Welcome to the first download from the Perth Mini Training-camp! Have I completely lost my ability to manage my time and get updates out in a timely manner whilst on tour? It would appear so… I had expected my fitness to be a little off, but my productivity fitness has also appeared to have taken a rogering, as I’m about 3 days behind now, so much for having a dirty finger in on the pulse.

So then, first trip of 2015 and it was all about ramming in a mini-camp on some decent trails that we knew would provide some good times. March is just around the corner, so its about time that I reacquaint myself with some decent speed, elevation and downhills that are measured in minutes as opposed to seconds.

To get my Dirty eye in and pay some form of homage to the holiday I had been gifted, I thought it would be extra auspicious to head to the GOAT farm for some CNY eve shredding. Some may remember the Goat Farm from the Endurogeddon and its 3 hour clean up… Yuuuup, the day the timing system died:

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“Yeah, kind of having second thoughts about thew white shorts and jacket…”

Also worth noting, I was still all human in that picture, a mere couple of weeks before being cuntified in the Matabungkay ghetto. Fast forward 4 months or so and while there is now metal where there wasn’t back then, the other main change was a distinct lack of moisture:

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Cue references to a weetbix sandwich etc

Yes, the first shot is a bit of a give away that I was waaaaay late to the party pal, rocking up to the gFarm at around 5pm with the slightly arrogant expectation that it “Won’t be as hot then“… Well no, it’s not really as long as you consider an average temp of 31 degrees ok. Yes, admittedly that was my first surprise, it was pretty obvious on my first hike up the hill that it was going to be a bit like making love with yourself inside an oven/oxygen tent, depending on your penchant.

The second surprise, other than the fact that I need a 42T first gear was that I wasn’t alone out there. Its all well and good to make jokes about Skippy the Enduroo in your mission briefing, but ain’t no motherfucker laughing going down when one of the bastards, that happens to be taller than you, (and shall we say, with a much broader upper body) ambushes you and runs in a fashion that looks decidedly like an intercept course as you’re attempting to retrace ENDURO racing glory. I’m hesitant to use this line, BUT, its bigger than it looks in the photo, trust me!!!

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Get outta me berm cunt

With my wildlife excitement over, hopefully, it was time to try and get my freak on… And to get promptly lost. Well, lost is overstating it, probably a better description is frustratingly confused or misdirected. Very quickly I found myself trapped like a fart in a sleeping bag in this stop/start process of thinking I knew where I was going, then missing turns or the real trail as I remembered it.

Time after time I seemed to put in a lot of ground work (I.e. ENDURO pushing up the hill), get bared up at the prospect of radness and then take one wrong turn and BOOM, suddenly I was in the MTB equivalent of the ‘Friends Zone‘, losing precious elevation and with nothing to really show for it… And as with all friend zone’s, not where I had aimed to be.

After the 4th push/ride/sweating grovel back up the Goat hill and yet another dry hump to show for it, my mouth started to resemble a cats ass sucking on a lemon (Here is the cHub that may be considered artisinal to some). Hang on a minute… I was on a mission, out of the cHub, on the Nomad 3 and had some real elevation to play with, isn’t it strictly prohibited to get my brat on?

Ideally I would like to say that it was planned to be a ‘test session’ to ‘tune my suspension’ (we are rocking some sweet upgrades and tweaks just quietly), but I don’t even know which way to turn those fucking dials, so that’s no good to me as a cover story. Or perhaps I could say something as cheesedick as “Even the worst ride is better than no ride“, like people on recumbents have as an ethos while getting rained on or pushed off.

But, authenticity forbids me to make proverbial lemonade with the lemons that were now rammed down my throat. So, with a sulk on that would make even Lindsay Lohan show me respect, I decided to pack up shop before an hour was on the board and do a Ukrainian tactical retreat back to ScarBRO HQ.

Perhaps it was a bad omen to label this little series PMT, a foreshadowing of how it would unfold? I was so loaded up on optimism though that I thought it best to just write it off as a aberration. Some lessons though…

  • There is such a thing as ‘too dry’ – Dok had tried to use science to explain this to me, and while my brain retained only 5% of what he said, it was the key part: “Watch out cunt as its as loose as fuck“… Not wrong
  • Sometimes having things taped off is a good thing – No, not some lame reference to 50 Shades of bad acting here. Variety is the spice of life, except for when you’re riding in a rabbit warren with a million lines. The convenience of having knowledgeable locals taping off the best lines and flow is not to be overlooked
  • Summer making love to you – Turns out the Enduroo was too busy laughing at me to punch my face in, who the fuck goes riding late arvo here? Good if you want to lose a lot of fluid.

So as the sun set on day 1 of PMT, there was a bit of head scratching going on back at camp HQ…

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Scratchy…

I know what was needed! To go back to a happy hunting ground and some longer trails… Get my flow on… Get some loops going… Get the hips moving and start to feel the radness flow through me. OHFUCKINGYESOHFUCKINGYES, book me in for some Kalamunda action!

Stay tuned for Day 2 on the PMT tour!