Ahead of the 3rd Round of the Subaru Australian National MTB Series, Sebastian Jayne previewed the course at Moama.
Location: Echuca/Moama on the shores of the Murray River
Course: The course is fairly flat but as we found out in the Thredbo point-to-point last year, around Lake Crackenback, a flat course doesn’t necessarily make a boring course. The big focal point of the Lake Crackenback point-to-point was the start. People that were used to running top 5 in their respective categories in the XCO races had shocking starts, which set the order for the rest of the race. The high speeds made passing difficult and closing gaps hard.
The Echuca course isn’t devoid of features though, with the occasional wooden drop, wall ride and a few rollers. There is ‘rock city’ that has some fun little man-made rock gardens to negotiate but I’m not sure if these will be used in the course.
It’s not just flat, there are some features to the course.
The most influential technical features though, will be the corners. Most are flat and as with the rest of the course loose on hard-packed dirt. I’m not sure how the ground will hold up under traffic but it could go either way, swept down to the hard-pack clay and be even faster or could get looser.
Corners aplenty at Echuca
There are a few gullies to negotiate, which will add the ‘climbing’ of the race. The way it’s designed it does add some good flow and at race pace it should be loads of fun. It’s going to be a very interesting race and a great finale to the Subaru MTBA series for 2014!
Conditions: The weather looks like it’s going to be around the 30-degree mark. The forecast has it down as light winds but even light winds could have an impact on the race with it being down by the river and relatively flat.
Here is my strava file from my quick ride around the Echuca tracks.
Set the Magellan 505 to go!
And to finish here is a cool video of climbing goats!
See you at the race!