by Dave Arnold
Imagine, will you? Standing on the side of the road and watching as one of the great ultra distance riders goes past you, head down, arse up, and knowing that in 36 hours, you had to get on a bike yourself and start chasing.
How did I get myself into this situation? That is a bloody good question.
During 2000 and 2001, I had been working on a race against an English team which had, in 1999, taken my team record for the "Around Australia" route. Getting a 10-man team together and organised enough is very hard from where I live in Central Queensland. It's just too far away from major centres. In 1996, I did it with a 12-man team but geez, what a team. Two sixty year olds, a thirteen year old...all social riders. The poms? All hardened time trialists. What were we thinking?
Anyway, the race never came off. The poms did their lap number 2, without me, and broke the record.
As a result of this though, I had a core of riders all hyped to do something. We had been training, well, some of us had. Some had been training on beer, I think. This mate of mine had been planning a record attempt, solo, unsupported, around Australia. Mad bastard, really. Anyway, I thought, why not have a crack at the team coast to coast record? At least try for the time the poms had set as part of their around Oz thing. So we started planning a ride from Townsville to Broome via Darwin. We thought 6 days was realistic, half a day quicker than the poms and with a team half their size.
Now my mate got wind of it and said, "Why don't we race?" Now there was a challenge! He wanted it as a lead up to his little ride and I thought, "Well, it wouldn't hurt."
The thing is though, he had no intention of going to Darwin. He lived in Yeppoon, and wanted to start there. AAHHHH, why not? Turns out it is a very similar distance to the RAAM thing my mate had been looking at going in for.
He wanted to run a 2-man team. I had a 6-man team all ready to go. "Hardly fair," thought my mate. "How about a handicap?" Being the generous type I says, "Yeah, sure! Name ya time." Stupid!
So, we line up at Yeppoon 36 hours after the best ultra rider on the planet had already left and we start chasing the bugger!!!!
For the first day and a half or so, our opposition just rode away from us. They were turning hourly stints and seemed to be on the edge of a different weather pattern than us. We struck headwinds most of the first day. The lad and his mate, whom he called "Mr 150," had some tailwinds.
Now there is a LOT of distance between stuff in the Aussie outback, a whole lotta noth'n. We lost contact with base due to flat batteries and not being at road houses during daylight hours. So neither us, nor the opposition mob, knew where each other was. Until...
Cunnanurra in West Australia, we finally got hold of base. That's like 2 1/2 days into this thing. We are told to go for it. The other blokes have blown up. In all the excitement though, the bloke whose responsibility it was to fill the water containers, forgot to.
300km down the track, in the most arid part of the Aussie continent, I owned up. "Sorry guys, hope we don't die of dehydration here." At one road house we are told we are only hours behind the other blokes. Talk about a second wind! We nailed the last 800km. Absolutely hammered.
It had been organised that the race finish was at the local bike shop in Broome. We rolled in at 12 midnight, rang the shop owner who said, "Who? What?" and went back to sleep. Yup, congrats guys. Good effort. Let me sleep. We sat around, ate pizza, and headed for the motel.
The next morning we went looking for the other blokes. Found 'm too. "Mr 150" had a glass of water on his lap and my mate had the biggest coldest beer I ever saw, and one waiting for me. Which kinda makes me feel a little ashamed as I had the warmest beer waiting for him at the end of his next ride. He was early though. That's my excuse and I'll stick to it.
The opposition had beaten us by 6 hours!! They had done hourly stints all the way from one coast of the Australian continent to the other.
It was an absolute honour to have competed against these blokes. We were amateurs but geez, I learned heaps from the way my mate rode that race. Perry, I'll always remember that race. I look on it equally with my own world record.
Roll on RAAM, 2005.
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