Easter in the Alice Stage 2 – The Mt Gillen Beast

Lasseters Easter in the Alice is in its third year, but this time around organisers have departed from their usual format to introduce a hill-climb stage for the first race of day two, which is traditionally split into two stages, with a night race in the evening.

Locals have long been familiar with Mt Gillen, and while it’s on private land and there’s a locked gate at the bottom, it seems many are strangely familiar with its steep ramps and the view from the summit. After some complex negotiations with the authorities, race organisers managed to obtain permission to race up the hill. Changing race formats and courses is always a difficult decision and in many ways, a risk. Tried and tested routes require less planning and often racers are keen to beat times from previous years. In this case, however, the risk paid off.

After a cruisy, neutral roll out of Alice we paused near the town dump to form up on the start line. Here we were warned of ruts, overgrown trails, and death rocks in the five kilometres to the base of the hill so the field went off at a reasonably even pace, and single lines of riders formed through smooth, fast double track, which soon, as promised, turned rocky.

Very rocky. Hand-sized slabs of flat, sharp rocks, punctuated by rounder rocks, bigger rocks, and more mobile rocks zoomed towards riders and pinged them in all directions. There was no ‘line’ through this two or three kilometre section of rough, and it was here that, over a sharp pinch, and with the sun in his pursuers eyes,someone had to unclip, and Andy Blair got a gap on the field, about a kilometre before the Mt Gillen climb.

Andy went for it from there and held onto his lead to win the day, while talented young Luke Pankhurst took advantage of his local knowledge and stayed relaxed until the base of the Mt Gillen beast, passing half a dozen of the elite field on his impressive climb to the top to take second. Consistent performer Jeff Rubach crossed the line in third.

For my part, I enjoyed today immensely. I went in with the goal of just focusing on the course, but with $1,000 up for grabs for the first male and female across the line (with a big nod to the organisers for offering equal prize money), I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have my eye on the win. My start was reasonable, if a bit conservative, but by the time we reached the clinking, roof-slate rock section I caught myself grinning and relaxing, enjoying that the mental challenge of picking out a decent line detracted somewhat from the effort in my legs (it’s the little things). I built up what I thought was a safe enough lead then threw my chain on a particularly bumpy section, screamed to a halt, got off, and with shaking hands eventually managed to get it back on, then set about maintaining whatever was left of the lead I’d just thrown along with my chain.

The climb itself is incredibly difficult, though reasonably short at just 1.9 kilometres. We’re used to steep hills off road but for some reason when a climb is bitumen, and extremely steep, it just. feels. harder. We turned left off the crazy clinking rocks and rode onto rough asphalt and the road turned up. Some of the men I’d been riding with yesterday were right nearby and seemed highly motivated by a female presence, but I let them do their thing, trying to save some for the steep bit I’d heard so much about, trying to conserve. The climb starts at a pleasant 12%, quickly ramps to 15%, and then the nice bit is over. First we hit 20%, then 25%, and then for an agonising 25 metres or so crept up a whopping 30% gradient. I stayed seated and just focused on keeping the pedals turning over (I think I managed a cadence of about 12). In doing so I watched the blokes with the watts power up out of the saddle and away from me, but when the climb started to calm down, I found a few more gears and soon caught back up. At this point I did something I rarely do and took a quick glance behind me. I couldn’t see Briony, the other elite woman, so I settled back into a comfortable-ish rhythm. and rode it to the finish, even resisting the temptation to sprint with the (still highly motivated) men. With the finish line in sight, I was completely overjoyed and happy to conserve a bit for tonight’s crazy sand skidfest around the golf course east of town.

Ride of the day goes to James Downing who, after getting fourth place yesterday, broke his chain today just near the base of the mountain, fixed it in under two minutes, then rode out of his skin up the climb to finish among the elite men’s field.

The stage worked a treat. There were refreshments at the top of the climb where, with incredible, panoramic views of Alice Springs, everyone was pretty happy to sit and chat, take some selfies, and let the adrenalin drain from the system while we waited for the field to finish their climbs. Race organisers really pulled off a short but logistically-tricky stage, spectators dressed up and played MC Hammer, and seemed to know everyone by name. There was the bizarre contrast of Euro cowbells ringing through a quintessentially Australian setting, and it was an absolute thrill and privilege to be able to stand on an ancient piece of the West MacDonnell Ranges and see the town, the hills, and mile upon mile of red, sprawling desert below, while floating kestrels circled above us. Even if they were, as someone suggested, attracted by the town dump, which lay way back down the mountain, behind the rocks and the hills and the sand tracks, where we’d started out not even an hour before in the cool of Easter Sunday morning.