really hard. Harder than a solo 24 hour race I reckon. More of a RACEY vibe. The start of the race was soo amazing. 800 mountain bikers in a huge pack all cruisin up mountain roads with fat tires a buzzin. What a site (and sound).
The first half of the race was fireroad and quite a bit of hiking up some seriously steep hills as we made our way from Apollo Bay to the mountain bike trails of Forrest. It was pretty tough going but my voodoo Titanium 29er was just smoothly rollin up the road and firetrack hills with little effort on my part.
The second half of the race was mostly singletrack on some of Forrests best trails...starting off with RED CARPET and finishing with MARINERS RUN. What a blast. Would have loved to swith to my 6 inch travel Felt Compulsion at this point! My whole body was acheing from being on the hardtail for soo long and a long-legged and light bike would have been the perfect choice for finishing off the race. But that not being possible I kept on pushing trying to stay as smooth as I could. Ended up finishing out the race in the top 30 percentile in open class which I was pretty stoked about.
Next up the Buller Mountain Bike Festival and then the BMC 100 in the end of April.
more about the otway odyssey can be found on the torquay cycle factory website here
Peace
Monk
