Dirty Warrny - A big day by Anthony Somers

Part two of the Brunswick CC Dirty Warrny recap is by Anthony Somers, who is a veteran of a couple of Melbourne to Warrnambools in recent times, and knows what it takes to have a long day in the saddle.

 

Rolled up for my first attempt at the Dirty Warrny, a 251 km ride (but not a race, yeah right) from the edge of Geelong to the centre of Warrnambool. Over 200 kilometres of the course is on gravel and has well over 3,000 m of climbing, so I knew I was in for a long day. I was riding with longtime friend, Craig Fry, we met in 1988 as Monash first year students, he the worldly art student, me the immature engineer. Craig is a diesel, he can go all day. My characteristics are built on years of Northern Combine road racing and crits, so more used to surging, but not the distance.

Preparation is everything.

Luckily, Craig had insisted we ride the full course a month before and while I cursed him at the time, now had some confidence that I would be able to finish. The only concern was that we had taken longer than the cut-off time would allow us and struggled towards the end. With another few weeks training and less time wasting, we were hoping we would be fine.

I have come late to gravel and with about 6 months experience and a cheap aluminium Trek that I managed to get 32 mm gravel tyres onto, was ready to go, but hoping the Tiagra groupset was up to it. Craig is a traditionalist, riding a Ken Evans chromed special, with cantilever brakes, making a concession to 35 mm gravel tyres and a 1x setup.

The distance is too much to think about, so of course we broke it up into feed stops, with 4 on course much more manageable. We had the distances and cut-off times for each stop on our top-tubes, but basically, start 6:30am, arrive before 7:45pm, sounds easy.

It’s a mass start, so nerves were building as 6:30 came close, then a 10 to 1 count down and we rolled off, escorted on closed tarmac roads for the first 5 neutral k’s. While neutral, with over 200 riders it was quite surgy until we turned into a downhill section and onto the first gravel section, so the pace was on. While I had plenty of road bunch riding experience, gravel is mad, with drink bottles shaking out of cages everywhere (do people test these things before racing?) corrugated sections and little sight of the road, I just had to put it aside and roll on. While it clearly helps, bunch riding on gravel does not give the same advantage as on the road, so you are always pushing. After 20 or so kilometres of riding in a good bunch I looked at my heart rate, ‘too high’ part of me was saying, ‘nice pace’ said the other. After I had somehow held it up after being cutoff in one corner, then was unsighted when the bunch found a beach on half the track and forced me into it, I let go and settled into my own pace, knowing that Craig would work his way up to me. After about 40 kilometres Craig and I were together, where we settled into the day’s pattern; checking in on each other, doing our own thing, one going up the road for a while, then the other feeling good and heading past. 

First section to Deans Marsh is up and down, lovely roads, one decent climb and a nice downhill run into town, 64 kilometres down. We filled up from our feed bags, quick toilet stop and on our way in under 5 minutes, we were 40 minutes inside the time cut and feeling good.

Second section to Forrest includes the day’s biggest sustained climb, Norman Track, around 10 k’s in total and 400 metres of climbing, with short sections in the 10-15% range. It was relentless, but we settled in and got there, lightweight me forging ahead, Craig purring up. Once over the climb and up top, while I didn’t really appreciate it, the road rolled through some amazing scenery, but seemed to always be slightly uphill. I was trying to make sure that I was fueling properly, we all know we have to keep eating and drinking for rides like this, however, turns out I was making a basic error, that would start kicking in soon. 

Finally, with around 15 k’s to Forrest, the road tipped down and was a beautiful run into town. I was being a little conservative downhill, while I didn’t want to scrub off too much speed, I also didn't want to crash. Another reason for this was the 32 mm tyres, the only trouble I had previously had with the setup was large rocks causing punctures in the side walls, the relatively small volume in them and trying to run low pressures was not working great, so I had upped the pressure and was bouncing around a bit as a consequence. At least the Tiagra disc brakes were working great, I can’t fault them.

We rolled into Forrest and my feeding mistake was starting to manifest itself, I was trying to put in more carbs than I usually do in training and my stomach was rebelling. Instead of grabbing two bottles with sports drink, I put water in one to let my stomach clear out before adding more carbs. Forrest was at 110 km, we again made a quick stop and were away with 20 minutes to spare from cutoff, a bit worried that the sag wagon was getting closer.

The stretch to Simpson was 55 km and I was now in a cycle of drinking water until I felt a bit better, then put in some carbs, which would make me feel ordinary again. It seemed manageable and the legs were feeling fine. Craig was ticking along, good as ever. The last major climb was through a pine forest where all trees had been cut down and was not a great place to do 5 k’s of climbing, thankfully the day was cool, or it would have been nasty. From this point on the road continues up and down, but generally a downhill run to Warrnambool for the last 100 k’s. We rolled into Simpson, where I had a variety of snacks, depending on how I felt, even some plain potato chips, which actually went down well. We had a bit of a stretch, but otherwise headed out again pretty quickly, now 15 minutes ahead of the cutoff.

Out of Simpson it was now well under 100 k to go and I started to think that we could make it. Craig was onto the Coke, which I thought was a bit early, but seemed to be working for him, he was looking strong and I was settling in alongside, maybe sometimes behind. By now most of the beautiful forest was behind us and we were riding through farmland, not that it mattered, we weren’t paying much attention, just had to keep moving and stay safe. Up, down, left right, Timboon, that’s about all I recall. We made the final feed and as I walked around, felt better on the bike, so just grabbed some drinks and were on our way, still 15 minutes ahead of cutoff, meaning we were holding our own, but were one tricky mechanical away from being out. 

All day we had kept seeing the same people; you feel good and pass them, then 15 minutes later you are in a bit of a hole and they come back past you. At some point coming out of Timboon a group of four of us seemed to be riding about the same pace and stuck together, Craig and I, Eric and Carlos. Eric had one gear, his biggest, but luckily most of the climbing had been done. The most memorable feature of this stretch is over 20 k’s where the road is dead straight, but luckily slightly downhill. We settled into a rhythm and had a slight cross head wind, which was perfect as we could all get a view of the road ahead and stay in the draft. We were all motoring on OK, but I could feel myself struggling with 20 k to go, so slipped to the back and tried not to think too hard. Craig was now settling in at the front, still ticking along. With 5 k left another 5 or so riders caught us, so we all settled in, then cruelly, with 2 k left we were directed off the road.  The course finishes by heading through grass, twisting and turning, up and down. Would it never end? 

Finally we pulled into the finish, where enough people were left to make some noise and it felt like we had done something. Crossing the line together with Craig there was a feeling of achievement, but mostly I just wanted to stop. Made it with 20 minutes to spare.

Would I have liked bigger tyres? No idea, never tried them, but they must be better right? I was worried about doing the ride on a base level bike with Tiagra, but it did not miss a beat, the shifting is as good as anything else mechanical I have used, tyres were fine and had all the gears I needed for the course. The event was epic, one of those rides where you wonder how it all happened in just one day and with a little time to recover now am happy I did it. Will I do it again? Too soon to answer,