Tomorrow, Australia’s new Cross Country Marathon (XCM) Champions will be crowned. This year, the Championship race for Australia’s best attended mountain bike format is being held in Atherton, Far North Queensland.
With a hard, selective course set, there is a lot of talk about who will excel, who should be here, and whether it is the right location or track for what should be the countries premier Marathon race.
The 32km lap covers about 1100m of altitude gain – but this doesn’t tell the whole story. After a brief shallow climb up good dirt road, the course hits purpose build singletrack, that climbs via switchbacks until hitting a long dirt road climb. After this brutal, selective section the course follows rough firetrail around the backside of the mountain, through rainforest, mud and deep water crossings. Climbing back up, it then descends rutted firetrail and descends the downhill track.
Out pre-riding the Atherton XCM Course. All smiles after the opening single track.
Riders are enthusiastic about the singletrack, but wary of the time each lap will take. With three laps being set for the Open and age group categories, the chances of race times upto and over 8hrs aren’t impossible.
Peta Mullens has been vocal about the severity of the race, citing an overly difficult course will not encourage growth in the sport of Marathon MTBing. Mullens has pushed for two laps for the women’s racing, arguing that a third lap is unlikely to change the winner, but is more likely to have more finishers. As it stands, most riders have completed practice laps in 2 or 2.5hrs. Clearly, race pace will shorten up the time – but the argument for a 2 lap race is strong for some categories.
Anthony Shippard and Michael Crosby spoke of the course after their training ride this morning, having figured out their nutrition and pacing strategies for the race. Both are aware of how long the race will take, although Shippard is confident the winning men’s time will be under 5 hours, and the women’s about 5h45min. Both Crosby and Shippard noted that a measured approach on the first lap would be key to finishing the race.
And it is such discussion of race time, and difficulty, that has lead to the commissaires discussions about the race length for different categories. One idea floated was that age groups do two laps, open do three – giving the experience for World Championships. But very few World Championships have run up to 6 hours race time.
This afternoon, it was announced that all age group women will be racing two laps of the course, with an 8:30am start time – the same as Open Women. All men’s races will be completing 3 laps.
Subaru-MarathonMTB.com have five riders racing tomorrow, so we will provide reports and experiences after the race has been completed.
Ready to go for the Subaru National XCM Championships