| FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS |
Below is a list of commonly asked questions about our marathon. Please read them prior to sending us an email equestion.
You can click on the question to be taken directly to the answere or read all of the items by scrolling down
What distance should I enter?
What if I want more than 750ml of water for each stage?
What equipment should I carry with me?
What food should I carry with me?
How much should I eat during the race?
What should I do if I see somebody crash who is not ok?
What do I do if I break something on my bike and cant ride on?
What happens if I don’t make the cut off times?
Can I change to a different distance during the race?
What do I do with my food or gel wrappers?
What if I’m not sure that I’m on the course and I cant see course markings?
Is this going to be harder than the Otways Marathon?
The long marathon is aimed at experienced riders who are comfortable and confident at riding long rides. If you have never ridden this distance before we advise you try a shorter distance. It will take the best riders 4hrs to complete the longest and the slowest rider approximately 7 hours. Choose a distance that is within your limits. We do have full feed zone support to help you, but you will enjoy the event more if you have chosen correctly within your limits <back>
We will have large water containers where you can fill your own water bottle or camel back. You can also drink cups of water at the feed zones. <back>
In a marathon race you don’t want to get caught out and not finish for the sake of flat tire. All riders should have at least one spare tube and mini pump with them. If you need tire leavers to change your tire then you should carry them as well. For the sake of the weight it may be worth carrying some instant patches also, they are pre glued patches that you can just stick over a hole in your tube to get you home. Could save you a ride in the sweep vehicle. If you are planning to use compressed air instead of a pump you should carry enough to pump up three tubes. You really never know what could happen. For all this stuff you can either put it in your jersey pockets or a medium sized saddle bag should hold all this stuff and free up you jersey pockets for some food and gels. <back>
Well if your not a fussy elite rider then you can probably race this marathon and start with nothing. Our feed zones have a full range of food and drink to get you through the race. All that said if on your long riders you do have a favorite energy/protein or muesli bar then it cant hurt to carry a few of them. Gels are a great pick me up for energy. It is a good idea to carry 4 to 6 of these to get you out of trouble. But I warn you they are no replacement for eating. <back>
A marathon race will push your body to its limits. It could take you over 6 hours to finish so you do need to eat a lot during the race. The best riders in the world will make sure to eat approximately every 30mins during a race. Keeping your body fueled is just as important as drinking water. Anybody that has suffered a food or hunger flat out riding knows that if only they had eaten 15mins earlier they would have been fine. So make sure you pick up some food at each feed zone, or if you are a bit more particular, carry enough of your preferred food source to get through the race. <back>
STOP! This is a friendly event, your not here to win a world championship so please to help out any rider in trouble. Our course marshals are not far apart so get a rider to ride to the closest marshal so they can call first aid. We have first aid out on the course so they can be on the scene fairly quickly. Your company with the injured person during that wait could be vital. <back>
We have vehicles sweeping the course. If you cant fix it stay on the course and either walk to the closest marshal or feed zone and wait to be collected. DO NOT under any circum stance try to take a short cut back to the start/finish. <back>
Because the short and medium course follow the same way as the long course we will direct you to take a shorter race distance if you arrive at a turn around point after a cut off. If you are a rider on the long course and you have passed the medium turn around point and then fall behind the cut off time, race officials may ask you to get in the sweep car. All this said the course cut off times are very achievable. As long as you have chosen a distance within your ability then you should be fine. We will try to encourage everybody to finish. <back>
In short, please don’t if you can help it. But if you really cant go on and want to take a earlier turn around than you have entered for then please let us know both at the turn around point and at the finish line so we can adjust your result. Anybody who does this without notification will be disqualified. <back>
In short, carry them with you. Littering is against the law and any rider that thinks its acceptable to litter just because they are in a race should think about what they are doing. We cannot pick up rubbish over 90kms of race course. Please put the gel or food wrapper back in your pocket. There are bins at check points so you can deposit them there. If you see somebody litter please take their number, we will disqualify them NO QUESTIONS ASKED! <back>
STOP. Back track until you reach the last course marking and check its direction. Markings will be very comprehensive with arrows, bunting and lime markings on the ground. If you back track but cant find any previous markings, stop at an intersection and wait. When somebody is recognized as lost we will search all the roads in the area to find them. <back>
We have gone with a new slogan for our event "Fast and challenging to the elite, achievable by all" The Otways race was allot tougher than our course. They had allot of climbs that tipped well over 25% gradient and that is just plain hard to ride. There would have been only a hand full of riders who managed to ride all the climbs and I was not one of them! Our race had 2100 high meters as compared to the 3000 of the Otways event. We do have one tough climb and its in the long loop meaning you all have to do it. This climb though at its steepest is 23%. Don't get me wrong this is hard and will make allot of people walk but after this its all plain sailing. The other climbs average between 6% and 10% which is easily rideable. Don't get me wrong, 90kms is not a walk in the park and you should prepare properly. However we will be running a everybody finishes race so if you are struggling you will be able to take an earlier turn off and register a finish in a shorter distance. <back>
