Are you stark raving mad?

So a friend asked me on learning about an idea I have of putting on an event of sorts. The idea of racing consecutive mountain bike enduros has always intrigued me. One of the years that I raced at Rosewhite for the Gravity 12 Hour, the Wombat 100 happened to be on the next day. The idea of racing both appealed to me and I was quite intrigued about what sort of people would take it on. At the time, it just felt like a seed of an idea and the logistics a little too overwhelming, apart from cutting short the excellent atmosphere post-race that the Gravity offered.

As I was looking through the race calendar, I noticed that the Rosewhite 12 Hours is back on the books and there is a proposed 6 hour to be raced at Buxton. I jumped onto Google maps and started wondering, had I found a format of racing and riding that’s been burning in the back of my head for a good 5 years? I believed so, and the Buxton Joyride was born. It is still tentative, in that the Buxton 6 hour is yet to be confirmed for the Sunday following Rosewhite, but here is the plan as it stands at the moment. Race the Rosewhite 12 Hour, ride to Buxton (235km, asphalt/dirt road mix) and race the 6 hour.

I haven’t yet finalised the route between Rosewhite and Buxton and I’m still working on getting some support crew on the job, but I’m pretty happy with the results of my stupidity and genius colliding. It’s guaranteed to be a big day. I’d say fun, but not everyone may agree with the definition. My gold standard would be to ride 500km throughout the weekend. If I could race 180km at Rosewhite, do the commute and manage 90km at Buxton, I’d be ticking a big box. Rides like this though, are all about giving it a crack, and if I fall apart, so be it. There is no failure.

In the meantime, I’ve been racking up some junk miles. There was a plan for a grand ride for my Thursday, but it fell through. A good mate, sent me a link about a ride he and a couple of mates had lined up for Good Friday. I looked at it, heavy, but I threw my hat in the ring. On paper it looked like near 300km of back roads, dirt roads and rail trail. Just my thing. Turned out to be about 280km, 5000m of climbing and 16 hours start to finish. So much fun. It’s pretty hard to describe the satisfaction of knocking out a big ride like this, such beautiful scenery, awesome roads, big hills, sweet descents, quietness, solitude, camaraderie and adventure. Joy.

I haven’t been out for a ride over 200km since I returned from Europe, so I was a little unsure of where the legs were at. Having done enough big rides over the years, I knew the mental side of things would be ok, but it was a test to see how the body would cope. It was great, I felt strong all day, which is an elation all  of it’s own. It’s such a sweet feeling to be tackling big back road epics and to feel like you could turn around and ride it in the opposite direction.

Most of the day, the weather was perfect for riding, a little cool in the morning, maybe a little hot tackling the sharp climb out of Marysville, but on the whole, it was superb riding conditions. But, it did get hella windy after our dinner stop in Noojee. There were storm forecasts for the late afternoon and we hit some of the edge of the front and copped some heavy winds. Mostly, it seemed like a block headwind, but then it would swing, swirl and you just couldn’t figure where it was coming from. After a brief burst of heavy rain, the wind picked back up again, gusting all over the shop. We weren’t far from home, heading back up the Warby trail back to Lilydale, with the wind blowing bark and sticks around, trees groaning and branches littering the trail, it was definitely a wee period of “The night was dark and stormy…” It could have been some Armageddon cyclocross race. Excellent.

I probably should have taken some photos, but on these rides I generally don’t. I enjoy being away from gadgets, although I did enjoy hearing the ringtone on my phone 180km into the ride. With a camera, I always struggle to decide which good bits to try and take a static frame of, and in a way it messes with my aesthetic joy of feeling of being in motion that such a ride provides. I know a lot of people need to take a snapshot for their memories, and there will probably be a day where I regret not being more that way inclined, but I often wonder whether it’s proof people need, or evidence of their exploits. When people ask me about some of these big rides, I often suggest that if they want to know what it’s like, they’ll just have to do it for themselves.

You can’t buy that sort of experience.