If you’ve been playing along at home, you probably know that our legacy AMB tester, Ben ‘Moshy’ Morrison has ripped the bandaid off, launching himself into hours of savage cross-country training ahead of the Quad Crown Black Pearl event that took place in Newcastle this March.
We have been following Moshy’s transformation from enduro and downhill wizard to cross country mountain goat across the past few issues of AMB, and it’s time to do a final check in after what was a wet and challenging stage race.
Preparation: Not Optimal
I had planned to do the cross country national round in Canberra as like a sort-of test event, but on the Thursday night beforehand I woke up in the middle of night not feeling well and proceeded to have Gastro till the following Tuesday.
I went out and did a quarter of a lap and just was just too drained. In the end I basically didn’t finish the start lap, and just thought it wasn’t really worth it.
As a result of not racing I think I was probably more hydrated and more rested coming into the Black Pearl than I would’ve been had I actually completed the test event at Stromlo. I didn’t actually touch a bike until Thursday before the race start, and I felt amazing so I was like ‘oh yeah well I think we’re all good here’ but I was still tired afterwards.
On Friday morning I drove to Newcastle, and there weren’t good signs on the way up: It was raining hard from Sydney. When I arrived, I got out of the car into what felt like 1,000,000% humidity compared to Canberra’s hot and dry heat and straight into prologue after a warmup. But the dirt was amazing!
The Prologue
The prologue was moved from Glenrock to Whitebridge because of the rain coming, a quick and clever move from the Quad Crown team. It was really good to ride with Johnny Odams to do a little sighting lap in the warm up, and the dirt was awesome.
How did it go? Well upon finishing I think everybody looked at each other and was like ‘that’s the hardest thing I’ve done!’
Stage 1
We got ready for the next day at Awaba, which I’ve ridden before but not for a very long time, and I wasn’t on a downhill bike this time! I knew that the trail conditions were going to be wet, I knew that it would still be really quite fast and grippy. But I wasn’t prepared for just how wet it was going to be.
We got out there and the rain stopped before the racing started, which is great, as there’s nothing worse than waiting at the start in the pouring rain. It was still about 20 to 23°, not too cold, so no rain jackets were required.
I was super thankful to have Smith glasses with a transition lens today, because the sun was out when we left but then we headed into the dark trees. We got covered in mud, there were huge puddles and copious amounts of water. My feet were waterlogged all day.
While the Quad Crown organisers said they removed a climb in this stage from the last Black Pearl event, there was still quite a big fireroad climb in the course. I entered the single track and probably like fifth position overall and I lost two positions to two elite guys before we hit the fire road climb. It was absolutely torrential rain for the rest of the day while we’re racing, and I was basically by myself, flicking all the mud in my face.
Despite the mud, my Pirelli race tyres worked out fine. If I’m honest there were no issues with grip because it’s so sandy out there. But, reflecting on the weather, a mud guard would’ve been optimal. I just didn’t think about it leading into the race.
In terms of nutrition, I ate a lot of sand! But actually I was thinking about this before and if I didn’t have something as Pure’s high-carb race fuel I think I would’ve really struggled. I had two bottles on my bike for the 30km which is probably a lot, but I just knew I needed to get nutrition into me. Fuelling was definitely made easier by using liquid products.
I think I might have finished six or seven overall on the day and moved into third in Masters. Jason English is also just such an absolute weapon. I think he might’ve been hot on Johnny’s heels!
After Stage 1 there’s a big cleanup, I’m off the bike to clean it all up, take the headset out of the bike, and add a bit of lube and everything on the bearings.
I was lucky to have Patty who’s an ex-enduro World Cup mechanic working on my bike, it was really nice of him.
The bike held up exceptionally well, but something that wasn’t prepared for that I had but wasn’t prepared for was having no brake pads left.
It’s something that I would be prepared for in places like Thredbo: it rains and chews your pads to nothing. I thought there would still be some pad left on the rear of my bike, but they were gone; totally to the clip.
I wasn’t the only one. Every rider I spoke to the next day and said that they had gone through one set of pads. No one even noticed until they finished. So I didn’t cause any damage to the brakes or the rotors, but yeah I needed a fresh set of pads in the rear and a brake bleed before Stage 2. Again, I was super thankful to have such an experienced mechanic to stay with.
Stage 2
Final day of racing, and the sun came out; we finally had cracking conditions. You couldn’t have asked for better conditions. It wasn’t too hot or too cold. We rode into Whitebridge again. The road was closed and we rode out in a group then straight into the single track
Again into the single track with that group, I felt like I was losing time by not knowing where I was going. As soon as a couple of riders caught up, I could see the trail and lines better. These locals just let me sit on their wheel which also meant that I was able to eat and drink a lot more efficiently on this stage, because I saw the other riders take on nutrition and knew it was a good spot.
Seeing two people in front of you means you can read the trail a lot better which meant I could really use my descending skills to my advantage to recover, whereas when I was riding by myself I was just full gas everywhere. I didn’t know if I was going up or down or what was going to be around the corner, so that was really good.
Again I finished in third in my category for that stage and that put me in third for the overall. All like it was super duper hard!
The Vibe of the Quad Crown Events
The vibe of the Quad Crown events is supreme. Even on the Saturday when it was bucketing down with rain, people weren’t in an absolute rush to get out of there. The venue is nice, the venue hosts and team has everything sorted, so despite the weather lots of people were just sort of giving themselves wet wipe showers and hanging out for results.
The results were online straight away, the team knew exactly how to run an event smoothly. The ability for the Quad Crown team to be able to pivot and move the prologue to a new destination when they couldn’t use Glenrock with a simple message to everybody to let competitors know, was really efficient. They did a great job suddenly changing the course, other event promoters surely would have issued a snap cancellation so their flexibility was appreciated.
How hard was it?
It was super hard! But that being said, they’re only as hard as you make them! The descents in Awaba were so good. I was having so much fun, if only I had my trail bike I could take a lot more risks.
Bike racing is always going to be harder than you think it is. You can’t train for cross country without embracing some level of hurt. But if that’s not your vibe, you can just ‘ride’ the events as well.
I think if you’re going to an event like this and turning up to really mix it up and race, there’s no substitute for knowing how hard it’s going to be than doing a test event, if you’re wanting to know what it feels like and how to perform.
On the Sunday when I woke up, I was like ’oh man I don’t feel like doing this again’ and I’d only raced 30km the day before, but if you’re lining up to really race, 30km feels like so much more the next day!
If you don’t want to bury yourself in the hurt locker each day, Quad Crown crew can absolutely facilitate starting a group behind the main field. There was a group of the e-bike guys who didn’t want to go in the e-bike wave, so they started at the rear and just had an awesome time riding trails with their mates and no pressure.
The best part of the Black Pearl, aside from racing, was finishing at the pub. Everyone was there having lunch and sharing stories and chatting. There was a really good community vibe, heaps of kids and heaps of dogs at the finish of Stage 2, because finally the weather was nice.
So what are you waiting for? The next Quad Crown race is the Orca, Eden September 12–14. Check out more details and sign up at www.quadcrownmtb.com.au
