Dave Baldwin reports on the AROC 24 Hour Urban Adventure

25-26 March 2006

Julie had lined up an all-female team months ago, but I was still determined to find a strong female for a competitive mixed team. After getting back from Tassie, Danielle Winslow and Adrian Keough who'd also raced XPD agreed to team up. Should be a good team I thought. Unfortunately Danielle came down with an achilles injury a week beforehand, so the team fell apart. After a frantic few days with all of us asking any girls we could think of, I was resigned to racing an all-male team. Mid-week and a bunch of us were still going back and forth trying to get that together, when Robbie Preston (who I raced with last year) got in contact about a replacement for his brother in his mixed team with Grace Elson (who won the Cradle Mt run this year). It was all sorted.

Friday night was spent organizing gear and food at our place, got to bed around 11pm. Early start dropping bikes at Sparrow Hill at 7am, picking up maps at Glebe Park then back home for final preparations. Back by 10 after packing 2 plastic bins with food, spare clothes and batteries, then on buses out to Sparrow.

It was a mass start with a short orienteering leg picking up 6 controls in any order. Robbie and Grace bolted off, and I was struggling to keep up with my legs threatening to lock up on me. Onto our bikes after about 20 mins for a grand tour of the Sparrow single track. Awesome riding collecting controls and getting confused on the twisty trails. I didn't realize that the master map at control 12 was supposed to be used to find the quickest way to 13, so we continued on the singletrack for a while until it was clear there were no more streamers. A bit of dithering before we relocated and then started the navigation out of Sparrow and through Kowen to Queanbeyan. Some shortcuts made up for lost time thanks to mapping some of the area last year for a MTB orienteering event.

Down into QBN and popped into a servo for cokes and chips. Grace hadn't eaten much, so I was keen to get hold of anything she would eat or drink to keep us going. At the bridge we jumped into boats and paddled up river. It became progressively more choked with weed, willows and rubbish until we had to pull the boat out and carry it along the path. Grace carried the paddles and Robbie and I were able to jog with the boat, gapping an all-male team. We missed a turn off onto a footpad along the river and slogged up a hill for a while, but then cut back down a steep bank and found a way through to the last section of paddling, even more weed-choked than the first. We now had to make our way upstream to the limestone crag at Wickerslack. Both sides of the river were choked with scrub and willows. We crossed over and climbed high up above some long pools before eventually finding a way back across. The other team caught up to us again and got away with a polished abseil, but we quickly caught up again on the run back along the river to our bikes. The 2nd placed Melbourne mixed team were riding back up the river path - they had about 25 min lead on us. On our bikes again, we set off in pursuit around the outskirts of Qbn when disaster struck. We rode into a mass of prickly weeds which coated our tyres in spiked seeds. As we pulled them out the hissing of air from 4 tyres with only 3 tubes between us signaled a challenging task ahead. Fortunately Robbie was riding tubeless with fresh Stan's - it really does work!

We picked up our bikes and carried them to the next road crossing where we could pick up a gravel track again, then deflated the tyres, labouriously checked them for prickles turning them inside out, before replacing tubes. I then had to patch my rear tyre which was the least badly affected - only 4 holes I could easily detect. After nearly an hour, just as we were inflating the last tyre, finally another team past us! It was Fugahwe - Selina, Keith and Mark, and they confirmed there were 3 teams back around the corner doing exactly the same as us, before riding on. 5 minutes later we found them stopped and commencing their own prickle purge. We expected the delay was similar for all teams, but knew some might get through unscathed and for others it would be the end. On our way again we headed through Jerrabombera then down the railway past the derelict Fraser Park Speedway before cutting through Tuggeranong dropping in on a farewell party and back through Farrer and Isaacs Ridges to the Hindmarsh Drive pipe just as darkness was falling. I rode into the darkness wondering how I'd see my way before remembering I had a light (doh!), turned it on then pedalled on through. The occasional scraping of my pack on the pipe didn't worry me, but when I took it off to put on my headlamp I'd put some holes in the top pocket :-( Over Red Hill through Manuka then on to Debacle for a pizza and compulsory 15 min stop - I took the opportunity to re-check my rear tube which was becoming soft by now as we waited, when the Melbourne team arrived - we'd overtaken them! The pizza was finally ready at 12 mins, so we bolted it down before heading off.

We'd changed our shoes ready for the next leg at Debacle, and had a slick transition onto the next leg, grabbing our glowsticks and running through Civic to the ferry terminal to paddle down to Molonglo boatshed. The Melbourne team got their boat on the water ahead of us, but we could see their glowsticks not far ahead. The two leading teams were coming back near Kings Ave bridge, and the Melbourne team then took a wrong turn into a dead-end channel up the river and had to carry their boat a bit, so we started the wetlands orienteering before them. We tore down Dairy Flat Rd like headless chooks, finding the control in the bird viewing shed without too much trouble, but then kept up the headless chook impression for the next few controls wasting precious time flailing around in dense bushes then wandering randomly around the paddock looking for a fence crossing a dry creek. The Melbourne team did the loop the opposite way, and quickly cleared out leaving us finding our way around a maze of channels wasting more time before finally getting it together for the last 2 and heading back across the bridge to the boat. There was no sign of them this time as we paddled back down the lake, but a few other teams were starting to make their way down. We probably had a margin of nearly an hour on them by now though, so the race was now for 2nd place.

Running back to transition we were set for a quick transition to kick-bikes after changing out of our wet gear, when Robbie announced horror-stricken that he'd lost the control card! Frenzied searches commenced, but it wasn't clear it had made it this far and it could even be at the bottom of the lake by now. After wasting about 15 mins, we decided to continue on and hope it would turn up. It was now around 11pm, and the next few controls were bars and clubs in Civic. In Garema Place Grace was getting cold, so Robbie got out her jacket (he was carrying her spare clothes) while I went around to Mooseheads. Now this has to be just the worst place in Canberra to be on a Friday night. There were fights being picked, drunken teenagers everywhere, wailing girls having issues, the works. The control was just inside, but the others didn't arrive so I had to go back and find them before venturing inside with them guarding my kick-bike. From here on it was all good. The kick-bikes were heaps of fun and really moved along. Every 5 or so pushes a deft foot-swap was required to be able to use the other leg. We zoomed over the pool footbridge to Regatta Pt flagpole, then over Commonwealth Ave bridge up the ravine of Commonwealth Place over the gallery footbridge and through the sculpture garden before hitting the bikepath to Molonglo reach again. We passed a heap of boats paddling up the river. All that remained of the full course was to run back through Campbell to Glebe Park, and we arrived around 12:30am to get the bonus course.

The race winner would be determined by who could get the most of 30 bonus controls, and the quickest if they got them all. There were 2 orienteering legs - 10 controls in Yarralumla Bays area on an easy 7km course from Weston Park, 9 on a 5km course in Black Mt from the back of CSIRO, then 3 on the islands between Acton and Weston Park (including the little one by Black Mt Peninsula swimming area), and the remaining 8 were by bike through O'Connor and Belconnen out to Lake Ginninderra. We knew we had plenty of time to get them all, and decided to stay dry for as long as possible and start off with the longish bike ride.

The first control was a Julian Dent's house in O'Connor, and fortunately he had a track pump handy to reinflate my now soft rear tyre. Out through AIS to Lake Ginninderra and found the furthest control hidden in long grass. Back through UC, Gossan Hill and Aranda Hill over Black Mt saddle. No more hills on the bike from here! Picked up the orienteering map and had to head back over the saddle looping out towards Caswell Drv before coming back over Little Black Mt. It was now getting on for 4am, and just as we were coming to the road behind the gardens we saw the Melbourne team heading out on foot. It would be a close run thing from here! Quickly onto our bikes and short-cutting through ANU to our boat, then a paddle past Springbank, Spinnaker and Black Mt Peninsula Islands to Weston Park. As we arrived we saw another team heading out on foot - turned out to be Julie's team who'd ridden around. There were no other boats there, and we charged off towards the Yacht Club still moving pretty well. It was light enough by now to pack the torches away and complete a big loop back over Stirling Park ridge meeting a few other teams along the way, then cut through Yarralumla and around the back of the nursery returning to the boats, still powering along. The last paddle back and we were surprised to see a couple of teams heading out by boat including the Pink Ladies.

Seb Dunne and Adrian Keough were marshalling and gave us a cheery welcome before the final ride back to Glebe Park. I had a good look for our control card but didn't find it, but when we got back we discovered it had been found by another team! The Melbourne team finished about 20 mins later, so we'd got 2nd! We headed home for some breakfast, a shower and a nap. Robbie and Grace insisted on stopping at the golden arches on the way for hotcakes.

I was back at the finish again before 11 to see Julie's team finish and get some more food. The presentations followed and we were pretty chuffed to receive $1500 prize money! Julie's team were very happy to win, especially since Sam had gastro the whole way. There were lots of stories about punctures. Unfortunately Fugahwe had to pull out because Keith's rim got badly buckled after riding on it with flat tyres. Alina had got Lonsdale St to open up on Saturday night to get a stock of tubes which were sold at various transitions on the course which kept most teams going. Another great event from the AROC crew - a great course set by Alina and Grant Bluett. A big thanks to everyone involved in running the event, and especially to my team mates for a fantastic race.