Vale Mike Hall - and a call for final Cloudride entries

Mike Hall - IPWR

As I am sure you are all aware, Mike Hall lost his life in a tragic road accident coming into Canberra last Friday morning while running second in the inaugural IndiPac #IPWR race across Australia. Mike was ‘the man’ of world ultra enduro racing, not only winning the major races but setting new race records that almost defied belief for normal humans who watched and admired his incredible stamina and focus to ride day after day at speeds and for distances that we all thought were impossible.

Having personally raced in a number of these international ultra distance events, it was with a great deal of pride that I welcomed and supported Jesse Carlsson’s IndiPac vision and efforts to gather the leading ultra distance enduro riders to Australia to race across our country and through my home city and our National Capital, Canberra. The outcome has been shattering for all the IPWR riders and the wider bikepacking community and Ultra Enduro racers around the world.

Final Call for 2017 Cloudride Entries

I've had two late entries this past weekend and that will make a field of nineteen. Unfortunately we've had five withdrawals and two Pete and Anton [previous Blog post] have already ridden the course. As fate would have it the Monaro Cloudride will be the first bikepacking race to be run following the abandoning of the IndiPac. Let us all draw strength from Mike’s legacy of raising the profile of these events and make sure we ride safe and be aware of the dangers from other road users and the dangers of reckless riding on rough technical ground and descents when caution is the sensible option.

Hi-Vis Clothing and Lights

One discussion point that became apparent during the IndiPac was the lack of Hi-Vis day clothing being worn by riders. Truckies and Grey Nomads raised this issue and apparently it was a topic of considerable discussion on the 2-Way right across WA and SA. I was guilty of wearing dark clothing [trying not to look too grubby] but was persuaded by the comments and far too many Triple B road trains ripping by at 110kph to go brighter. It was my intention to buy a Hi-Vis vest when passing through Adelaide before IndiPac was cancelled.

http://www.heyreflecto.com.au

Now much of the Cloudride is off road and out of sight, however there are plenty of sections that you will need to be visible. The reckless abandon of motorists encountered on our journey across Australia isn’t restricted to the Eyre Highway … the back shire roads of the Monaro are the home of some particularly dangerous hoons whom you need to treat with the utmost caution. Be visible, bright and have plenty of lights at night!

As an addendum to the above, the IndiPac riders who attended the memorial ride down to the Opera House for Mike on Sunday shared a few quiet beers after. Of the twelve riders, eight were from Europe and they were of the unanimous view that Australian drivers were the most dangerous and reckless they had encountered and that any one of them/us could have been killed in circumstances no different to Mike’s end. This is a sad indictment of our society’s all to often care-less, cavalier, ignorant attitude to the safety and sharing of our road space with cycilists.

RACE BRIEF

7:00pm Thursday 13 April Ainslie Football Club

52 Wakefield Ave, Ainslie ACT 2602

An hour or so to meet other riders, inexpensive club grub and an opportunity to cover a few salient points that you are going to encounter along the way and answer any questions you may have. Non racers and friends are most welcome to come along.

RACE START

BentSpoke Brewing Co

Elouera St, between Mort and Lonsdale Sts.

8.00am start, arrive at 7:30am. We need you to sign on, a group pic. etc. and I’d like us all to spend a quiet minute reflecting on Mike Hall’s legacy to us all.

Not much open at this hour Macca’s 24H are just down in Mort Street … 150m from the race start.

RACE ROUTE .gpx file.

There are some changes to the DRAFT file sent out.

Registered riders will be sent the final race route .gpx file by weeks end.

BIKEPACKING

Bikepacking is a personal self supported challenge. The Monaro Cloudride is a race agains the clock …. you V clock. Your participation is not sanctioned by anyone other than yourself. In the main you will be riding on public roads, service roads in KNP approved by NP&WL and state forest roads. Some sections are on private property and the property owners have approved access for participants of the 2017 Monaro Cloudride. You are an individual simply following a pre-determined route that is available to participants. There is no on-the-ground organisation. No one will help you if things go wrong, riders will be alone. Understand that this is a personal challenge against the clock. By signing up riders get nothing but an excuse to plan and execute their own adventure, one which is dangerous and has serious risks for those unprepared.

SPOT - Race Trackers

These will be available for collection at the Race Brief. Most of my trackers have been out on IPWR duty so I’m hoping they will all return over the coming week. I’ll email a .pdf on the basic operating instructions separately to those who have paid for the hire with their registration.

RACE TAPER

There is no such thing … keep punching in as much as you can for the next ten days. Go in hurting, the body trauma on day 1, 2, 3 is an opening gambit you have to deal with…… Be ready to suffer and suck it in. Get as much of it [body trauma] out of the way leading into the race start as you can. Look forward to feeling 3/10 on day two/three and by day five 6/10 and wishing there was another 1000k to go. Laugh a lot …… revel in the solitude and challenge of what you are achieving. It’s a cathartic experience to go beyond what have been the humble constraints of our everyday existence….. enjoy the moment!

RIDER START LIST

I’ve put the registered riders up on maprogress.com [look under events ‘Coming up’]. Unfortunately we’ve had five scratchings. Injury, illness, work and life commitments. Phil Fitzgerald, Clare Weatherly, Angus Hobson, Hannah Marriott, and Robert Hoehne have all had to withdraw. Late entries over the weekend from Andrew Stephenson and Jeroen Jedeloo and maybe a few other smokies will see the start list around 20 or so.

RIDER PROFILES

Over the following week I'll replace the rider list from 2016 on the Monaro Cloudride website with profiles and pic's of the 2017 riders.

RACE TRACKING

Race tracking will go live on race morning ....

https://monarocloudride2017.maprogress.com.