I recently participated in the Alpine Epic, a 5-stage, 4-day MTB stage race from Mt Somers to Lake Tekapo. I've long wanted to race an event like this - and almost had CB convinced to accompany me to Europe for the TranAlp or to Canada for the TransRockies but lack of money and life got in the way. Money and life never seem to hold back RL, and so when he moved to NZ last year he immediately signed us up for this event. I was thrilled.
Prerace
The week before the race was hectic at work and so I had no time to properly prepare and so hastily packed my bike (thanks for the bikebag, Cushla!), ~90L of gear (the bag limit), and what food was in the cupboard and dashed to the airport. Add the fact that I casued myself great ongoing pain and the loss of a fully functioning left hand in an indescribable avocado incident and you can imagine my general mental outlook on my chances of surviving the week.
Leave it to Rob to one-up me - he mentioned "a fight" to me a few days before the race. On meeting him at the ChCh airport, I see that he was sporting a massive black eye, lots of oozing scabs, etc - giving the overall appearance of a mugged uncle Fester. I'd hate to see the 4 dudes he took on, but man, it does cheer one up to see your riding partner in worse shape! (Side note: the last time I went on a multi-day MTB ride with RL he had found a way to crash the night before (this might have been partly my fault, alas) and festered through that one as well ;)
We were picked up at the airport by one of the organizer's parents who were delivering goods (cookie time remnants, bananas, oozing riders, etc) to the race start in Mt Somers. As luck would have it there was a cabin open for rent so I took it and Rob and I got our bikes assembled, met the NZ MTB pro who ended up winning the race and his FantasticMechanic (who was using our cabin front as his staging ground).
Day 1
Got up, ate from the local store, stressed about not having a whistle (part of the "mandatory" equipment), bought a whistle off of the grandson of the campground proprietor for 2$ (baseball motif), registered, realized that I had to somehow shove 110L of gear into a 90L bag, got it done, and took a pic with RL at the start.
Day 2
Got up, ate breakfast, broke camp. The race had to be re-routed from the original course (Might have just chucked the course description book at this point - 4/5 of the courses were altered with no good alternate description given - and hearing some dude with a megaphone jabber on about "...then you turn at the post..." was not helpful, alas, changes were fine with me and the course was well marked so no real complaints.) so we did a bit of a loop, came back through the station, and then headed off into the hills towards a pass. Along the way we passed a "musterer's hut", I crashed and hurt my good hand, then later destroyed my pedal bearing, broke a spoke, and generally things took a turn for the worse. The irony is that I felt better having had a day's riding down but the ride just wore me down. We crested the pass and did a fun descent into the Rangitata River valley to the end of stage 2. The river was in flood so we had to take a raft across - which was fun and adventury, but poorly executed - leading to a several hour wait.
The next stage started well and we caught some people on the climb. Then the trainer-to-11 BB kicked in, leading to RL and I stopping every couple of miles to fix it. We (I) tanked on that stage, and got into camp physically and mentally exhausted. Camp this night was at a well-located rafting company headquarters near the Rangitata Gorge. We got our bikes cleaned, set up camp, got a warm shower (nice), ate dinner, etc. I then went in search of a possible solution to my bike woes. I had an extra pedal, so no problem there, but the BB was, I found after I took it apart, destroyed. Once again, the FantasticMechanic came to the rescue with, improbably, a replacement BB that fit. I put it on and went to be happy that the ride was not going to end that night.Day 3
This was the big day, on paper at least. A HUGE climb to start the day and 80+ kilometers. The climb did not disappoint, it was grueling, with even the NZ Pro saying that he had to walk the ~25% gradient middle section. However, I felt much better with the revived bike and kept a decent pace and RL and I peaked in 31st place, which was only disappointing as they were giving a special prize to the 49th team across. At the start of the day the dude with the megaphone said "...ALLL mandatory gear today as you will be above 1000m for 8k..." which I scoffed at - 3,300ft? that's child's play! I once raced 100 miles at 8,000+ft! Alas, things start to degrade earlier here - and at 1000+m we were above the clouds. The descent was a screamer and my brakes failed a few times (always makes things exciting on 20%+ downhills to be riding them without any means of stopping, safely). We then turned up a beautiful river valley ("The Phantom" - normally closed to outsiders it seems) and 30+ river crossings, most of which were ride able and fun. A couple more hills, a longish road ride to the finish, and a day well-spent on two wheels.
Day 3 made it all worth while!
Day 4
(Parts of) Day 4 sucked. I don't think it just sucked for me - the organizers had to seriously alter the course after two of them nearly got lost within 50m of each other in a thick fog on the hill we were supposed to hike up at some point (it was clearly unrideable).
The race ended at the edge of Lake Tekapo - far enough from any camping (which was not arranged this night by the race organizers, a fact we were not clear on) that I had me wondering how we were going to get our huge 90L gear bags, etc to the campsite. Unlike a large number of competitors, we did not have a car-driving support crew waiting for us. I was also disappointed to find there was no "finishers award" - like a shirt or medallion or anything really... At the very least there was a great party that night, well stocked by the fantastic caterers and beer and wine sponsors.
Massive kudos to RL for making this race possible and riding with my slowness for the duration. He's a damn good one, that RL, and I'm sad to know he's headed back to UT instead of coming to Auckland for a stretch.
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1 comment:
Wow! That sounds like a true adventure. I'm sure it was nice to "stretch" your riding legs again. Yet another part of NZ that you have gotten to see--and one that sounds like only a few have gotten to see as well. Good on ya!
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