Roots and mushrooms

Moving me and my family to England to live presented many problems, not least was the prospect of being without my beloved mountain bike for up to 3 months, while it made its way, along with the rest of our belongings in a shipping container to the UK.  Thankfully, the airline we flew with allowed us a few extra kilos because we were “emigrating”, so this meant I could pack and bring my bike.

Having recently read a “How to” article in Australian Mountain Bike magazine about packing a bike for flying, I was armed and dangerous with a little knowledge.  The article said it would take about an hour to pack, so about 3 hours later my bike was sufficiently packed and padded inside a cardboard box, ready for its maiden flight.

After landing at Heathrow and clearing immigration, it was a nervous wait for my bike box.  I had visions of it coming out looking like it had gone 7 rounds with Mike Tyson.  It was the first piece of our luggage that came through, and from a distance looked like it survived the trip without a problem.  Closer examination of the box revealed that a crank arm had punched its way through the cardboard, but thankfully this did not pose any future problems.

Having arrived with the usual jetlag and suffering from being cramped in a tin can for 20 hours, it was great to unpack my bike, put it all back together and go for a quick blast on the afternoon we arrived.

The first thing I noticed on my maiden English ride was the amount of spiky things that just love to rub against you on the trails.  Stinging nettles and blackberries are common everywhere.  Rubbing against a stinging nettle is like rubbing against a hot iron.  And blackberries leave you looking like you’ve just tried to pick up a feral cat.  My legs and forearms were left bleeding, and my shins stung from the nettles, but it was great to spin the legs and fill the lungs with some fresh country air.

Since I arrived, I’ve managed to get out fairly often, and I have discovered a nice network of trails close to home.  It is a nice feeling to leave the house and be on-track within 5 minutes, instead of having to drive an hour before being able to ride.

Funky mushrooms

Which brings me to the title of this post.  Roots and mushies (mushrooms).  They’re everywhere around here.  I’m not sure which trees the roots belong to, but judging from the size of them, they’re from the maturer trees that line the trails here.  They stand between 5 and 10cm above the ground, and they generally face side-on to the direction of the track.  This is perfectly fine in dry weather, but even heavy dew makes these roots as slippery as the slipperiest thing on earth.  If the side lugs of your tyres slip even a millimetre on them, everything suddenly falls away from underneath you, and you’re on your ass.  As for the mushrooms, well, they are just plain funky (see picture).

So even though the trails around my house are not exactly extreme, or even that techincal, the threat of falling on your ass because of slippery roots, as well as the constant bombardment of stinging nettles and blackberries, means I still have to be vigilant on every ride.  The big plus with all the blackberries around is that even if I do have to change a tube mid-ride, I can get a decent feed of juicy sweet fruit, right where I stop.  And apparently stinging nettle soup is nice, but I’m not that keen to pick them, for obvious reasons.

Bittersweet Ending

I managed to get out for a ride in the Hills on Sunday afternoon, my last mountain bike ride in Perth. The next dirt riding I will do will be in *sunny* England. You see, my family and I are moving to Newbury in England at the end of the month. While I am sad to leave behind the excellent riding in Perth, I am equally excited about discovering new riding opportunities around my new home.

To end my Perth riding adventures, I decided to ride a couple of my favourite trails, so that I can leave Perth with fond riding memories (so as you can imagine, I didn’t end it with a 100km slog along the Munda Biddi Trail).

My trails of choice in fact started on the Munda Biddi, but then diverged on to the wonderfull flowing White Tag track, then on to the very fun Blue Tag track, then on to the fast and challenging Scorpion track.

White Tag is a trail that I love as much for its different environments as for its flow. One minute you’re riding through sparse Jarrah forest, then through low-lying ground covered in thick sedges, then you pop out into fantastic pine forest. All the while, the bike is hardly ever vertical because of the constant flowing corners, many of which are bermed. Thankfully off-camber corners are kept to a minimum, and in some places it is possible to let go of the brakes completely and just carve your way through the corners. Fantastic!!

Then on to the much used Blue Tag track, which holds a special place in my riding memories as the first Perth Hills trail that I tackled, way back when I was riding my mighty Apollo hard-tail. Because I have ridden this trail so much, and the surface is so hard packed, I find that I am pedalling flat out the whole time. Exhausting but exhilarating, because of the high speeds.

After crossing the bitumen, it’s on to the brilliantly constructed Scorpion trail, complete with some extremely difficult trail features like log rides leading to hip-high flat landings, which thankfully have a great chicken-line around them!! I have two favourite parts of this trail, which are both great for different reasons. One is a ride-through of an ancient, and huge, burnt out tree, where you actually ride through the centre of the still-standing trunk. The other is the massively fast pine tree section, where a trick of the local topography makes it seem like you are riding slightly uphill, but in actual fact you are riding slightly downhill. Absolutely brilliant!!

All up my last runch in the Perth Hills took less than an hour, but I am really happy I managed to ride my favourite trails. To the guys and girls who build these trails, I take my hat off to you. I only hope that the trail pixies in England have learned the same trail-building techniques as you.

6 Hour Wrap-up

A couple of Sunday’s ago my mate and I competed in the annual Jarrahdale 6 hour race. The results and photos of the race are now in – finally I have found “a” photograph of myself with a race number attached to the handlebars.

As anyone who rides mountain bikes will tell you, the surface you ride on is very important, and ultimately determines your overall speed and enjoyment. Western Australia is the home of pea-gravel (see picture, and yes, it is as bad as it looks – a bit like riding on half-sized marbles, interspersed with sand). The days leading up to the race were wet, with the race day being bathed in perfect sunshine. These were going to be perfect conditions for fast (and fun) riding.

There was a big field (300+ riders) and my mate was doing the first lap. He started in the final third of the pack and was severely held up by all the traffic. I rode the second lap, and the field had spread out quite a bit by that stage, but I did manage to pass (and be passed) by quite a few riders. I measured the lap distance at 9.2km, which I confirmed with another competitor, but the race officials deemed each lap to be 8.55km (who knows, but going by the lie-detector strapped to the bars of my bike, I averaged 16km/h on my first lap, which I was stoked with).

We continued with our single-lap race plan, and the only hiccup came at the end of my first lap, when I got to the transition area and discovered my mate was nowhere to be found. People all around me were loudly suggesting I should do another lap (screw that, I was buggerred and needed a rest). Eventually my mate sauntered over to the start line – my speedy lap time had confused his peanut brain. Thankfully he is a strong rider and was able to make up for his indiscretion.

Eventually it got to the end of lap 8 and we still had 1.5 hours to go. We started talking to each other in the transition area about getting 10 laps in, 11 at a pinch (our original target was 9 laps). My mate went out for lap 9 and put in a scorcher, but even if I was able to do a quick lap myself, there was no way my mate could pull off a lap as quick as what would be required, so I just cruised the last lap (lap 10).

Again, I was extremely impressed by the camaraderie shown amongst the racers, with more please’s and thankyou’s than ever. At the end of the day in the “Team of Two” category we were 41st (out of 66 teams), and 96th overall. Best of all I had an absolute blast riding as fast as my legs will carry me, over some of the very best trails WA has to offer.

On a side note, I reckon I was privileged to race with one of Western Australia’s (if not Australia’s) most up-and-coming riders, Reece Tucknott. This kid is only 14 years old, and was simply blasting everyone on course (and doing it without pissing anybody off, which was a bonus). His team narrowly missed taking out the “Team of Two” category, coming second to a couple of blokes who were probably 3 times his age, but with a bit of endurance and wisdom in this kid’s legs, he is going places.