words and photography Travis Deane
AWESOME MAWSON
Feature: 24hr Solo Worlds Preview, Muni, Awesome Mawson, Custom Justice, Ross Schnell, Trek World 2011
one marathon to rule them all
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shouted at the cameraman, “Faaaarkk. Did you see that!?” Behind us multiple Cross Country National Champion, Chris Jongewaard, had just sprinted off from the pack like it was the final 200 metres down the Champs Elysees. The pack exploded after him, half flying forward and the other half flying off the back. In fact it wasn’t the final 200 metres of anything, much less the Tour de France. The finish line was some 360 kilometres in front of us. “Why’d he do that?” the cameraman screamed over the roar of our 4WD. Good question. My boss had thought I was nuts asking for a week off to cover the Kona Mawson Marathon in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges. But opportunities like this don’t come along all the time. In fact in the enduro world of multi-day stage races, 100km slogs and 6, 12 and 24hr races, the Kona Mawson Marathon was something new, something a little
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deranged. A 376km race, non stop. First Duo over the line collect $8,000; a bloody big purse, especially in our small sport. The lure had attracted the big fish. Endurance champs Andrew Bell and Jason English in one corner (insert lots of 24hr solo victories here), in the other corner Chris Jongewaard (insert multiple Aussie cross country championships here) teaming up with Brett Anderson just coming off a solo 24 victory in Adelaide’s 24hr race. I was shooting the event for AMB with a television crew who were making an hour long doco on the event to be shown soon on the ABC. Bouncing around in the back of a 4WD tracking the racers might not have been my boss’ idea of a good time, but it seemed preferable to actually riding the event. I continued on my explanation to the camera crew. “See, Andrew Bell and Jason English are two of
the country’s best endurance racers, having won just about every solo 24 hour race, so the smart money is on that team, yeah?” “OK,” they responded in unison. “But Chris Jongewaard is a multiple Aussie cross country champion, in fact he’s amazing on short course races with his fast sprints early plus he’s got a BMX background and amazing bike handling skills,” I responded. “Yeah, but it’s 376kms, and pretty flat” “Yeah, but Chris only got out of jail six weeks ago, he’s signed with Bianchi....” “Jail?” “Yeah, a couple of years ago he got caught in a pretty messed up situation of a party gone wrong. Chris hit the birthday boy in a car; he left the scene and got nine months.” “Shit.” “So if Chris has been able to hold his form, he’s
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Feature: 24hr Solo Worlds Preview, Muni, Awesome Mawson, Custom Justice, Ross Schnell, Trek World 2011
got something to prove. He’s supposedly been able to do lots of running.” “And what about his partner Brett?” “I feel sorry for Brett,” I replied. We glanced back to watch Chris attack the peloton again, looking back to ensure he hadn’t dropped his partner Brett. After 18kms we finally hit some dirt, a windy 4WD track that took the riders through some of the most spectacular scenery anywhere in the Flinders Ranges. The race for a large part followed the Mawson Trail, a 900km off-road cycling trail from Adelaide to the race start at Blinman. With cool weather and recent rains the surface was hardpacked making for fast racing. Our 4WD struggled to stay in front of the racers. Chris and Brett’s frenetic pace had the pack bleeding off with all others sensibly deciding the race wasn’t won in the first half an hour.
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I was worried about Chris’ pace, remembering vividly the Melbourne Commonwealth Games where he’d gone out like a scared cat smashing the pack until the last lap when the heady pace finally caught up with him, along with the pack. Watching him with Brett behind again I couldn’t help to feel that he’d gone out too fast. We tracked him along and at the 70-ish kilometre point they hit the road. Waiting for him was Olympic cycling gold medallist, Brett Aitken. Aitken was coaching Chris and Brett, and as a part of the tactics they swapped bikes for the road section. Their “road” bikes were still 26” mountain bikes, but with the fastest knobbies imaginable on them and, most importantly, time trial bars. Watching Chris and Brett thunder down the bitumen in slipstreaming tucks on aero bars and swapping off the front definitely gave me pause - is this really mountain biking?
In fact the question had been troubling me all week. See, there were several races happening at the same time. There was a stage race (with racers covering the 367km over four stages); a non-timed event (the Epic, designed for riders who just wanted to experience the Flinders in a non-competitive way); and the non-stop marathon hammerfest that was the real highlight. All three events gave riders/ racers the option of running up the three very large hills along the way, The Three Peaks Challenge, for bonus cash prizes, making a total of six variations. The race course was really built with showcasing the Mawson Trail and the Flinders Rangers in mind, not providing riders with a technical challenge. In fact, by my quick calculations there was less than 1% singletrack in the event; if this race is going to attract serious mountain bikers again next year, there is a chronic need for some more technical
01. Robbie Hucker puts in a move, but Hogarth had his number. 02. Chris and Brett grapple with loose scraggly slope of Mount Little.
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“chris and brett’s frantic pace had the pack bleeding off” 03. Jongewaard looked remarkably fresh for man who’d just riden 370km. Brett just looked dirty after having a lie down in a puddle! 04. Fenner (front) and Tupalski (at rear) worked well with the pairing of Bell and English but eventually lost touch and took third.
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trails. Having said that, Mother Nature was on her best behaviour and the whole area looked absolutely sublime. The Kiwi cameraman kept commenting how it was so beautiful and green that it looked a lot like New Zealand! It doesn’t always look like this. In fact to an Adelaide boy like me who’d been up here lots of times before, it almost looked fake, like an astroturf veneer. It was kinda like God had gone too hard on the Midori and ended up chucking fluoro green everywhere. Yeah, it looked exactly like that….either that or the long days were starting to get to me. While the fast and furious non-stop race was unfolding at rocket pace, the stage race had started several days beforehand on exactly the same trail. Robbie Hucker from Team Torq attacked on the first 93km stage and got a couple minutes break on the pack. Unfortunately for Robbie the insurance 48 AMB|September ’10
underwriters for the event had obviously just read Bourke and Wills; the list of spares and safety equipment that riders had to carry was massive (space blanket, GPS, mobile phone, matches, spare tyre, first aid….it went on and on). The load buldged even the biggest backpacks to the point some riders opted for panniers. Robbie, in what became one of the most talked about moments of the race, was presented with the stage win at the end of the day but then publically stripped of it and penalised for failing to carry a spare tyre. Minutes were added to his time, bumping him into second place. We watched on the second day as he tried to get away on the fast and open public roads and regain the time lost, but the Giant riders of Ben Hogarth (race leader) and his team mate Evan James had his number and shut down all attacks. September ’10|AMB 49
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The 91km second stage finally turned tricky when it attacked the steep Mount Little. The course setter, Ian Fehler, had laid down a beer challenge on anyone who could ride the loose and ragged climb. Dean ‘hard-earned-thirst’ Jones put in a great display of hill climbing, but the slopes smashed the peloton apart and it never regrouped, meaning all the top riders finished individually. Another stage down and Ben retained the lead, and it started to become clear that roadie tactics were crucial. Evans played the role of domestique, burying himself to keep Ben in the lead on numerous occassions . Stage three was a tame affair, some likening the 107km stage as more of a transition stage, although it did have its share of false flats and head winds. The teamwork of two riders, working together, was really proving a winning formula for Giant. Ben flatted four times during the event and was only kept in the lead by Evan swapping out wheels for him or chasing down attacks.
On the final stage some hilly dirt roads descended into a heavy Stephen King kind of fog. The shorter 71km length of the stage suited Ben and with 16km he took advantage of the peleton slowing to negotiate a massive puddle and made a break for it. Head down, he ground his way into Melrose for the victory where the Melrose Fat Tyre Festival was in full swing. The non-stoppers, having leap-frogged the stage racers, had been coming in since around nine p.m. the night before. Back with the non-stop madness; Chris and Brett completed the first stage in roughly the same time as the stage racers! A fifteen minute gap elapsed before Andrew Bell and Jason English shot through along with Mark Fenner and Mark Tupalski of Torq Nutrition. The four looked strong and seemed to be working well together. Looking at this powerful foursome I knew the writing was on the wall. With all the flat and road stages ahead of them I wondered how could Brett
and Chris possibly stay out in front of four riders of this pedigree for 280kms? We moved to Mt Little and waited for the inevitable. To our surprise Chris and Brett came through 21 minutes ahead of Andrew and Jason who’d dropped the two Marks along the way. “Yeah we fell in a bit of hole and lost the boys,” the Torq pair confided, “but then we hydrated and started to come good”. Only four minutes behind Andrew and Jason they were still in the race. Catching up with Chris and Brett’s coach, Brett Aitken, gave me a chance to talk strategy. “Yeah, Chris knew the other boys would ride their own race so he thought by attacking early and going out hard he would cramp them i.e. they might not stop for a meal like they normally do, they might not break. He wanted to push them out of their rhythm that they have from their endurance racing.” “Did he go out too hard?” “Yeah we were a little worried about Brett there
“evans played the role of domestique, burying himself to keep ben in the lead” 01. English and Bell were a formidable paring, but they couldn’t reel in Chris and Brett. 02. The Torq boys, Fenner and Tupalski. 03. Pace lines like this were a familiar sight. 04. The presentation took place outside the fantastic Mt Remarkable Pub. 05.The views were spectacular, but the non-stop riders were probably seeing little of it through the red haze!
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Feature: 24hr Solo Worlds Preview, Muni, Awesome Mawson, Custom Justice, Ross Schnell, Trek World 2011
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“14 hours and nine minutes after it started, chris and brett crossed the line” for a while, but they worked together” “And the bikes?” “Yeah well two gives them a chance to change positions, reduces chances of sore spots so we thought it worth it for that alone, plus the aero bars help.” Again the thought of it being a mountain bike race cropped into my mind. The best bike for this race wasn’t a 26”, it was probably a 29” hardtail, ideally with aero bars on it. Talking to Andrew Bell he commented how he found it harder than a 24hr. “There is nowhere to hide, it’s flat and you can’t rest, there are no hills to roll down, you just grind”. Grinding through the night the support teams continued to leap-frog the riders. At Quron, with 71km to go, the non-stop racers overtook the stage racers and they were greeted with a roar, both from the riders and the locals who turned up to see them through. Speaking of locals, the small towns that formed the rest-stops for the stage racers couldn’t have been more accommodating. There was even food laid on be the local ladies from the CWA; they were loving it, even presenting an award to the two riders with what they judged to be the best butts! As Chris and Brett smoked towards the
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finish, it was impossible to notice that Chris was looking remarkably fresh. For a guy who always has his race face on you could almost detect a smile. Talking to his coach he said the same thing. “At 180kms he had this big grin on - I think he’s just loving being able to ride and race again”. 14 hours and nine minutes after it started, Chris and Brett crossed the line. Chris had even made time to fully change his kit after going over the handlebars into the massive mud puddle he hadn’t seen! In spite of the pain he must have been feeling after having just ridden 370km at an average of over 26km/h, Chris was all smiles – he’d sent a message, loud and clear, that he was back and ready to shake things up. Unsuprisingly, there was no partying for the winners; it was off to bed. Tomorrow they’d get a chance to ride some of Melrose’s legendary singletrack, of which the event had disappointingly used none. Bicycling SA should be proud to show off Melrose, they were pivotal in getting the town’s trails happening. Catching up with Chris’ dad the next day I enquired as to his whereabouts. “Oh he’s back in the room playing Chess; he’s really gotten into it of late”. I agreed. He’d certainly played a great game the day before.
01. Lots of recent rainfall brought green galore to the magnificant landscape. 02. Riders in the fog negotiate the dirty big puddle that sent Brett sprawling. 03. A giant hay bale billboard welcomes riders to Melrose and the Fat Tyre Festival. 04. Stage race winner, Hogarth, out in front.
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