Wallace and Anset win Real XCM Round 3: Wombat 100

The Real Insurance XCM Series is not letting up, with Round 3 right on the back of Round 2 last weekend. Many of Australia’s Elite MTB races headed to Cammeray Waters, where the Wombat 100 is based. The race takes its name from Wombat State Forest, which is about 700 square kilometres size, about an hour north of Melbourne. The place is riddled with trails and dirt roads, including the Wombat track as build by the local club.

The week preceding the race was wet, and on Friday, sideways rain doused the area with much needed precipitation. Great for the forests, farmlands and peoples water tanks – but not so good for a National Marathon race! Thankfully, Maximum Adventure were able to amend the course a little, and the sun and wind on Saturday helped dry out the terrain.

We stayed at Cammeray Waters, which must be one of the best locations for a MTB race – as long as that’s where you’re staying. The accommodation is about 50m from the start/finish line, there’s catering on for dinner, and food post race too. Best of all, with a 1pm check out you can shower once you’re done.

On race morning, warm ups started but word started to spread that the course had been vandalised. It was confirmed by race director Henry van Heerden – not only had supplies at water points been tampered with, but course arrows and tape had been too. The vehicles checking it all out were busy fixing it up, so the race was delayed about half an hour.

In the start chute the air was jovial. Paul van der Ploeg was making jokes, there was little stress, just some shivering and excitement to get going. Out of the property it wasn’t crazy fast, but Jason English did pop off the front for a little while, and Chris Jongewaard wasn’t hanging around as he moved up the centre of the doubletrack. Looping around the property the elite bunch was strung out, but it wasn’t until we were on some proper dirt road that Roeland Suys attacked, and then a sequence of other riders bridged across. Some were caught, and some got into the first single track ahead of others. Just like last year, my race ended here with bad line decisions, foiled further by slippery mud.

http://youtu.be/77ZZthV5D-w

I dropped back, and was surprised when Cory Wallace passed me – he had some catching up to do! And so did I. Soon after the first feed at 28km I saw a group of 5 and got across to them. Roeland was in there, and soon enough I was with one of the riders from Fitzroy Revolution, enjoying the twisty trails that ran for about 15-20km before the half way feed. These trails were in the best condition. Earlier, the front group had come through, about 5 or 6 riders, but they shed one as Ben Mather broke a chain and pulled out soon after.

About 70km in I went the wrong way with a rider I was now with. We bumped into Andrew Mock, and ended up turing around, getting people to do a U turn as we went back down. We found the arrow that was the culprit – but it was our fault, we hadn’t followed the bits of pink tape. The fire trail climbs were beginning, and it was here that Cory Wallace left the front group (as I heard later) attacking, and just soloing from there to the line.

Our little group broke up, with Mock and myself coming in together. There was a lot of challenging MTBing today as some of the sections were really quite wet and slippery, but it was still a lot of fun. Cory Wallace won alone, but it was Shaun Lewis who won the sprint from a group of 6, with Chris Jongewaard coming 3rd.

Mel Anset lead the women, with Imogen Smith right on her tail until the gap grew on the single track climbs. Sarah Riley had an unfortunate flat within the first 500m so was chasing all day. Imogen missed a turn in her group of other riders somewhere in the first 25km, and only knew as much when Mel caught her. Although Imogen crossed in second place, she was relegated to 4th. Mel Anset won, and Sarah Riley was awarded 2nd.

Full results can be found online.