mt bike 3:58:00 [4] 72.0 km (3:18 / km)
Long Distance MTBO event at Truro on my 29er. I had thought that this area might have been boring - how wrong I was. Goodly number of tracks and a huge number of ruined farmhouses, so it was lucky that I forgot to put in my camera.
I was a little lucky as my front tyre deflated during the drive up and was losing air even after I repumped it - tubeless, so don't know if I injured the valve in my initial top up at home. So spent map planning time putting my only spare tube in.
Was paired up with Michelle Soar, who is in our Tues roadie group and has done some rogaines, so it was nice to have some-one who likes to read the map too. No time to measure distances - just headed off to scoop up the multitude of controls in the middle. Andrew Slattery & Brett Merchant did likewise but went different after about 90 mins. Main decision was to leave the 100 pointer, which was very isolated.
16, 13, 7, 22, 15, 18, 20, 5, 10, 12, 11, 6, 8, ...
At the 2 hr mark decided to chance doing the three controls in NE (3, 9, 21) which then meant a long ride (8km?) to the southern loop of 6 controls. resisted the temptation of going out to the bitumen rd for this but used the dirt tracks to save distance and only had the last km on the Sturt Highway. 17, 4, 2,, 23, 14, 1. At 2 we were about 1km from the finish and had 30 mins but I wasn't going back without the 90 pointer (23) about 3 kms further south. Of course it was uphill too but I figured it would be mostly downhill going homeward. Got back into town and just had enough time to get the 10 pointer at the cemetery.
Michelle was a great partner. I'm a slow starter and she initially led me up the early inclines but after the first hour I was leading the way. Michelle had an average bike (and rack), so it proves that the rider is the most imp component. Our control punch routine was good and we only had about 2/3 mins stopping to get food out and reposition map. M was slow in anything too rough and was tired in the last hour but pushed on really well.
we ended up getting 22 of 24 controls (left out 19 & 24) and won outright with the next team missing 4 I think. Well set course.