner hole shot, basically 4 pedal strokes then coast. The rest of the lot were much more conservative... and it appears the faster riders were buried somewhere in the pack. The first 10 minutes were a constant reminder to just keep pedaling no matter how shocking it felt to be at this pace for the first time since BC Bike Race this year.

A couple guys passed me, and 20 minutes in we were catching people from the group in front. We were riding 4x4 type stuff that was rubbly enough that it minorly rewarded technical skill, but mostly was just a horsepower drag race. No matter what kind of interval training I can muster for myself, nothing beats having a guy 2 feet in front of you, another guy 2 feet behind, and having a steady stream of others to reel in nonstop for an hour to push the intensity. Bam! (I did wonder to myself how little work I'd be able to do in life if I actually had a Shawn Bunnin like engine so I could place at these "hobbyist" races... although this one does seem to have some pretty high end talent).

I crossed the line at just a bit over 51 minutes with my lungs nicely scorched then started on the commute over a few big mountains on the highway to the lunch spot. Lunch was plentiful and good, and they had a whole team working French presses for coffee. We're continually mobbed by bees, but they're the little "fly bee" looking things, and they don't really ever seem to get riled up, they just want to lick salt I'm guessing.

As it turns out, that put me middle-ish in the "B" group, which was say 40th overall roughly, or my usual 10th percentile. The A's are all legitimately fast - Norm Thibault managed to hang on for last in the A's.

We pre-rode the start for the afternoon, noting that it filed down to single track in about 30m then continued on something that'd approximate BC fresh cut singletrack for several kilometers. I decided to line up at the front again as I hadn't seen broad evidence of people riding that kind of stuff to smooth. That worked well, other than I decided it wasn't worth the effort to battle the South African half elbowing me to death for the singletrack, so he ended up in front. After crashing a couple times and spending much energy trying to do high speed running remounts, he exclaimed that he couldn't ride this stuff. I said just let me slide by and follow my line ; ) That lasted about 30 seconds until he was gone.

After the singletrack we ended up on flat gravel roads, I shoulder checked back and saw a couple guys say a hundred yards back, and two were about a hundred yards ahead. 3 minutes later three guys who officially qualify as "big blokes" who I'm guessing spend a fair time road riding blew by. Nothing says smart riding like trying to get onto a train of a bunch of 6'+ guys with massive quads just powering into a headwind, but as much as they couldn't ride singletrack fast, I couldn't push a gear to stay at their pace even in the draft. Oh well, not worth blowing up on already.

I settled into another group, then started feeling distressed. It dawned on me that sweat was dripping in my eyes, down my helmet strap, and that my back was soaking wet... and that the morning mist had burnt off leaving the sun to nuke us. I think it's only probably 25C ambient and maybe feels like high 20's on some of the direct sun, no wind climbs - so in absolute terms not that bad. Having said that, it's a far cry different from single speeding in -10C last weekend - the temperature switch doesn't change that fast in me. I started to think about riding my own pace instead of the groups...

... then while spinning up a powerline steep climb, with no ticking of the driveline to forewarn of a failing chain, I just spun loose and saw my chain dragging behind me. Right. OK, whatever I'm here for having fun and a little field mechanics isn't going to get to me. "Serenity Now!" just like Kramer says.

That wasted an inordinate amount of time, people buzzing by like crazy. Considering these groups are divided by only minutes, I'm gonna be back of the bus tomorrow it seems. Oh well. Once I got it running again, cruised along and saw the 5km to go sign and tried to hold a decent pace to the end.

The cruise into Tullah was a nice paved downhill. They're really into flavoured milks here, so I grabbed one from the town store and some water, then went to the lake to swim. Most people were bitching about the temperature of the water, only going in to clean up of sheer necessity. As mediocre as my life talents are, bearing a northern climate for years came in handy this aft. As I chatted to the other participants, a guy asked me what I thought of the water. I said it was nice, that for a couple weeks every summer a few of our shallow lakes might get almost this warm. Funny what we all get used to.

I'll put on my new chain tonight, feel glad that one out of two stages went well, that the scenery is beautiful and that I'm having fun being a bike tourist - who cares about fixing a chain anyway!