Mt Herbert with the Hoff (part II)

The part we all seem to love of most rides, occurs often after the toughest part of a ride. The descent that follows a good hard climb is always that much sweeter, and the descent off the side of Mt Herbert was a ripper. Singletrack, fire road and a hell of a lot of rock was a pretty good description of the trail, but damn me it was good fun. With the fox RP23 shocks on open, the rockshox revelations wound out to full travel, it was full gas down the side! Bump jumping the biggest rocks to clear the furthest distance was the game, to avoid getting the hell bashed out of yourself, and I was thankful for the big squishy bag of tyre I chose to ride!

The Hoff put his local knowledge to full use, railing the hell out of the trails. Most of the singletrack that we rode had these berms in it, pretty well the whole day! Usually moto berms are rubbish for pushies, but these were perfect to rail around!

Matt aboard his new Felt RXC Pro was rock solid all day, nipping at Jason's heels every time the trail turned upward, and bummed every time we had to stop at the bottom of a descent as he just wanted it to continue!

Nat was mad for getting into the berms as well, although a few haunting memories of a tabletop gone awry in this area may have given him cause to give the jumps a miss. Helmet shattering incidents sometimes do that...

And as usual, Jacko was taking it to everything he found, including the Bendigo dirt Jumps (the early shots in the vid). There got to a point where the consensus was 'I'm not calling your wife if you f$%k that up!!' And we moved on... ;)


There was a few stops that were made along the way as well, due to untoward mechanical instances. Matt suffered a few problems including a chain issue I'd not seen before, as well as a sliced sidewall, whilst Jason suffered a flat early on, and Matt II suffered one later in the day, so it would appear that Bendigo lives up to its reputation as tough on everything!

Hmm, no air...

Ah ha! A sneaky slash...

I know, lets stick a wrapper in it to stop the tube bulging out!

Gold! And it worked all the way home...!!

Sadly the wrapper in the tyre made not the slightest lick of difference to the chain parting company with itself at a strange spot...?!



Nat was straight into the problem, delivering his complete attention to the imminent problem. Whilst snacking :) Men multitasking; to think they said it couldn't be done!


Whilst the rest of us subscribed to the theory of too many cooks....


And this was the cause of Matt II's deflation. An errant rock had a little bounce around and took the valve clean off. Nasty, and fairly rare in my experience. A tube shoved in, and we were away once more.


Gearing back up we passed a thought that some rides feel short and are actually long, whilst this ride felt quite long, but was actually quite short. Thats a great thing in terms of value on a ride, you can go out for only an hour, but feel like you cover so much varied terrain that you never feel sold short!

The Garmin plot will be up shortly, (I spoke too soon, the link is now here!!) with the area, distances and all the other details that the Garmin 405 has to offer! There is always plenty of information that comes off these plot, and perhaps it inspires you to either check out the area we were in, or perhaps head out on your own little adventure!

And that would be the latest installment of our Epix stories. We hope that you've gotten a bit of a giggle out of it, enjoyed the pictures, and its perhaps made you that little bit more keen to get out amongst it! Without the support of Ascend Sport, Felt Bicycles, Nightlightning for our sensational training aids (lights!!) and the Southcott family of products, we couldn't get out and do these rides. Hopefully in the future, you'll be able to see us getting some coverage in the Freewheel magazines also, so be sure to check that out as well.

Thanks for taking the time to have a read, we appreciate each and every visit you make (and we can see them), so tell your friends, link it where you can, and encourage us to keep making this happen!

I'd also just like to note that our first south American visitor has stopped by! Whilst I do know who it was, and I mentioned he should have a look, its still our first legit visitor from South America!

Mt Herbert with the Hoff.

The latest Epix has been a little while in the making, with a few false starts on other Epix due to riders and schedules but better late than never, they say in the classics!! The Mt Herbert Epix was a combination of a great ride, and the opportunity for ex Felt Racing team mate Matt Hoffmann to show us around his original stomping ground. For those who haven't had the opportunity to race, train or ride with Matt, he has the skills to pay many many bills, and regardless of stepping back from racing, he still has more than enough pace to keep the ride frisky. Riding his new Orbea for the first time, there was no settling in period for him, hitting the singletrack not more than 50m from his door and keeping it wide open for hours after that.

For the rest of us Melbourne dwellers, it was an early alarm to drag our carcasses out of bed and caffeinate them into function. Still in the darkness when we all met up on the highway, we cruised up the highway to Bendigo town through the fog and mist.



Clearing just as we reached the Hoffmann Ranch, we were treated to a bluebird, still, and perfect day.


Joining Matt, Jason and myself, was Nat and Matt II who were all ready for another day of adventure.

(Matt, waiting whilst we all faff around with our gear)

(Maybe everyone was waiting for me...?)

We are currently testing a variety of new products for Ascend as well, including an electrolyte drink and some recovery bars, which have the best flavour and texture of any athletic bar known to man! Think choc-mint Aero bar!! The prima packs are a handy single serve of the energy drink, and with a bit of water in a bottle, they worked well with a mild sweet flavour.



Rolling out the gate, we headed off into the unknown for us.


Less than a kilometre from the ranch, Jason succumbed to the first flat of the day, caused by a rock hard thorn penetrating the tyre. A quick change and we were away once again.

I know you all love my self portraits!!

Food time!!

Here's Nat, who has actually found a use for one of those silly bento box things that were given away at the Mont 24 years ago. Thats also an ex Felt Racing team bike, still loving service out in the real world, and going exceptionally well!

The first loop took us back towards Bendigo through some awesome singletrack, tight and weaving, and much more enjoyable when not at full race pace.

Hell, often it was just the 'gun show'... Makes skinny blokes want to ride a bit faster to make up of a lack of something?

After Jason's first flat, we were happy to play around and not take many photos, and we popped out back in town.

Rolling through the industrial part of Bendigo in full kit was pretty amusing, and we got some funny looks, let along motoring incidents. They don't seem to be all that keen on cyclists out this way, at least not the people we encountered. Perhaps they could sense that we weren't local...?








This little bit of a hindrance is apparently the done thing for riders in this area. The shotgun shells kinda inferred otherwise.

Up you go boys! On the right of shot, just along that treeline, is a motorbike 'widowmaker' where the only way you'd make it up is total commitment - getting halfway and deciding against it is totally not an option. We laughed about trying to ride it in granny ring on the grass, but even that was too tough an ask. Not even Randall could ride it...!

Umm yeah, we're going up there...



There are some steep climbs out this way, and the view from Mt Herbert makes it worth while. Whilst the climbs don't go forever, they're certainly are tough on the legs, and the rocks make it particularly hard for balance and traction. I found myself climbing with some success with the pro-pedal off on my Virtue 1, allowing the bike to still use full travel and keep the wheel in contact with the ground. Descending on these bikes was just awesome - pro-pedal off, and find the biggest rocks to boost the furthest over all the scree. The 2.3 tires were awesome, fast rolling and as Pirahnas are known for, their awesome predictability! I'll post about how the clearance went in a different post.





Under the watchful eye of our state champion (veteran), I bludged off Matt until the last possible moment then rolled him for the top. Yep, thats my story, and I'm sticking to it! I think in reality it played out a little different, but you can't take the racer out of the boys, even without a number plate.
So the view was pretty good for up here in the flatlands eh!

Lunch time, after plenty of awesome bermed singletrack, a few climbs and a whole lot of sweet trails.

Now what was I saying about shotguns??



Now is that 'team' or what ;)


And with that, we're off again. When you come up this high, the only way for you to go, is down!! We'll cover the second half in part 2, and add some more photos as they come to hand!!

Preparation that never ends.

Another friday night and it sees us preparing for an epic. This weekend we travel to .. actually how about you just check back to find out where we've been!

Tonight during bike prep, I have the Virtue 1 a good wash and degreaser, bringing it up a treat. A good bit of compressed air dries it off well, rather than letting the water sit in bolt heads and the like, and possibly rusting. Often one of those Supercheap compressors can do the job well!

Also, a tyre change was in order for me. I've been using some prototype tyre sealant, and you can see in the photo its still working well. The formula that's in at the moment (one of the older batches as I ran out of the new stuff) is working well, although it does weep the liquid carrier a bit. The tyre still stays at full pressure, but there is evidence of weeping through the holes in the carcass. Some of the newer batches I've used have resolved this problem, so stand by for a genuine release of this product, or if you know what I'm talking about - hassle the man to get it out there, he'd love the support!



Whilst we are no longer helped in any way by Hutchinson tyres, they were what I had available to replace my Barracudas. Where we are heading tomorrow is better suited to a more dry weather tyre, which is handy as when I've fitting the 2.3 Pythons, there isn't much clearance at the chain stay. I'm not sure who would run 2.3's on a bike like this, but we shall see how they go?!


Hmm, I don't think this amount of clearance is a good idea at all.... We shall see...


The 2.1 looks like a bigger tyre here..

You can see here the extra bag in the the larger 2.3 tyre, over the large shoulders of the 2.1 barracuda.

Anyway, preparation must go on. Check back here as always to see what happened on the next epix....!

Hell ride for some.

With all the rain we have had during the week, myself and a few of the eastern suburb guys decided to get off the dirt and head down to the Hell ride hoping to get some speed in the legs for the up and coming Epix rides.

With the Hell ride’s regular pace car beside us, the bunch has no choice but abide by the road rules. This system of cyclists and police working together is realistic to cater with the numbers of participants, and works better than one might think!!

Every time a car would approach the rear of the bunch and then proceed to pass the riders, the police car would simply give the car a quick hit of the siren and indicate to move on. This kept the bunch in one lane at all times and stopped the motorist from getting caught up amongst the riders.

But there is always one idiot who thinks it’s cool to toy with police. This idiot, not only swerved in-between riders, but in front of the police car at the traffic lights. This happened on at least two occasions. I am definitely not a frequent *Hell rider*, so I was in no position to let this CHUMP (US, slang) the opposite of a champ; a loser) know what I thought of him!! We arrived at the next set of lights to only find the CHUMP was at it again. This must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back for another rider because he let loose in a BIG way!!!!

After copping a full spray that would have had a wharfie blushing quietly, the CHUMP proceeded to the rear of the bunch with his tail between his legs and I had a smile from ear to ear. Self regulation at its finest really!

The moral of my story is why the F**K do people think it’s cool to spoil a great ride at everyone else’s expense!!!!!!

The police car continued to follow the ride with no hiccups. At one point he parked the cop car in the middle of the intersection and stopped the traffic allowing the ride to get on its way. All riders gave the man in blue a thumbs up and proceeded to smash themselves apart once again.

On a good note the Hell ride is a must for someone looking for a good hit out . 100 or so riders smashing themselves to pieces at 50 - 55km’s hr for an hour and a half. And if you reckon that we can take a photo in that time, you're kidding yourself, although Ash has seemed to have managed in the past...?!

Awesome!!!

By the time we got home we had clocked up 160km’s by 11am, and loved it!

Jason