It's taken me a week to recover from this event - had to commute to work so no real rest until this weekend. Thanks again Cave Dweller, felt humbled by your generosity and wasn't going to let your entry down after all it's the first time I've rode as a sponsored rider :thumb:.
Here's a brief summary of day:
Had no accommodation organised, no problem found a nice spot near the Rocky Dam so got to Falls around 6:00 pm Saturday, then drove to Dam area watched a nice lightening show below Fallls plateau somewhere over Omeo, whilst eating a Pesto Pasta and drinking beer - all mountain bike style. Went dark around 8.30, perfect as I needed the sleep, woke around 1:00 am to see the most amazing night sky. Woke around 5.45 am, drove into Falls and got a parking spot opposite start area.
I knew I’d be able to do ride coming off the AAC200 - and I’ve been doing a solid program of intervals on the mountain bike and long mtb rides 80k plus … a quick bit of Strava research showed both events had a total ascent of roughly 4000 metres. Back of Falls had me worried, more that I didn’t want to walk it due to poor gearing choice, so on went a 12:30 with a 39 up front, the RD was just coping with the jockey wheel rubbing on the 30 sprocket, but I knew it would be the bailout gear so I would use it sparingly.
Plan was to go with the early starters and use them on flats – between Tawonga to Harrietville, also wanted to descend with experienced riders, pace was fast, just kept low, railed as many corners as possible and hit Tawonga Gap climb just warmed up enough - rode it at about 80% effort, a stream of riders passing but that was ok as I knew they were the sub-10hr guys, coming off Tawonga some crazy speeds and then got onto groups that was more Around the Bay speed than an epic mountain ride. I usually do the AAC200 with friends, pace is tourist, always a beautiful day's riding. However as I was solo and didn't want to be out longer than necessary I rode it with minimum breaks - I didn't have enough roadie fitness, I hadn't been on the roadie since January so just kept ride consistent.
Mt Hotham again rode it conservatively, only a few riders passing now so knew I was hitting the 10.5hr-ish riders, it’s a brute of a climb and it caught out a lot of riders who thought climb was over on false flat section, the later parts of Mt Hotham were very extreme and it was pushing me to levels that I knew would take a toll later on. Finally made it to Dinner Plain, lunch, rest but kept it to about 15-20 minutes, rolled on and caught patchy groups to Omeo, short break there, feeling good, consistent eating and drinking was paying off.
Omeo to base of Back of Falls seemed to go on forever, caught some groups sitting on a sensible 29kph, delivered to base of Back of Falls, wasn’t going to be intimidated by 19%, so off seat and grind, this thing was steep and was playing with my mind wasn’t helpful seeing other riders walking – 4k of this, no 10k, no 25k who knows just pedal. Wasn’t going to walk, kept thinking about how hard a Half Marathon run is where you want to stop but you can’t as you know the entire event depends on this moment, so last resort was the old paperboy trick of weaving the climb I remembered the days of carrying the Saturday Age as a young kid, so that was it, just do whatever is required, just don’t walk and don’t stop! Eventually the climb has some flat sections so drink, eat, pop a gel, some recovery, and then focus again, on a positive at least Back of Falls gets easier even though you have fatigue to deal with, compared to Mt Hotham which gets steeper near the end.
Back of Falls seemed to go on forever, finally got to Falls Plateau, what a beautiful place, was a surreal experience rolling through it, was tired but enough in the tank to get me over the climbs that kept coming, rolled into finish, just over 11 hrs, pasta, jersey, a can of coke, BV should be congratulated for a superb event, fantastically organised.
