The “Crank Addicts” riding group we do a bit of riding with organise an annual mountain bike race on the tracks around St Helens during winter every year. Winter is the perfect time to be riding the East Coast as the moisture settles down the sandy tracks and there is plenty of grip. They have developed quite an impressive track network around the back hills of St Helens. One of the tracks had been trashed by forestry operations but there was plenty more to be had with linking fire roads and plenty of hills to get your attention.

There was a bus and 13 bike trailer to take the bulk of the participants to the start point on day 1 at the top of the range. Without enough spots 4 of us ‘hard men’ had to ride 27km uphill to the start and leave a couple of hours earlier than everybody else. They didn’t even bring us up a coffee on the bus!

We started off with a couple of short sections to get us warmed up. One was a very fast downhill run that almost everybody enjoyed even the non downhill types like myself. Sharon was having a ball on her new Scott birthday bike and ended this stage with a huge grin on her face. We sort of split into two groups here. The faster and slower group and we headed off and did a combination of single track and fire road. Eventually we regrouped and the girls went off to the waterfall while the boys road some hideously steep hill for the king of the mountain crown. Unfortunately I came second on the false summit and the real summit after a few powered past on the false summit and yelled “that’s not it yet”.

After all this and helping with some mechanicals and a quick trip to the waterfall the rest of us road back into St Helens stopping at Coffee Away for some great Ritual coffee. Day 1 completed with 1700M & 77km in the saddle for me. The afternoon cleaning up and a few beers and down to Punjabs for a great night of curry, beers and talking crap.

Day 2 was split between boys and girls with the girls doing a Binalong Bay loop while the boys did a 30km loop + transit each way  back up in the hills. I had a crack early on today after big German Sheppard dog appeared on the road and our group did not want to go past it so I took a chance and had a crack for a bit passing the dog and gapping the others. Gave it everything for quite a while but I went to hard to early and eventually I hit a short steep section and came off and they caught me up again. It was pretty close between all of us for a while but a couple of killer hills sorted a few out. Back through some of the single track we did yesterday and most of us finished within a few minutes of each other. The option stage was abandoned as we were done and the rain had started. Ride back into St Helens and my Epic was done, 2500M & 120km for the weekend. Great tracks, great fun, great people.

The girls took longer than we did and maybe a little too long at the Binalong coffee shop so they got absolutely drenched on the ride back to St Helens. A bunch of drowned rats came screaming into the yard and took over the nice warm wood BBQ front spots. Mike and Kent have put a lot of hours into the tracks and the Epic and hopefully it will evolve into a full blown event so all can enjoy it. It was supposed to be this year but the organisation fell through and it reverted back to a Crank Addicts event. We will be back next year for sure having done our first. First time in a while for a no crash and no mechanicals race for me.

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