So with my aforementioned commitment to do this race, it begs the question of what’s next.
Well, there are a few things of course that come to mind. Starting with an equipment list…you need a bike, you need a way to get to and from the start line (no mean feat..just ask Eckart) and you need a support crew.
Of course individual circumstances will add some extra hurdles of a more relational point of view…overall fitness level, assent from ones significant other as well as a leave pass from your day job.
I’ll add that this list is not necessarily in any order and not all encompassing but I would suggest that if you haven’t the luxury of moral support from your partner (potential support crew remember) then your plans may very well be torpedoed from the off. For the sake of article brevity I’ll assume your partner is on side albeit with the attitude that you’re slightly bonkers and I’ll assume you have a modicum of fitness that could be whipped into shape…to be sure we’re not talking Richie Porte levels here so don’t panic just yet. So with those items somewhat out of the way it probably boils down to a support crew, an appropriately equipped vehicle and a suitable bike. As a veteran of this event I will luckily have the luxury of everything except a bicycle on which to ride this race.
(Please note if you are struggling with any of the above please contact SDBC and we can assist with advice, support crews with vehicles etc. )
Lets make no mistake here, its fair to say the Desert Challenge is a fat bike event. To think otherwise is the stuff of intransigent tradition or perhaps a misguided homage to those who have ridden before in the events 30+ year history. It probably always was an FB race from the very beginning, but no one had actually given any serious thought to riding the soft sand on a standard mountain bike other than accepting it was extremely hard. That is until Alan K. assembled an unusual beast shod with some imported snow wheels in 2009. Yep, there is logical thinking there.
Of course the rest is history. As it was he was only working with 2.4” wide tyres on 45mm rims but with lower tyre pressures and a vastly increased footprint, twice that of his fellow competitors, they were a significant step up from the accepted norm…and he won the race that year! In fact he was the only one to complete the course. Today the standard is now 4.8” and 80mm rims…with that floating footprint being now almost 4x that of an original mountain bike, the fat bike and the SDBC will be forever as one.
So for me, with most of the “list” locked in and being bike-less I joined the Fatbikes Down Under Facebook group for some fatbike brain sucking sessions as well as individual consultation with my SDBC family. The upshot of which was a conversation with Wayne Chapman of Dirtworks materialising into a package of parts in my garage that when assembled was going to be my trusty desert racer.
I settled on the very last grey “Salted Popcorn” frame in captivity (its a COVID Issue), with Bluto Forks, SRAM NX 1 x 12 gear set/shifter, eThirteen forged crank set, SRAM Guide RS Brakes, Thudbuster seat post, Dice sealed hubs and Dice tubeless rims, finished off with a Ritchie/Truvativ cockpit kit.
That all sounds rather Sheldony doesn’t it…its a spectrum thing, you’ll either embrace it or just accept it. All in all, a moderately priced, relatively high spec piece of equipment I’m assured and I have no reason to doubt that judgement. The bike, now having been assembled feels…well it feels bloody good. Like most things, there is opinion and choice to complicate our lives. The bike weighs in at 15 kgs and some would say it might as well be 15 tonnes. There is argument for and agin suspension forks, Thudbuster seat posts and the like. I’m not sure to be honest but I will hopefully be able to share some of my own experience on bike specification in the ensuing months of training (aka Bum Time), with the ultimate test being the event itself.
But hey it doesn’t really matter whether the bike has one thing or another, what matters is the goal of doing this challenge. Stepping away from this cosseted life (for most of us at least) for a short period of time, enjoying the amazing scenery that is the desert, the camaraderie of a group of like minded people and supporting the worthy charity that is, RFDS.
“When the going gets tough, put one pedal in front of the other and just keep going.” -with apologies to Roy T Bennett
David (Bonkers) Griffin
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