Well it’s over! As usual I’m left with a mixture of relief that there’s an end to the pain and inability to finish my muesli each morning, and sadness that the adventure is over. Stage races are like that. I’ve heard the only cure for post-stage-race blues is to plan another one, so at least […]
Racing Australia’s Red Heart – darkness and rain! ICME 5 & 6
I finished racing hours ago but I’m still shaking. It’s the inevitable result of sleep deprivation, lactic acid accumulation, caffeine ingestion, and a lot of adrenalin! I can now safely admit that I loathe night racing, but was trying to keep positive before Rapid Ascent’s ICME stage 5 last night in the hope that this […]
Racing Australia’s Red Heart – ICME stage 4 and the race to recover
This morning we raced an individual mountain bike time trial over 22 kilometres, through sandy, washed-out four-wheel-drive track and singletrack. The course was a little less curvy and a little flatter than I’d hoped, but I managed to put myself through enough pain to win by a few seconds, which made me very, very happy. […]
Riding Australia’s Red Heart – ICME Stages 2 & 3
Just because it’s the desert doesn’t mean its flat, and Alice Springs has one tough climb on its western edge: Anzac Hill. It’s not very long – only a few hundred metres of sealed road, but the gradient boots up to about 26%, and averages about 12%. Stage 2 of ICME, yesterday evening, had us […]
Riding Australia’s Red Heart – ICME Stage 1
Bearing in mind that a lot of MarathonMTB.com readers are from all around the world, and that many Australians don’t know where Alice Springs is anyway, I thought I’d start this series of blogs about Alice Spring’s biggest MTB event with this fascinating geography primer. Skip ahead a few paragraphs if you just want the […]