Wildside Day 3

Day 3

Spray Tunnel - 6kI was looking forward to this one as it was run in a dual time-trial format, riders leaving every 30 seconds. The course went through a motocross park before hitting singletrack and the 'spray tunnel', specially lit for the occasion. After nervous conversations in the start channel I went hard until I got out of sight of the start and then sat on my competitors wheel. Until we hit the first hill where I dug deep and found - nothing. The motocross park was a few poorly formed loose jumps that I was too exhausted to enjoy (after one small jump I shouted to the photographer 'I hope you got that!' and he said 'got what?') and 10 mins in I was debating pulling out a gel. The 3k sign arrived about the time I thought we would be finising and all I could do was watch a stream of people come past. By then I'd remembered all I'd eaten the night before was steak, sausage, chicken and a small amount of potato salad - my primary carb souce had been two pints of the Boags draught and the last bottle of Premium in the pub. Probably not optimum nutrition after a day in the saddle.

Mike Tomalaris had just arrived to commentate on the end of the stage but hadn't set up when I made it over the line. I offered to re-finish and vomit for the cameras but he didn't seem interested.

Cruise Stage - 15k

The time trial had slowest riders starting first so we had plenty of time to ride down to the ocean at Trial Harbour. This was a great ride over a chalky dirt road with the green hills behind and the coast ahead.

Trial Harbour is a beautful little community of weatherboard shacks and the odd posh house tucked away next to some good looking surf breaks. I took advantage of my extended stop and ate my fill before having a bit of a kip in the shade of the medical tent. I had some wierd dreams because of the conversations going on inside!

Stage 6 - 22k
This stage was billed as 'mountain biking at its best' and it lived up to its reputation. First there was a pretty ugly climb out of the village on the chalky road we'd come in on - the leaders even got filmed by helicopter.

Then we followed a rough coastal 4wd route over rocks, through sand and up & down numerous creeks & washouts along the side of the coast.

The scenery was fantastic.

But you couldn't take your eyes off the track for long - this is one of the easy sections but imagine the rocks under the surface growing to the size of beachballs as you bounce down the washouts (no photos of the gnarly stuff - I was preoccupied)
I saw a few nasty falls and a fair bit of skin sacrificed to the trail. L group was by this time just trying to finish so most of the time everyone jumped off the bikes at the first sign of a technical climb but when someone went for it everyone else whooped and cheered them up the hill. Apart from the one guy that overcooked it, picked up his front wheel and literally fell sideways into and flattened the guy next to him.

When we hit the 5k mark there was a big cheer but we could have done without the uphill finish!
After the stage there was an hour long bus transfer to Strahan. The bikes were loaded into a dump truck and unlike Garapine a few months ago mine didn't fall out in transit.

That night I had another cold shower & then walked the couple of K's into town for pasta, beer and the first cashpoint that I'd seen all trip. Unfortunately the only Tassie beer on tap anywhere that we stayed was Boags - the Wizard Smith is more of an english ale but still pretty nondescript.