Saturday 3 May 2014

The 2013 Hellfire Cup In January (Drastically Summarised)

mountain bike James Goodsell

The 2012 Hellfire Cup that happened in 2013. What an awesome, very unlucky, but mostly awesome event. 

The Hellfire Cup was meant to be right at the start of the year, on the Australia Day long weekend. Now, the Hellfire Cup was named (from what I know) because it sounds like a cool name for a race - and it is a pretty darn cool name. However, the week of the Hellfire Cup struck disaster as headlines hit the newspaper 'Hellfires'. That's right, there was a Hellfire on the date of the Hellfire Cup, which potentially could have put the event in danger and would have been a risk to run. Because of this, it was moved forward an odd few months until November. 


mountain bike James Goodsell

The event in November was the complete opposite of a Hellfire. The closest thing I could relate it to is probably the story of Noah's Ark, only without the Ark. While it was cold, damp, had mud which destroyed bikes, rained, had more mud and rained a bit more, it all added to the fun (until we had to clean the bikes, anyway...). The photo above was actually the least muddy and wet day - in fact I don't even think it rained. 


mountain bike James Goodsell

The first day was the worst out of all four (In terms of conditions). There was even what seemed to be a 1km stretch of mud so muddy (yes, mud is muddy) that it was pretty much un-rideable after the Pros had ridden through it.. assuming they actually rode through it anyway. The mud was thought to be so bad that they cancelled the night stage on the first day. 

The race was in a partners format, so me and Tim (my partner for Hellfire) were camping next to each other. Our camping partnership soon ended though when the campsite flooded and had to be evacuated. So many things went on at Hellfire - it was the talk of the town. 


mountain bike James Goodsell

Day 2 saw much of the same slippery conditions, only we took turns to complete a lap of the course laid out for us. I can only speak for myself and not my partner... but it was interesting. I made it the majority of the way through the course and then my front tyre slipped in front of an SBS camera. Why. Why of all the places to do it be in front of the SBS camera? I don't know. But after that, I was all over the place, crashing over-taking people, crashing because I tried silly A-lines which were really not lines at all, and I even tried to ride at 40km/h underneath a huge log covering the track where everyone was dismounting - I made it, but I left at about 10km/h and left some of my back behind. 



My SBS debut was pretty amazing. I still haven't heard the end of it several months onwards - It works on some computers and doesn't on others, so it's a bit touch and go as to if you can watch it. 


mountain bike James Goodsell

The third day saw me whip the entirety of the Torq Team. Yes. Not really... I didn't really whip any of the Torq Teams. Anyway, the 3rd day was a Time Trial stage with mud and lots of mud (Mud is a re-occurring theme). You'll also notice I wore matching yellow gloves and shoes before it was cool - Shaun Lewis stole the idea from me obviously. I don't have terribly much more to say about the 3rd day. lets move on to the 4th and final.


mountain bike James Goodsell

The final day was changed from having a Dirt-Crit and Hill Climb to instead, having a 1 minute, eliminator style race. Everyone was there to watch, and we came, we rode, we conquered. Actually I have no idea what time we got in this last race compared to everyone else because I don't think I ever checked. 

All in all, it was a great event, and I can't wait until the end of this year to do it again (If I get lucky with my exam dates though - it's been organised to be on the same week).

http://www.hellfirecup.com




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