Cloud Ride Prologue

Ok, if you haven’t already heard the news, I’m heading back for another crack at the Transcontinental. I’m all signed up and will be heading off from Bulgaria in late July. I know I can ride that far, so the aim for this time is to do it quickly. I developed a great training plan, and have totally failed to stick to it, but hopefully things will pick up in the next few weeks.

Anyway, with that in mind it seemed like time to do another long race, so I did. There is a great off-road race called the Cloudride that starts and finishes in Canberra that I’ve thought about doing for a long time, and I’m not doing it this year either.

What I did do though was the Cloudride Prologue, a 500km race designed as an entry into bikepacking and/or a testing ground for gear and set-up.

Taking a different route every year the organiser aims for a route that offers a taste of everything the longer Cloudride brings – some singletrack, some fast flowing firetrails, and some horrendous hills that are all but impossible to pedal up. This year Steve did a great job, setting a course that brought all of those things as well as some beautiful views, and resupply options that required planning while still keeping the race accessible.

My plan was to sleep a whole lot on Friday night ready for a 6am start, to then race hard and sleep minimally if at all, finishing before 6pm in time for a good dinner and a beer at the finish line (cleverly located at Bent Spoke in Braddon). That meant riding through one night plus an hour or so of dark at the start – not really enough to justify building up a wheel with dynamo, so I set off with three battery banks ready to go. I also took my Edge820 and new Wahoo Bolt for navigation.

Of course, things seldom go perfectly to plan, and after dealing with last minute issues like how I was going to carry my stuff and where to mount a tail light I ended up pretty short of sleep on Friday night, but turned up ready to race on Saturday. In February I had realised I’d ridden my MTB once in the last year, so I had also slotted in three quick morning spins which had covered the first section of the course, so I was feeling pretty confident.

We rolled off for the start to the ringing of bells from lots of supporters and were quickly cruising the roads of Turner. I was well back and when everyone in front of me turned right I wondered if I’d been wrong about the course or just had an old version, but after taking the turn I quickly decided to stick to the route I already had. Doing a u-turn at the same time as the guys on the front was an easy way to move from the back to the front!

I hit the first dirt well up at the pointy end and was feeling happy despite losing traction early and getting off to walk up the first steep climb. Going down the other side though brought my first moment of concern, as I hit a rut and heard a short hiss of escaping gas. I knew it hadn’t come from me, so it was either my tyre or my shock. I did the only sensible thing, and kept riding. When it happened again though I pulled over to check my tyre pressure. The tyre felt good so it was my shock, which had felt a bit soft. I did the only sensible thing, got back on and kept riding. A few minutes later I was passed by Sam Dyne, one of the few bike mechanics I have absolute confidence in, but it hardly seemed the place to ask him to rebuild my shock for me.

Experimenting with my suspension lock-out showed that there was no hiss with the shock locked, but of course no suspension either. Happily we were coming to the end of that dirt section, hitting a bike path before some smooth dirt roads, so I had time to plan. I didn’t use it well alas, and by the time we hit the next singletrack section the extent of my plan was “take it easy and keep the suspension locked”.

I knew I was going to be slow, so I was happy enough to make way for a few guys to pass as we entered the singletrack, and then disappointingly I didn’t really get to enjoy it as I was thinking about suspension. By the time we got back on the road I figured I was down to about 8th or 9th, but I knew it was mostly reasonable track for a while and hoped I’d make some ground.

Heading towards Tharwa I realised I had another concern – my knee was starting to hurt. A bit of thought showed that my cleat was in the wrong position and was loading up the knee. Why it was in the wrong position, I really wasn’t sure.

I kept going for a while to be sure of exactly what needed to be done, and then pulled over for a multi-purpose stop. Remove some layers, add some sunscreen, and adjust the cleat and have a look at that shock in the hope I could improve it somehow.

Packing on Friday night had been hurried, so I did it badly. Specifically, my multitool was right at the bottom of my saddlebag, which meant I needed to unpack everything and then repack, and trying to get the saddlebag tensioned to stay in place can be a pain. I spent quite a while trying to think of another way, and I’m glad I failed. As I unpacked, I noticed the tyre marks on my saddlebag. No shock problem, just a clearance problem. That was a relief!

In what turned out to be a very long stop another half a dozen people went by, so I figured I was probably somewhere about midfield. Back on the bike my knee was feeling better though, which was a relief. It also meant I started to notice the other knee, which had been hurting just a little less. Another stop for another cleat adjustment, but happily this time my multitool was easy to access!

After a pause to pay my respects to a legend, the course turned left to head up to Tinderry, but keeping on took hungry riders to Michelago. It was only a 2km detour, but it was also to be my moment of triumph. I turned left. I was carrying what I thought was exactly enough food to get me through the ride, and my 3L hydration pack (thanks to the great guys at Source Outdoor) so water stops could be kept to a minimum. Powering on, I happily reached into my bag for a sandwich. My plan was to gain a whole lot of ground every time everyone else stopped for food, and so far it was working well!

Disappointingly the first cleat adjustment had worked a treat but the second one not so much. With a lot of other things going on in my life of late I had sacrificed my stretching, and now I was paying the price and my knee was hurting. As long as I didn’t pedal too hard though it was ok, so I did the only sensible thing and kept riding.

After a short stop at a feast put on by a trail angel (thank you!) we reached the nasty part of the course. It was all fire trail, but I really don’t think anyone could have ridden it all, and I was off and walking for a great deal of it. Beautiful country though.

The only disappointing thing in this section was around my set-up. People were riding everything from fully rigid cyclocross bikes through to dual suspension set-ups like mine, with the suspension benefits coming on the descents, but because I was worried about wearing through my saddlebag/tyre I was taking these a lot slower than I could have. I think I still made a bit of ground, but less than I could have.

Approaching Braidwood well after dark (and well behind schedule) I came up to and passed three other riders. With a smug little smile I thought about the ground I would gain as they stopped for dinner.

Alas at about this moment my Bolt, which had been performing so well, ran out of battery, but I quickly started my Garmin and continued into town to fill up my water and set the Bolt recharging. Navigation was going to be important for this part. because while I hadn’t ridden all of the other roads before I had at least ridden through the other areas (and ridden most of the roads) but we were now heading to a region I had never ridden through.

It was another fairly long stop, and I was surprised as I walked back to the road to see another rider on their way out of town. Watching the tail light I could see I was making ground, but things weren’t perfect. The Garmin wasn’t quite coping and was freezing continually – most annoying in the middle of the night when you don’t know where you’re going. Having a tail-light to follow wasn’t a bad thing though!

Eventually I caught that rider and it turned out to be Lauren, who had been right behind me coming into Braidwood and obviously quicker getting out. I later found out that she was carrying all of her own food too!

My lead over Lauren wasn’t to last long, unfortunately. As I rode I glanced at my lights and thought to myself “I should still have over an hour of run time on this battery. Of course, it’s ten years old now, so maybe it’ll be a little less”. Thirty seconds later, the world went suddenly black.

Stopping to change batteries and swap back to the Bolt Lauren passed me again with a quick check to see that I was OK, but with more confident navigation I went past her again fairly quickly, and headed into the unknown. I was expecting things to be fairly quiet out here and was surprised that several houses I rode past seemed to be playing loud (and disappointingly bad) dance music. I never saw any people, but hope they were having a good time!

There were several people out shooting too, and to be honest that always makes me nervous. I’ve known plenty of people who, after a few beers on a Saturday night and while having a great time in the back of the ute, would quite probably make the decision to shoot at a passing light without any real thought about the consequences. That makes me work pretty hard to stay away from the guys out shooting, but I actually found out that another racer, having had his own lights just fail for no clear reason, ended up talking to a couple of friendly pig shooters who were generous enough to give him their spare torch so he could carry on through the night!

Overall though it was a fantastic night to ride and part of me wanted to stick to my original plan of just not stopping, but the truth was that I was exhausted and needed some sleep.

There are two schools of thought about sleeping while bikepacking – some people sleep in parks and bus stops in the middle of towns and cities, so that they are safe. Others sleep as far away as they can get from any people, so that they are safe. I’m very much in the later school, so my plan of a kip beside the Shoalhaven River went out of the window as soon as I saw the first 4WD parked there, but it wasn’t long after that that I found a nice little hidden patch of dirt and lay down for a couple of hours.

Just before closing my eyes I checked the tracking website, and was happy to see that I was actually in second position. Things were going ok, and I guessed a lot of people had walked those nasty sections, so most of me was happy. The exception was my tummy, which was feeling just a little ordinary. Hopefully nothing a good night of sleep wouldn’t fix though.

I woke to the sound of a bike rolling by, but was a bit slow to get moving and they were long gone by the time I hit the road. I had timed my wake-up to be about dawn, with the idea that I would finish the rest of the ride without needing lights, and it seemed like a workable plan. When I hit the road though I was feeling slow and weak. It wasn’t long until Callum came past me, and as he did he mentioned his plan to reach the finish without needing lights. When he said it I suddenly felt like it was impossible, though infact he did just that in the end.

He quickly disappeared ahead of me, and I kept slogging along, feeling weaker and weaker. I knew I needed to eat more, but I simply wasn’t hungry and wasn’t liking the idea of food at all. I had been nibbling as I rode, but essentially hadn’t had any breakfast.

Approaching Tarago I could see another rider approaching from behind, and they were slowly gaining ground. I had plenty of food and water but contemplated stopping in Tarago for something that would be more appetising, the only problem was that I couldn’t think of a single thing I wanted to eat so I just kept going.

Shortly afterwards I came across Joe, who had passed me as I woke using his borrowed light, and we stopped together to sunscreen up and wave to Lauren as she flew by.

Joe had been riding more strongly than me the day before and was quickly out of sight once he restarted now, leaving me slowly trundling along on my own. I was well aware that I needed to eat and drink more, but just didn’t want to, and a few km later the attempt to force down a bar saw me stopped by the side of the road losing what food and water I had taken in. I knew that wasn’t a good thing but reasoned that I had less than 200km to go, so as long as I took it easy I would be fine.

Stopping in Collector I changed all of the water I had (the last lot had come from a tap in a park in Braidwood and although I had treated it to be safe (!) the taste wasn’t great) in the hope that I would be more inclined to drink it, but still heading out I had absolutely no desire to eat or drink.

Paul Brodie had appeared on the starter list pretty much the day before the start. Knowing his form on a mountain bike I figured he would be a front runner, so I was actually a bit surprised when he caught me with only around 110km to go. He was travelling super light though, and a quick chat told me that he had actually travelled off course the previous night to stay in a bed and breakfast, where he got a shower, comfy bed, and a great leisurely cooked breakfast in the morning. I was jealous, but my stomach heaved at the thought of the food!

Paul seemed pretty happy to cruise along and chat but I could see he was feeling strong and thought he was a good chance for a podium finish if he pushed on, so I told him to get going. He quickly disappeared, and then 10 minutes later he passed me again after taking a wrong turn and having to backtrack. This time though he was past and gone in a flash.

Arriving in Gunning I went to top up my water, but I probably shouldn’t have bothered. Having been telling myself to sip, sip, sip as much as I could I had gone through maybe 600ml in the last 45km, which at the pace I was travelling equated to well over 2 hours!

Still, from there it was less than 90km home, so I figured I would just stick to a comfortable pace and keep trying to eat and drink. The closest I got to actually eating was at a roadside apple tree – I spotted just about the perfect apple, and the first bite was delicious, but still my stomach wasn’t at all happy and I only managed to eat about half of it. Better than nothing though!

Not long after that I reached roads I ride pretty regularly, where I knew it was only about an hour and a half to get home. Today though it ended up being over 4 hours, including a bit of rain and the return of the dark.

Still, I made it in the end, coming in at just under 40 hours. Meanwhile Thomo had taken a convincing win in around 30 hours with no sleep, Callum finished second before dark, Lauren surprised herself by taking the third step on the podium, Paul was a convincing fourth having ridden an amazingly relaxed first ever bikepacking race, and Joe was about half an hour ahead of me having never ridden any of the roads before and using a pretty poor borrowed light.

When the race director Steve offered to buy me a beer (every race should finish at a brewery) I said yes, but I was a little unsure it would go down. After about half an hour though it did go down, and I headed for home. Jumping on the scale before I even showered I realised that even with that beer I was now 6.5kg lighter than I had been at the starting line. Honestly, had I known it was going that far I would have pulled the pin at Collector, because it just isn’t worth risking your health for something like that.

Having said that though the next day I woke up feeling hungry, and am now back to regular weight, and it was a magnificant race over a beautiful course, so I’m glad I did it.

The Transcontinental is starting in four months, and I am well below where I wanted to be at this stage. Whether I can still reach the level I wanted to start at or not remains to be seen, but my plan is to keep doing what I can and turn up in the best achievable form. We’ll see how I go.