I will be heading over to the International Six Day Enduro in Chile in a few days with Tayla Jones and Mackenzie Tricker. I haven’t seen the girls all year so it will be great to catch up with these good friends.
I have been a part of a winning ISDE team the past five years and have represented Australia seven times with this year being my eighth ISDE. It is the first time for Mackenzie, although I’m confident with her American off-road experience she will be a strong force in continuing to keep Aussie women on top of the world.
Going into the ISDE, it is the end of season so everyone’s bike fitness will be already be there. We also had the A4DE, which was a great way to get our minds ready for the long days in Chile.
Before the event we will touch up on our tyre changing and mechanical skills to ensure we change two tyres, an air filter, lube the chain and release the air out of the forks in our 15-minute work period. If all goes to plan that is!
We are expecting it to be quite dusty in Chile, so I have packed 20 air filters. This means I won’t need to do any cleaning while over there, as work time is very minimal. The ISDE involves a lot of team effort, from our families and volunteers who head overseas with us to the riders ourselves. The goal is to make sure every team member gets through the day hassle free, as sometimes we may need to stop and help out in the hills. It’s not just about going fast in the special tests, we need to care for our bikes and bodies along the way.
We make sure to hydrate well and eat lots of food during the event. I mean lots, as conquering 200km a day and doing your own bike maintenance at the end of that really takes it out of you.
Over the years the experience of our great Aussies on the ISDE scene, such as Geoff Ballard, Glen Kearney, Chris Hollis, Toby Price and many others, has taught us little tricks to fix the bike quicker on the go or use pre-prevention techniques before impounding our bikes. Just one trick is using a zip tie on every spoke prior to starting.
I wear a hydration bag loaded with water and a tool pouch. These tools are enough for all the basics with some radiator saving hose and liquid metal putty. I have had to use both in the past to keep moving along until we see the crew at the service controls where they can provide us with more tools and spare parts.
During the ISDE week we will go from feeling great physically to about day four, when the body is absolutely knackered. We then ask why we put ourselves through this pain to start day five but the body just gets on with it and a second wind kicks in.
A lot of this is due to the team physio who spends hours every night repairing our niggles after the riding has finished. So the physio doesn’t sleep much with 10 Aussie guys and girls to work on daily.
All in all the ISDE is an incredible event and the adrenaline rush of representing our beautiful country time and again is something none of us riders will ever forget.
We fly out to the ISDE on 4 November. Then we spend one week walking the tests to remember them, building our bike from the shipping container and testing it. After that our bikes are impounded and we get ready to wave the Aussie flag proudly at the opening ceremony. With one rest day, racing gets under way on 12 November and from there on we leave nothing on the table!
As appeared in AMCN Vol 68 No 09
