Photos: Gordon G / http://www.gordong.com

Words: Ryan Gardiner

Cairns, a city deep in the tropical north of Queensland where towering mountains cloaked in a thick, near impenetrable rainforest rise out of a pristine blue see fringed by white, sandy beaches.

For the mountain bikers of Australia, the city is our Mecca. A spiritual site we are duty bound to make a pilgrimage to at least once in our lives. Unlike other religions however, those who fail to go will not be punished for eternity by unseen cosmic forces for their failure, nor will they be denied eternal life in paradise.

They will simply have to live their lives with a gnawing feeling inside themselves that comes from the knowledge that some of the worlds best riding was just a few hours flight away. But they never went.

Cairns is my home town, the place I was born in and where I lived the first 17 years of my life surrounded by some of the worlds best riding and a mountain bike club that was motivated to make the absolute most out of the gifts the gods of elevation and soil had bestowed upon them.

By the time I started riding mountain bikes seriously Cairns had already played host to 2 rounds of the UCI World Cup and was preparing to host the 1996 World Championships, a race that would go down in history as one of the all-time greats and forever establish Cairns as a world class riding destination.

These world class trails would eventually lead to a summer trip to Cairns becoming de-rigeur for Australia’s top riders and every year they would ask why there couldn’t be a race on while so many good riders were around. In 2003 their questions were answered as the Cairns Mountain Bike Club staged the first Attack Of The Tribes a race so successful that it warranted a second coming in 2004.

That’s where I step in, my summer holidays have always included a trip to Cairns to stay with my extended family. Some years the bike comes with me, other years it doesn’t. This year my holiday coincided with the 2004 Attack Of The Tribes, so the bike was packed, the helmet was ‘decorated’ to pimp for Farkin.net and the laptop was safely stowed in the overhead compartment so I could bring you all an account of what has to have been one of the best days racing I’ve ever been lucky enough to take part in.

When you roll in to the Cairns Mountain Bike Clubs’ race site the first thing you realise is that this is no ordinary club site. There’s a permanent registration building and canteen, a turnaround area for the shuttle trucks, bike racks, a permanent finish line for both the downhill and mountain-cross tracks, spectator seating with shade cloth sails to ward off the fearsome Cairns sun and lights for night racing.

A decent sized P.A. system keeps tunes pumping across the finish area and up the mountain during practice and makes sure the rotating cast of commentators is well heard throughout the day and into the night.

To put it simply; the setup is professional in the extreme, this is how it should be done all over the country.

With registration for downhill starting at 7:30 in the morning I had originally hoped there would be some respite from the oppressive heat and humidity I had experienced since arriving in Cairns. No such luck. By the time I’d registered, suited up and rolled over to the pickup area for my first lift to the top I was sweating buckets.

As the club owns the land we were to race on, shuttles to the top are a simple affair. Everyone loads their bike into the back of one of the four or five utes that are on shuttle duty, the bikes are secured and everyone finds a spot somewhere on the ute to ride up.

The system worked nearly flawlessly throughout the day, with the only incident being one shuttle where the crucial ‘secure the bikes’ part was forgotten. This resulted in a multi-bike and multi-rider dismount as the ute tackled a steep grade. No-one was hurt and the bikes emerged unscathed but it’s worth warning you; if you plan to race at the Tribes, come prepared to hang on.

The winding dirt road deposited riders at the top of a tight, mostly single track downhill run that crossed the access road a few times and included an uphill sprinting section (why God? Why?!) as it wound it’s way down towards the tracks major feature; a crazy rock garden that thankfully included A, B and C lines.

The top section of the course was familiar to me and to the best of my memory it consisted largely of a track the Cairns club used to race on back in the late nineties. This just goes to prove that any track can be sustainable when you’re willing to put the effort into maintaining it.

The rock garden was another story altogether. Having only seen it before in photos I promptly hitched up my racing-skirt and had a crack at the C-line (hey, I’m on a hardtail here) before stopping at the bottom to watch a few of the more talented riders take on the A-line. Let me tell you now, pictures don’t do this section justice it’s technical, gnarly and it claimed more than it’s fair share of Expert riders throughout the day.

From the rock garden the track headed back into singletrack before opening up on the access road for a brief, smile-inducing, drift-happy, all-out section that lead into the final pieces of single track and ultimately into the top of the MTX course and the finishing area.

For me it was just a pleasure to be back riding in actual loamy dirt, not the marble-sized-pebbles over hardpack Brisbane riders have to endure. The fact that the course had such a great mix of tight single-track, open sections and gnarly rocks just made things better and before I knew it I’d done a few too many practice runs in the strength–sapping heat and was sitting in the spectators area stuffed beyond belief and promising myself no more riding until race time.

Too soon for my tired carcass race time did indeed roll around and everyone loaded into the shuttle vehicles for the 13-minute ride to the top of the hill. It was during this ride up that I got the first of many pleasant surprises that day when I was told that everyone in every class would get 2 timed race runs…stoked!

My first run came around and I was all over the place, too tense and lacking in energy I hacked my way through the top section of the course and nearly burst a blood vessel sprinting through the uphill section. I had a step-off in the rock garden before catching the rider in front of me (Paul / creepyjoe) which lead to another step-off as we got our wires crossed when I tried to pass him. I got down the hill in 4:13:9 which was good enough for 3rd place in Hardtail class.

One benefit of racing Hardtail was with so many riders still to come down there was plenty of room to stake out a good seat to watch the Experts’ first run. It was here that I got my second big surprise of the day; 15 year old junior rider James Miller had blitzed the track and clocked a 2:57, easily the fastest junior and as I would soon discover, a time most of the Expert riders would be proud of. James Miller is on the gas, watch out for this kid.

There were few surprises in the Expert field as Haro / Lee Dungarees rider and Cairns local tore down the mountain to set a 2:44, the fastest time of the weekend and a track record. Another standout rider was the lone woman, Emma McNaughton who posted a 3:33 to be quicker than a good portion of the Sport mens field and a certain video producing, bike shop owning sibling of hers.

Second runs came and by riding looser and taking it a little easier through the sprinting sections I managed to shave a quite respectable 8 seconds off my first run time to hold onto 3rd place in Hardtail. Rest assured that I totally dominated the kids behind me in the class (one of whom I think was 13 years old), I am like some kind of sandbagging god.

In most classes the second runs made little difference to the overall standing’s, James Miller held onto a commanding lead in the Juniors and in the big show, Expert Men, no-one came within spitting distance of Mick Hannah’s first run. If memory serves me correctly, local rider Cameron Palmer took second place followed by Adam Smithson, the current MTBA downhill series leader.

Ricky Boyer and Sean McCarroll also placed well in the class field, forgive the vagueness of my recollection but I’ve been unable to track down any official results yet.

In Expert Women Emma McNaughton took another 2 seconds off her first run time, though in the absence of any competition this was largely academic. After 2 years away from riding Emma is definitely getting back into the swing of racing and could well be the person to (finally) give Tai-Lee Muxlow some competition in the National Series.

With downhill out of the way I returned home to change tyres for MTX and take a much-needed dip in the pool. By the time I returned to the race site at 5pm for MTX practice the course was deep in the shadows of the surrounding mountains and the temperature was finally starting to drop.

With an unfamiliar course to get used to and a bunch of locals to race against I got straight into the swing of things and started practicing lines, a challenge that proved greater than I had first imagined due largely to the massive number of lines the course threw up.

Though only 20 seconds long for the fastest riders and featuring only 4 corners the MTX track offered at least 3 different lines through each turn. A super-steep start hill with a foot-high drop half way down helped negate the advantage of gate snappers and put riders damn close to side-by-side into the first turn in most heats.

As the commentators constantly reminded us the lines that looked slow in practice might prove to be quicker come racing, so the heat was on to get as many lines dialled as the hours practice allowed.

As the light faded the massive lighting system clicked into action. With lights strung over the track as well as to the side, the lighting proved to be both even and more than adequate for racing, which made conditions excellent for riders and spectators alike.

When the lights kicked into action so did qualifying, followed by some of the tightest and most exciting MTX racing I’ve ever seen. The multitude of options coupled with the fact that every class raced round-robin heats to qualify for a main event meant there were plenty of reasons to take risks and race aggressively.

Nary a heat went by without some sort of pile-up, bingle, coming-together or big, last-ditch passing move going down. Special mention must go to the whole junior class for showing some real never-say-die racing spirit including a number of foot-vs-bike races down the final straight after crashes in the final turn.

In the Expert class it was Joel Leaney who looked to be the rider to beat, setting the fastest qualifying time and riding with a mix of explosive power and effortless style. Mick Hannah was also on the gas but an uncharacteristic crash in qualifying relegated him to the slower qualifying brackets for the first half of the heats.

In the juniors James Miller and Charlie Ponticello looked the goods early on, both riding with far too much skill and style for ones so young while in the Sport / Veteran class Austen Buckley was the early pace setter.

So the heats went down and despite a disastrous first run I managed to net a run of 2nd place finished to make it into the Sport / Veteran final which would be the first final to go down the hill. I had a terrible start but made a move through the stall wall on the second-last corner to set up a wheel-to-wheel battle with Nick Eden down the final straight. Austen Buckley took the win and espite Nick and I both thinking I’d grabbed 2nd over the line, the judges saw it the other way and really, who’s going to protest in Sport class.

The junior final went down next with James Miller jumping to an early lead and holding it despite some class riding from Charlie Ponticello. Did I mention that this Miller kid is on the gas?

As always the Expert men saved the best for last with Mick Hannah lining up against current Oceania 4X champ John Johnson, current MTBA DH series leader Adam Smithson and fastest qualifier Joel Leaney. Hannah got the snap out of the gate and covered his lines well, leaving both Johnson and Smithson to battle it out for 2nd place.

These 2 chargers both had a crack at a line through the final turns’ ‘udders’ that only Hannah had successfully pulled until that point. One after the other they mistimed the massive bunny hop that was needed, pitched over the bars, scrambled back onto their bikes and scrambled over the line. Riding on a bike he’d borrowed only a few minutes before the final, Leaney brought up the rear of the field and rolled into 4th place. A thoroughly entertaining end to a great days racing.

So all in all it was a pretty successful day for me, two 3rd places in the 2 events I’d contested and $30 in prize money to show for my efforts. No amount of money could compare to the great day I had though, the Cairns club ran a totally professional event on 2 class tracks and gave everyone who entered fantastic value for their hard-earned entry fees.

Bottom line; I’ll be back next year and if you enjoy your racing, you should too. From what I’ve seen the Attack Of The Tribes can only go from strength-to-strength and I can only imagine that next years race will be even bigger than this years. So get up to Cairns and represent your tribe, you’ll get to race against some world class riders on some world class tracks and might even enjoy yourself as much as I did.