Husky 100km

10th overall, 9th Elite*, 2nd Vets

04 hr :48min :23 secs / 100km

* - I was meant to be in Elite, but they obviously foo-barred my category so my results are listed with me in Vets

** http://vimeo.com/27575051

This weekend was the rescheduled Husky 100. 100km of fireroad and singletrack in the forests between Huskisson and Jervis Bay.

This event had been rescheduled due to heavy rain, and so it was ironic that on the Saturday evening the heavens opened and the rain started falling.

Just a few hours before, I had been talking with Fenz asking on conditions and what tires to bring - the word being it was all dry and would be super fast. So the "fast" tires were packed ...

Waking up early on Sunday morning, the rain had stopped but there was a fair bit of water on the ground.  The event central was already looking like a bog and it was clearly going to be a wet day.

The Elite riders got to go first, with the remainder of the self seeded field to follow a minute or so after.  So Ed and I were up front, and Jase and Garry in a group behind.

The start was fast but quite manageable. Skirting around a golf course, the track was full of sticks and leaf litter. It was surprising not to see derailures pop in this section.

It was soon into single track and fireroad, and there was a lot of moisture on the track. These fireroads must see a lot of 4-wheel drive activity, and there were massive bogs which spanned the width of the road. Sometimes there was a skinny edge to skirt around, but most of the time it was a lottery of plowing into the water. 50-50 chance of either ending in a bog which consumed your front wheel, or you could churn through the mud and pop out the other side.

Around the 10km mark there were around 10 riders still together ... however with the sketchy and slippery terrain and the constant stop/start of the bogs it was inevitable that the elastic band snapped and 3 or 4 of us fell off the back.

It was about this time that Ed McDonald caught up from the fast start, and it was great to ride with Ed until a bit after the 50km mark.

Soon we passed a very broken "Trekkie" ... he did not look like he was having a good day.

Ed definitely had me in the slippery singletrack. He had a slightly better setup for the conditions, but he also had the better technical skills in the conditions... and it was only a matter of time until we hit a long and super slippery section of single track and I lost contact with Ed.

It was around then that Jason Chalker caught up to me. We rode together until around the 80km mark before he pulled away.

We were now in the mix of the 50km riders, and although the overall track was drying out there was still some very nasty slop-fests to get through.

It was also confusing to see slower 100km riders in the mix!! Turns out some bad signage had resulted in a heap of riders taking a 10km (?) short cut ... chaos in the results.

Cruising through the Coondoo Rd single track was great fun. The only down side was coming up behind a Marathon MTB guy who had obviously popped but was extremely rude and would not let me past ... or even acknowledge my requests to pass. I find it ironic that of all the riders I passed, everyone was polite and quick to allow me by ... yet this one "elite" guy was just a complete prick. Talking to other riders they had similar experiences with this jerk ... not a good rep for his sponsors.

The final 15km went fast and soon I was pushing it back around the gold course ...

Crossing the line I was very surprised to see Garry already finished!! Garry and Jase (and a heap of other riders) had been in the group who had missed a turn. Bugger.

So all up, a very wet and muddy day out.

2.0 Race King tires are really not good in these slimy conditions. I had no grip all day and it was quite a challenge to keep the bike up right.

Food wise it was 6 torq gels, 2 torq bars, 1 litre camel back & 1 x 750 ml torq energy.  I chucked in some extra electrolyte tabs to the drinks as I knew it would be humid.

The bike help up pretty well. No lock out issues in the mud (hooray) ... but I did have to replace both sets of brake pads and the chain.

Next weekend I'm off to the Jet Black 12 hr ... 12 hr solo, and then I'm paring with Garry for the 8 hr on the Sunday!