Singlespeed Nationals 2011 - Crossing the Border

The Singlespeed Nationals is a once-a-year (semi)organised race event that gets a bunch of similarly mentally damaged mountain bike singlespeeders together to participate in a weekend of stupid costumes, beer drinking, tattoos, huffy-tossing, general frivolity and a little bit of riding in between.

Having participated in last years event in Canberra where my bike was stolen (anyone remember that one?), Mat ended up in hospital and Troy was so hungover that he elected not to ride his bike on many occasions, I actually didn't even hesitate to take off a weekend in September to do all the above, all over again. Well, except for the bike getting stolen thing. Or the hospital trip. Or the whole Troy getting... ah who was I kidding, of course he was going to be hungover for the whole weekend!

Seeing as Adelaide had elected themselves to host the Singlespeed Nationals for this year, the important decision between flying or road tripping had to be made early on, though bearing in mind our experience last year we decided the road trip would be the easiest option.

Firstly however, a word of advice:

When thinking of embarking on an 8-10 hour road trip, never underestimate how truly long and truly boring that 8-10 hour drive can actually be - especially when it is Melbourne-Adelaide. Some places can be deceivingly "easy" to drive to due to the interesting terrain and countryside around you. However, the journey from Melbourne to Adelaide is in no way shape or form what you would call "easy". Having said that, we did manage to see the charm in a number of small country towns along the way where we sampled many a vanilla slice, hot pies and terrible, terrible coffee.

In fact, one petrol station in a little town we stopped at impressed us with their product diversification with a sign in the window proudly stating that they were licensed to sell ammunition - which is good to know when you're filling a car with petrol.

After crossing the border, we realised there was still a solid 4 hours of driving and Dave and I briefly discussed whether it was worth being sober for the remainder of the journey. And I do mean briefly - in fact, enough time to stop at a bottle shop.

Dave took the opportunity to indulge in a 6-pack of his favorite "Pink Cadillac" shots.

And shortly after...

The campsite was quite obviously the closest one to the event, with every second car or van loaded up with bikes. Most of the convoy arrived in Adelaide by Friday afternoon and although folks were a little wary-eyed after the long drive, the excitement levels slowly began to creep up as we speculated on what the trails were going to be like and which weirdos from last year were going to be at the event.

Though as you're probably thinking with this photo, we probably shouldn't have been worrying about "other weirdos"...

Arriving at the site for the event on Saturday morning, we rocked up to the Eagle MTB Park that we had heard so much about. Based around an old quarry, the site is similar to You Yangs but is in a much more natural and picturesque setting, with longer and more rolling trails.

Prior to the race kicking off, we headed out for a quick scout of the course to see what was in store for us. In the week leading up to the event, I had been asking anyone who had previously ridden Eagle Park what tyres we should be running. With confidence, I was informed to run something fast-rolling with minimal tread, as the trails were supposedly nice hard pack dirt without too much loose stuff. Taking the advice on board, I fitted some nice 'n' wide low profile tyres in preparation for the race, though shortly round after the first 50m of trail that I was going to be severely undergunned...

Much to everyones disdain, the race kicked off with a Le Mans style start. Really, anyone who thinks that a mountain bike race should be commenced by a run should be beaten around the head with a White Industries freewheel.
Standing around on the start line, a few familiar faces called out and we had a brief chance to chat before the air horn blew and we were running off to find our bikes.

The course was a 5km loop that included some beautifully smooth singletrack as well as some steep and loose descents that kept everyone on their toes. The course was a great mix of flowy and technical, though I was definitely second-guessing my tyre choice on the loose areas. Mind you I can't complain too much, as they were very fast, just my problem was that they were fast in pretty much every direction.

One area of this years event that was causing some controversy was the so-called "Onion Cut". For those familiar with the running of a Singlespeed race, you'll know that at some point during the course there is a diversion through a tent that allows you to take a substantial short cut. The only catch is that in that tent, you have to consume a can of beer before you can continue, thus providing you with a choice of shortcut + a belly full of fizzing beer, or the longer route with less chance of being sick.

For Adelaide 2011 however, licensing rules wouldn't permit the consumption of alcohol as part of the race, so the event organisers changed the tent to the Onion Cut. The premise was the same, but instead of beer, you had to cut a whole onion that would contribute to the post-race BBQ. Pretty lame right?

Well that's what I thought, and there was no way I was going to ride any less to cut onions after driving 8 damn hours to get to the event.

As the race went on, I noticed that there was a lot of beer drinking occurring at the Onion Cut, and not a lot of cutting onions. Being the naive idiot I am, I realised by the 4th lap that the so-called Onion Cut was a clever ploy to cover for the Beer Cut!

I won't go into detail about the race results as it doesn't really matter at a SS event, though all the crew seemed to love the trails and best of all no one ended up in hospital this year - though Mat gave it a good crack with a decent "off" on his last lap.

Post-race involved a dirty BBQ feed with everyone keen to get all those precious nutrients back into their bodies, as well as all the novelty evens like the Longest Skid Competition and the classic Huffy Toss - all very serious stuff!

If anyone is thinking of hitting up the trails over in Adelaide, I couldn't recommend it enough as all of us thoroughly enjoyed the trails on offer at Eagle MTB Park.

All in all we had a pretty damn good weekend of riding, drinking lots of Coopers and South Australian wine and sampling pretty much every type of take away meal available between Melbourne and Adelaide. Thanks to all the crew for making it such a fun trip and can't wait to do it again next year... though I may fly next time...