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MegaDumyat Training
The Mega
You've all heard about the MegaAvalanche? the big mountain downhill race with some all mountain riding thrown in. Well, my local ride pack have our own version, the MegaDumyat. "Dum-Eye-At" is our local hill, it is 481metres high and has a rough series of trails leading down its west face. The trails are a mixture of every kind of riding - bare rock, drop offs, big slabs, steep drops, flat out grass bits, gravel and every kind of camber.
The ride then crosses a small road and there's a short section of boggy uphill that leads to fast singletrack before a km of fast fireroad. The last section takes the riders through Mine Woods. A series of interlinking singletrack trails with steep drop offs, muddy (even when its dry) with some small ups and downs. The very end takes riders through a little jump park and a reasonable big "bomb-hole".
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Mega
length: 6.21 km
elevation lost: 482 m
elevation gain: 96 m
A friendly group of riders rode this last year on a dry, warm night (it's light most of the night here in June) and Megadob posted the fastest time of 16min 46secs - a truly fantastic feat.
This year, it was raining and windy and 3 riders rode it under 19min with the winner at 18min 26secs.
The hill changes every year slightly as new water courses form and as the paths evolve. I love the course - it is a test of every skill as a rider and you have to have a bike that will work. A rider also has to know the hill, know the lines and know how to react to other riders who will be all over the place!
I was "bones man" this year - a position of responsibility to ride down after everyone looking for bits of Santa Cruz, torn limbs etc. After about 100m I caught up with a slower rider, overtook him. The crows will no doubt feast on his bones. I'm not doing a good job already.
Caught a few others and then found my first fatality. A guy I hardly knew was covered in white latex on a blowout. I waited around and made sure he was OK. He put about 20psi into the tyre with a pump the size of a biro and I decided I'd ride down with him to make sure he was OK. It was only about 30 secs later I realised - this guy was good. Within, oh, about 40 seconds, he was out of sight taking amazing non-existent lines over rocks with a low rear tyre!
So, on I rode and caught another guy who had managed to do the DH section fast but had gone to pieces though the woods. Left him for the crows and did it in 29 mins.
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The McBoabers
An unusual bunch of mountain bikers, let out for good behaviour to ride round these parts. It's usually f**ing freezing at the top of Dumyat - as the picture shows!! The bikes are an eclectic mix of all mountain and partial-mountain ranging from loadsa travel to not much travel.
It's strangely competitive. I heard a few discussing their lines on the way up. I was thinking more like - yeah - is there any line that I can take here that won't end up in a helicopter trip to hospital - a line that won't end up with my bike being folded 7 ways round my body.
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Next Weeks Ride
Next week, the race is being run again as a handicap. The slowest riders will go first and the faster riders will go according to their time.
So I thought I'd put in a practice run on my Orange 5 and see what I could get.
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Training
So I thought I'd give it a wee bash by myself on Sunday evening. I caught up with Elaine on the way up there, a fellow mega rider (21min 04secs) who had just done a sneaky practice before tea. I got the all clear that there weren't many tourists walking and it was dry! YEAH!
The start was terrible. I think I surprised myself when I clicked go on the Garmin Forerunner and I managed to tramline into a rut between 0 and few seconds in. At 2min 15secs I remembered that the seat was in XC mode height and had to stop to sort it. At 10min 40secs I got to the gate by the road, had to stop to open it etc and then managed to do it in 25min 16seconds!
I reckon that I could take at least a minute off that time by simply not having to stop for the seat and to take my jacket off. I also took a *bleep*-eyed route when I overshot a section through a marshy bit and ended up splashing through mud up to the disk rotors instead of a nice fast running bit.
MegaSchmitt
The winner - MegaSchmitt at the Bridge of Allan Brewery getting the "Golden Handlebars" 2009. He was 4th down to the gate but made excellent progress through Pendriech and Mine Woods!
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