An Otway Odyssey

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “odyssey” = noun (pl odysseys) a long eventful journey.

No shit.

Some of you may or may not be aware of my weekend past time of mountain biking. Occasionally I get a bit ahead of myself and sign up for crazy events such as 100km Marathons. It happened last year when I completed the BMC 100km Classic. For some strange reason, I signed up to compete (well, “take part in” really) in the 2010 Otway Odyssey. A 100km MTB Marathon that runs from Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road up through the Otway Ranges to the township of Forrest. And as I discovered this weekend, the OO made the BMC look like a swift jaunt to the shops to get skittles. The first 50km is basically up (and with a total elevation gain of around 2000m you’d expect that), then there is around 27km of beautiful singletrack around the world class trails in Forrest before the final 13km loop to the finish.
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BMC 100km Classic

It’s taken me a while to get my rear end in gear and write this. I like to think that this is down to the amount of time it’s taken me to recover. The race was almost 2 weeks ago, and yet I’ve only just managed to get back on the commuter bike – mainly due to the crook knee I have managed to acquire.

Honest.

It was my first attempt at 100km on a mountain bike. I’ve done 100 on road before (Around the Bay in a Day) but that was relatively flat and relaxed (took us about 3 hours 45 minutes at quite a gentle pace). I had no doubt however, that 100km off road would be in a whole new world of pain.

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Bike Buller

For those who don’t know, I am a keen mountain biker, and have recently started attending some organised races. Although, I technically can’t claim to be a serious racer, for me it’s more about the experience and the atmosphere at a race meet. Last weekend, I attended the Mt Buller Mountain Bike Festival at Mt Buller, Victoria. This is all part of our training towards the BMC 100km. It was an enourmously enjoyable event, even though the courses were pretty brutal. The event consisted of a 20km ride on the Saturday, followed by a 6km downhill race (which I didn’t take part in) and then a 50km race on the sunday.

The 20km course was very technical. Being a mountain, the course relief was pretty much straight up and straight down again. Long, twisting climbs (some with up to 15 switchbacks) followed by bone jarring and very technical singletrack descents. It was what my old friend Tom would describe as “darn technegol”.

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