Terra Australis 2011 - Day Three

At the close of Day Two and after just under 6 and a half hours on the bike to get to Dinner Plain I spent 20 or 30 minutes standing up to my waist in the alpine cooled pool at our accommodation, sharing tales of the day with fellow TopGear riders Ben and Greg Norden. I think this had a good effect as Day Three arrived and I asked for more from my legs, sure they were tired, but they didn't ache with every early push of the pedals.

It was a Good News / Bad News day as Peter and I had discussed a week earlier. I had found out that the originally planned route from Dinner Plain to Hotham to Bright had been changed due to devastating results of the local flooding a couple of months ago, such that the trails once in the valley had been destroyed by such massive volumes of water flow. The bad news was that we were to be redirected along a saw-tooth ridge approach to Harrietville, and then would have to climb out of Harrietville to Mt Ebeneezer, which was a memorably crushing stage in the 2009 event. The good news was that we were hitting it on Day Three (not Day Five as it was in the 2009 Terra). So embracing the good news we left the start line of Day Three of this seven day epic.

Low cloud gave us a cross between heavy mist and light rain as we began a road climb from Dinner Plain under race control. The action then started as we were steered onto the adjacent walking trails and service roads of Mt Hotham Village, with the sun doing its best to burn off the low cloud.


We were soon pointed back onto the bitumen which was still wet and started the descent to Dargo River, then on to Selwyn to veer off to the left and create some new crushing memories! We rode straight into an ambitious climb that picked people off one by one until it was obvious that everyone was hiking their bike to the top. The remount was then short-lived as the next climb seemed similar but steeper and longer. And so went the next 3 or 4 km. Once again the 29er was a risk to follow down the descents, one in particular was so covered in shifting boulders I struggled to see any line to tackle so bailed out before I over-committed, which meant Pete got an earlier attack at the soon-to-follow climb as he adopted the 29er approach of create your own line. It was pretty amazing to watch, almost like Moses taking on the Red Sea, with a descent clad with dismounted riders picking their way through the treachery all peeling off to the left or right as Peter cleaned the run. Eventually we reached the end of the ridged ascent. The last 5 or so kilometers had taken us 55 minutes but the next 7 or 8 km would only take us 20 minutes which included 6 or 7 minutes to repair a rear tyre puncture that I picked up on one of the sharply rocked corners. Pete was leading the descent with the usual cool, calm focus and taking advantage of the downward track but didn't hear my yelling that I'd flatted. The first attempt to encourage the sealant to bond the torn tubeless tyre failed. Jess Douglas and Brad Davies slowed as they passed and offered any help I might need. It's great how the MTB wheel turns, on Day Two I had helped Brad and Jess with a blast from a CO2 cartridge as they had exhausted their supply after Jess had suffered a few rear flats and so they were prepared to offer any help I may have needed today. I waved them on and it seemed the tyre goo was starting to work. By this time Peter had noticed I was no longer half a corner behind him so stopped to wait and contemplate heading back up the hill. By this time Brad and Jess arrived on his scene, with Brad suggesting he shouldn't bother heading back up as I was at least 1 km back... and that I was OK but had flatted. The tear was too great for the sealant so once I got down to Peter on a rapidly deflating tyre we put a tube in, wrapped with Aunty Betty where the slash was. 15km on we reached Harrietville and the second feed station.

Done with the feed and bottle fill we were soon climbing Cemetery Lane to Mt Ebeneezer - I don't think there was any hidden meaning, it was the name of the track we were following, but it did seem intent on defeating us over the next 10km.
I've heard of false flats, but the next 11km or so had what can only be described as false descents. No sooner than you thought you could freewheel and recover you were faced with yet another stinging climb where traction was optional. But as tough as we thought we had it we were about to catch up to one that had it tougher. Jiri Cech (20-2) was facing the hills on his 1x8 Surly Pugsley. It took us a while to catch him and Bob Ilchik but when we did we found it was not because he was short of gears and over-stocked with tyre width, but because his pedal had broken such that the pedal was no longer retained on the spindle. So climbs were hopeless as his shoe (still cleated to the pedal body) kept slipping from the spindle and then the rough descents were just as difficult for him to stay at one with the bike as intended. There wasn't much any of us could do to help with that one.The last 10km of the day gained momentum at a great rate. Once again Peter took the lead as we soaked up water bars, drifted around corners and eventually left the rockier terrain behind in favour of smoother dirt surfaces. The speed worked for us as we caught a couple of other teams and were spat into the single track alongside the Morse that in turn saw us onto the track around the Bright Footy oval and through to the finishline flags.
So a relatively easy day??? hmm, over the 82km we descended 3640 metres but still managed to climb 2390 metres in 5hrs 46minutes.



many thanks to Russ Baker for the great images he captured.