Rubber side down at the ABSA Cape Epic. Photo: Gary Perkin/ SPORTZPICS

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REGULARS ed note 8 contributors 10 news/events 12 punter vs pro 18 mail box 20 new gear 22 subscriptions 126

fEAtURES craig gordon 28 the mont 24hr 34 alpine bliss 38 national solo 24hr 42 naomi hansen 46 cape epic 48 amazing wales 54 bmc mountains to beach 56 otway odyssey 62 adventure vs 24hr 67 rotorua 24hr 68 karri cup 70

b-SidES bike testing 72 product testing 86 industry/tim bennett 104 columnists 105 ride of your life 108 girl talk 110 get fast 112 event wrap 118 upcoming events 122 trail talk 124

Cover Photo: Craig Gordon. Photo: Mark Watson

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Photo: Adam MacLeod

“Mate, it was an awesome week.” Cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear and try-ing to read and respond to an email as I listened, I wasn’t at my most attentive, “Yeah awesome.”

You see, a week out of the office pedalling through Victoria’s high country does sound pretty awesome, and it was great to hear that the week went well. But, sitting in the office with the sun beating through the window, I wasn’t feeling very receptive. Which is poor, I know.

If you ever needed any proof that multi-day stage races are THE 24hr racing of ’09, flick though these pages (although, based on the number of competitors at the recent Mont 24hr, you could say 24hr racing is the 24hr racing of ’09…). Usually we try to cover most of the big enduro events kicking around but it’s been a tough task for Issue 12. We know our readers love reading about and racing in events but there are other elements of the magazine and being a mountain biker – specifically bikes, gear, training advice, travel ideas – that are also very important. With the continued event-boom, we’ve attempted to rein in our event coverage so we can fit in a good balance of articles. Despite this attempt, we’ve still blown out the page count to a whop-ping 128 pages.

Fear not though, events aren’t forgotten in this issue. We bring you some fantastic endur-ance racing pics and stories, from the Mont 24hr, to the BMC Mountains to Beach, to the Terra Australis, to one of the most renowned of them all, the ABSA Cape Epic. We had a dedicated contributor at each of these massive events, meaning a bucket load of great stories.

The barrage of excitement poured down the phone line as my mate continued to recount his week away. The memories of that familiar post-ride high were filling my head and I wanted to experience some for myself. First things first though, as editor of this humble magazine, I had to convert this excitement into magazine form. He continued, “Mate, the mood at that event was something really special, you know, we got to know so many awesome people. It was mint!”

The desire to just jump on my bike was over-whelming. I must have sounded curt on the phone but all I could think about was getting out on the bike. “Sounds great, wish I was there, any chance you could send me some words…no I won’t be on email later, I’m going riding.”

Welcome to Issue 12!

Photo: Mark Watson

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wEEkEnd wARRioR: Liam Adamaitys

AGE: 28

hEiGht: 180cm

wEiGht: 80kg

fAvoURitE bikE? It would have to be my XC bike, an 08 Specialized Stumpjumper Expert with a few upgraded bits. It is a do it all bike for me, perfect for the longer rides and plush enough for a fun hit out at the local trails

SUn tAn oR moon tAn? Tan from the LCD TV

fAvoURitE tRAiL? Anywhere the climbs aren’t gut busting and the singletrack flows

fAvoURitE RAcE? As an individual race I would have to say the Highland Fling. The Southern Highlands is just an unreal place to ride. Lush green hills, sweet singletrack, conversations on the trail that can sometimes be a little strange and river crossings that can be pretty deep!

moSt mEmoRAbLE dAy on thE bikE? I hired a bike in Lauterbrun-nen (Switzerland) and rode it down to Interlaken. I found a network of walking trails in the valley that led to Interlaken while passing some cool little towns with the best hot chocolate. It was cold and raining, but I had the biggest smile on my face the whole time

fAvoURitE food? Slow cooked Lamb shanks with creamy mashed potato

SwiSS bALL oR coUch? Beanbag

bEER oR SodA wAtER? Beer please

do yoU know whAt itb StAndS foR? It is a 24 hour team race term.It is when you just finish a lap at 3am and your team member is not

there for you, some people use MIA, I use ITB which means “In the Bed”

JERSEy pockEt contEntS? Jerseys have pockets? I thought that’s what Camelbaks were for...?

bikE Room oR bEd Room? Bed room (high five gents, you know what I’m talking about!)

pUb oR niGht RidE? Every second Monday I take part in MTBBB (Mountain Bike Beer ‘n’ Burgers) It’s a night lap of Majura Pines in Canberra followed by a trip to the local pub for a beer and burger

dREAm RAcE? A race where egos are left at home and the race involves as much socialising as it does racing. I am not in it to win, that’s the pro’s job… I race to have a good time and share the trails with people who are in the same boat

dREAm LifE? To be able to combine my working life with riding, and at the same time discovering new trails, so yeah, I’m pretty much living my dream life now!

why RidE? To get a job! The place where I work is well known for having a love of mountain biking, I used this to my advantage and put it down on my resume as one of my interests (a little lie at the time, I didn’t even own a bike!) I got the job and within two weeks I owned a mountain bike and was riding in the Mont 24 hour. That was 8 years ago

how cooL iS EndURo mAG? Cooler than a polar bear’s toenail

pRo: Paul van der Ploeg Felt Enduro Team and Team CA-Discover Tasmania.com

AGE: 19

hEiGht: 193cm (6 foot 3 ish inches in old school)

wEiGht: 83kg race weight

fAvoURitE bikE? Felt SIX Team XL hardtail

SUn tAn oR moon tAn? Dance-light tan

fAvoURitE tRAiL? Honey Suckle Gully track in my home town of Mount Beauty on my Felt Virtue Team bike. Those trails rock and my duallie loves them!

fAvoURitE RAcE? Andorra World Cup last year. Andorra is a small country bordered by France and Spain, I travelled overseas last year and raced there in May. I finished 2nd of the Aussies in 54th position against the fastest cross country riders in the world. It felt like I had unlimited power in my legs so I was able to keep punching it up the climbs!

moSt mEmoRAbLE dAy on thE bikE? Riding in the Italian Alps with fellow team members Dan McConnell and Lachlan Norris. The mountains over there are just awesome; it’s hard not to feel inspired. Their size and beauty is like nothing in Australia

fAvoURitE food? A big juicy steak

SwiSS bALL oR coUch? Couch

bEER oR SodA wAtER? Soda water mixed with pineapple juice

do yoU know whAt itb StAndS foR? Yes – Iliotibial Band

JERSEy pockEt contEntS? Torq Bar for food and strawberry Torq Gel for hunger bonk energy

bikE Room oR bEd Room? Bike room

pUb oR niGht RidE? Night ride followed by hanging with mates at the pub

dREAm RAcE? The London Olympics with million dollar legs

dREAm LifE? Getting paid a stupid amount of money to ride bikes and not having to worry about anything else

why RidE? I find it more fun than under water basket weaving – it’s hard to concentrate on the intricacies of weaving while you’re holding your breath. Hard to believe, I know

how cooL iS EndURo mAG? On a scale of 1 to Me, it is about an 8 (My housemate Rich made me write that!)

p u n t e r

v s p r o

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ould I last the dis-tance? Would my bike last the distance? What would happen if I crashed my brains out tens of kilometres from a sealed road?

I decided to ad-dress these concerns realistically, by choosing to race the 50km course. Friends who were racing the 100km course rubbished me, but they only ended up completing half of their race on the day, swallowing the falsely-inflated pride they had carried only hours before.

While racing the 50km course was the sensible thing to do, fortune often favours the brave and when I return to this race (which I will), I’ll do the 100km course. I’ll return to that later.

Heading down toward Apollo Bay through Forrest (where an efficient and queue-free registration equipped me with a bag of good-ies including an electronic timing band) I began to get excited about the following day’s race. The Forrest trails are well-known for their quality thanks to the Kona 24 hour and the good work that the committed trail fairies do down there year-‘round. However, with over 30km of bitumen stretching between Forrest and Apollo Bay, I got the distinct impression that 50km course would not be run over many, if any, of the better known Forrest trails. A glance at the race profile confirmed this and while it slightly disappointed me, I am always happy to explore new trails. This was an odys-sey after all.

Unlike many traditional odysseys, this one

would be perfectly orchestrated and digitally timed. Not only would the race be timed from start to finish but there would be two timed sections – the “Keen King of the Mountain” climb and the “Keen Timed Descent” – within the first 50km which gave people three races for the price of one with cash prizes for the fast-est in each category across these sections.

Personally, I wasn’t at the odyssey to climb fast or descend fast. I was there to conquer the course and reach the finish in one piece. Having said this, wrapping a $100-a-pop timing band to your ankle on the startline with about 500 other riders can do crazy things to a person.

But a race like the Otway Odyssey is about much more than the race. The whole day takes on a special significance. I was fortunate

aN “odySSey” iS commoNly uNderStood to be a loNg SerieS of adveNtureS filled with Notable eXperieNceS aNd hardShipS. SigNiNg up for my firSt eNduraNce poiNt-to-poiNt race moNthS iN advaNce (thiS race SellS-out early So get iN quick) i eX-pected NothiNg leSS. while i have had the pleaSure of raciNg 24hour raceS (although Not Solo) aNd the occaSioNal Short-er-diStaNce eNduro over a Short circuit, there iS SomethiNg both attractive aNd Slightly riSky about a poiNt-to-poiNt.

a f i r s t t i m e r ’ s a c c o u n t

wwoRdS by mikkELi GodfREE | photoS: RApid AScEnt

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ordo assures me this story is going somewhere: “I was at this 100k race in Nowra the other weekend and I started pretty easy, sitting behind these other guys. After about an

hour I said to myself, ‘It’s time to turn the hurt up now,’ so I drilled myself for the rest of the race.” He pauses, “This story’s going somewhere right.” I say I believe him and he continues, “I had blisters on my hands after the race. It killed me, two days later my whole body was really suffering.”

“Anyway, I was chatting to my missus, saying my back hurt, my hands hurt and all that and she said ‘well why’d you do it?’ I said ‘because I love it.’ There might be something wrong in my head but I love drilling myself.”

My first memory of Gordo was at an XC National Series race at Majura Pines in Canberra in late 2000. I saw this little guy in fluro green kit on a Cannondale, chatting to some mates as he prepared for the elite cross country race. I didn’t really take much notice of him until, watching the race, he steadily rode into a top 3 position. What stood out for me was his Aussie approachability. Sure, he got his

G

2006 world Solo 24hr champ, curreNt auSSie marathoN champ,’03 oceaNia Xc champ aNd 3rd place getter at laSt year’Scrocodile trophy, craig gordoN (gordo to hiS mateS) haS

racked up Some impreSSive reSultS. hiS wiN at the ’06 worldS,SiNce featured oN the big budget flick 24 Solo, earNed him

iNterNatioNal recogNitioN aloNg with pleNty of awe from faNS at home. we aSked gordo for aN iNterview but, accordiNg

to hiS maNager, he Never talkS to the preSS. So left with Nochoice, we decided to make it all up.

woRdS by JAmES wiLLiAmSon

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customary race grimace out during the race but he didn’t carry himself around before and after the race like he was a guy to be noticed.

Gordo isn’t here for a quiet time. “I love taking the piss and getting a response, I can’t stand all these polite people who tip toe around waiting to die, that’s just not me. Life’s too short to muck around.” Hamish Elliot, long time riding buddy, Rockstar teammate, and race support for Gordo at the ’06 World Champ’s agrees. He recalls the dinner before the ’06 Worlds. “While we were having some drinks with the rest of the Aussie crew the race director came over and introduced himself. Seeing Gordo, he said: ‘So you think you’ve got a shot at the champ [6-time winner Chris Eatough] hey?’ Gordo famously replied, ‘Well I haven’t come over here to wear tread off my tyres have I?’ So that was that.”

The ’06 Solo World Champ’s is an often-told story but it’s worth re-telling: Gordo beat Chris Eatough, the guy who was apparently unbeat-able at 24hr solo racing. The pair raced flat out until nightfall when Eatough started to fatigue, “I could see this white salt all down the back of his jersey and I knew he was hurting so I just kept smackin’ it.” By midnight Gordo had lapped Eatough and he kept going.

At daybreak Sunday morning Gordo had put a lap and twenty five minutes into Eatough. Hamish recalls the last four hours of the race: “Gordo came through and said his right calf was cramping a bit. The Eatough crew assumed he’d cracked but no one was going to stop Gordo taking the win.”

No one except his body. Gordo’s muscles started breaking down in the last few hours of the race sending toxins into his bloodstream. He went close to poisoning his kidneys. Doctors said that if he’d continued to ride untreated he could have killed himself.

As captured on the film 24 Solo, Gordo had to be driven to the finish line on the last lap where he pedalled across the line, one-legged, at a painfully slow pace before being hooked up to a dialysis machine and transported to the hospital nearby. He didn’t even make the podium.

The dramatic win, and the fact that it was captured blow-by-blow on film, earned Gordo an international following. But for Gordo, the recog-

nition is not something that matters too much, “This sport has got plenty of show ponies in it. They have all the gear and love to look the part and want everyone to think they’re good. But that’s not me. I do it because I love the lifestyle and I love drilling myself.” It’s simple really.

So how does he feel when he watches the film 24 Solo? “Yeah I watched it with my wife and I was on the edge of my seat. I look a bit soft on camera though, I’ve got to try to look like more of a hard man in the future.”

“My wife Anita didn’t like it though, she said

Gordo was told to stand still for a few minutes and he wasn’t happy. Photo: Mark Watson

Out of the saddle and smackin’ it…Gordo in his element. Photo: dave Bateman

“I juST PASSEd OuT On ThE BIKE And CRAShEd. I

WOKE uP WhEn My fACE hIT ThE GROund, I dIdn’T

KnOW WhAT hAd hAPPEnEd unTIL IT hAPPEnEd.”

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I’m never allowed to race a 24hr solo again.”It’s an amazing story which was lucky to

be caught on film, but everything Gordo does has a crazy story behind it. He started riding in the early 90’s when he was doing shift work and commuting by train in the Blue Mountains, West of Sydney. One morning, at about 3am, he saw a guy with a GT full sus-pension bike and got talking to him. “There were some real dodgy characters hanging around the stations at that time and I was looking around to see if there was anyone there I knew. So I saw this guy with a sweet looking bike and sat down with him and had a chat about it.”

Paul King, the bloke with the bike, turned into a good mate and the pair started riding together. “Then I started racing club races in B-Grade. I was getting my legs torn off but I was lovin’ it!”

From there Gordo progressed to becoming one of Australia’s fastest cross country racers winning the National Series and racing alongside Paul Rowney, Rob Woods and Josh Fleming. “I never got along with the National Coach at the time so I just tried to beat anyone he coached.”

He raced the World Cup in Sydney in ’99, finished 18th and went on to represent Australia at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in London. This time he finished in 5th place and was the first Aussie across the line. “Yeah that was a real buzz. It was an awesome vibe, there were 20 000 spectators lining the track.”

The next step along the line was the Olympic Games in Athens in ’04 but in true Gordo style, it wasn’t that simple. Gordo crashed hard while racing at Mt Beauty in the late ’90s. “I broke three ribs the day before the race and everyone was saying I shouldn’t race but I didn’t care, ‘Nope, I’m racing.’ I was stupid back then, I’m a bit more sensible these days.” So Gordo filled himself with Panadeine Forte to hide the pain and tried to race in the 40 degree heat. The mix of the pain killers and extreme heat was too much though, “I just passed out on the bike and crashed. I woke up when my face hit the ground, I didn’t know what had happened until it happened.”

He knocked his teeth out and was front-ed with a huge dental bill. “I couldn’t afford it so I got all this dodgy dental work done in the Blue Mountains, just cheap and nasty work to get me back on the bike.”

It wasn’t until he was racing on the World Cup circuit in ’04 for a spot in the Athens Olympics that the dodgy dental work started to show itself. “I was creeping on the bike and I didn’t know why, I kept trying to race but it was a waste of time, I didn’t know what was wrong with me” Gordo’s teeth had started rotting out and he had bad septi-cemia in his jaw. “At its worst my mouth was killing and I had puss from the infected teeth

oozing down my throat.” Having put almost everything on the line, including mortgaging his house, to make the Olympics, Gordo had to return home empty handed facing a sig-nificant dental bill. “That was it after that, I’d had enough of racing overseas. I was happy just to stay at home, have fun on the bike and do a few local races.”

‘Having fun on the bike’ included his 24hr solo debut a year later at the Mont 24hr in ‘05, “I wanted to win but mainly for the money.” He punched out the pedal strokes and came out of the race as the Austral-ian 24hr Champ with a ticket to race the World Champs in ’06. “At first I didn’t want to go [to the World Champs] but then others

like former Aussie 24hr Solo Champ Josh Street who’d been over and seen Chris Eatough race, said I’d smash him.” This was enough for Gordo to get interested and after a few months’ deliberation he decided to do the race. “I thought: what the heck, I’ll give it a go.”

While his eventual decision to race the Worlds may have seemed fairly relaxed and ad hoc, his preparation was anything but. “To race a 24hr race as hard as I did in ’06 I had to put a lot into it, I had to know 8 months out from the race that I was doing it so I could prepare both mentally and physically.”

Then there was the training, “I was doing mega-miles. I’d be up at 4am to ride 75km

“AnyWAy, I WAS ChATTInG TO My MISSuS, SAyInG My BACK

huRT, My hAndS huRT And ALL ThAT And ShE SAId ‘WELL

Why’d yOu dO IT?’ I SAId ‘BECAuSE I LOvE IT.’ ThERE MIGhT BE

SOMEThInG WROnG In My hEAd BuT I LOvE dRILLInG MySELf.”

According to Rockstar team manager dwight Wood-forth, Gordo’s just a ‘mamma’s boy’ underneath that tough exterior…Craig shows his softer side between laps at the Mont 24hr. Photo: dave Bateman

Photo: Mark Watson

Photo: Mark Watson

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