About nine years ago I bought my first mountain bike. Chatting with Matthew Kilby, a guy about 6 years younger than me whom I was working with at the time, he mentioned he had a mountain bike that really needed to be put back into action. So we organised to go out and find some tracks he had heard of out near Lysterfield. It came to be that every Wednesday afternoon we would split from work bang-on 5 o’clock, do our best to push the traffic along faster in our rush to get there, drag our bikes out of our cars to spend the next hour or so picking our way around some groups of trails that we were getting to know. What started as 10 to 12km sessions gradually became longer loops that found us conquering hill climbs that looked way too menacing in the first weeks, but, we discovered, rewarded us with great fun descents. The access roads had names but there were no sign posted single tracks and there was not even a hint of a future Commonwealth Games track. We did this for months and thinking back it would have been the end of daylight savings that brought it to a temporary close, as neither of us were really aware of any descent lighting options. I got a group email last week from another colleague of the same employer telling us that Matthew had been for some MRI scans on Tuesday that had revealed a tumour between two sections of his brain. It went on to explain the extreme headaches and neck pain that Matt had been suffering for the past 6 to 10 months. Matthew had a 6 hour operation on Friday to remove as much of the tumour as possible.
In my last post I spoke of a training ride at the You Yangs. The ride was lead by Daniel Skerry, four of us chasing Daniel through all the winding trails, turns and berms mainly on the southern side of the park. In a bizarre twist, we rode a group of trails that I had only ridden once before, the last time I hooked up for a ride with Matthew a couple of years ago.
The past couple of years I have done either marathon (100km+), multi-day stage races or solo enduro events. On Sunday I found myself back in the Enduro Pairs scene for the Dirtrider’s Rockhop at Upper Beaconsfield, as Daniel’s team mate. Solo events are tough, but I knew there was no way this was going to be any picnic either. We rode a hard pace all day, not at the sharp end of the field but certainly not letting too many get past. After 4 laps each I did a quick calculation that with Daniel on his 5th, I would get a 5th then Daniel would finish his 6th just after the 6 hour cut-off. So I went out for my 5th lap pushing as hard as I could with the legs just starting to show the first signs of cramp. Handing over to Daniel I thought about the day, the magnificent conditions, and realised my previous calculations had fallen short, meaning there was probably enough time for Daniel to get back and me to head out for a 6th lap. We set our base up at a point where you could see both the start line and the lapping traffic at about the mid-lap point. It was typically taking 15 minutes to get back to the finish from the mid-point. Daniel passed this point and there was 20 minutes to go. So I spent the next 15 minutes throwing some more food in, and convincing myself that it wouldn’t hurt a bit.
That last lap was sensational. I left with about 3 minutes to go, having the trails just about to myself. As the legs were running out of go and the hills seemed steeper than any other lap I kept Matthew at the forefront of my mindset. No amount of fatigue or cramp could even come close to what Matthew must have been through over the past months and his 6 hour ordeal. I even yelled out at one point as I neared the crest of a climb, “C’mon Matty!!”
Here’s wishing every strength for Matthew’s complete recovery.
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