The Maydena Madness

When the team at Intense Cycles Australia invited me down to race the Sniper T for the Australian National champs XC segment, I didn’t realize it was the start of a typical Sleeter extravaganza. After racing the local enduro at Kooralbyn a week before I left for the Nationals with some new friends that I have met that encouraged me or basically called me out to race the EWS qualifier at the Maydena bike park the weekend before the Australian Nationals. The call out was accepted, so Thursday morning I dropped my van off at Stu Cali’s house hopped in the car with Bridget and we head to Brisbane for the 5:15 flight down to Hobart Tasmania.

I didn’t know much about the trails at the Maydena Bike, but after picking up the Truck “ute” from the Hobart airport and pinning it to the park to ride one shuttle run after a week of rain I was instantly blown away. The shuttle up is about 25 minutes in a van with a trailer towed behind with the bikes. Upon dropping into the connecting trail with water running down and trees all around me, I instantly knew that I was in for one hell of a week! It didn’t take long for me to hit the deck when I was trying to hop a puddle and hit my bar on a tree. After I got down to the bottom of the Maydena bike park muddy, battered and speechless I knew that this EWS enduro qualifier was going to challenge me.

Friday, we did about 5 shuttle runs where I continued to hit the deck, almost go over the bars and fall on my ass a few times. I had not ridden anything like these amazing but challenging trails. I’d say the trail that really let me know that this old dude from Southern California was an F’n squid was Zen Garden. This was a sector of the Queen stage that was stage 1, and it was steep, rooty, slippery, rocky and off cambers. I just sucked and honestly, I was scared in some areas of the stage but with all that being said I was so stoked to be challenged and humbled on what is the pinnacle of enduro racing is. The race was 8 stages of racing with the first stage being 13+ minutes was on Friday and the next 7 were on Saturday where we would shuttle 2 of them and climb the rest. My first stage, “the queen’s stage” was on Friday where I would hold my breath through the “Zen Garden”. I was able to make it through and not take a one-way trip to Indonesia, but I can tell you that getting passed by the guy that starts a minute behind you shouldn’t catch you ha-ha.

The next 7 stages were not that much better for me as I dropped the chain multiple times because of piss poor bike prep after two days in the mud. I ended up 5th in my class and even with poor bike prep and riding multiple stages sight unseen I was so stoked that I was able to race world class trails and get better and better each stage. Throughout the day I met some amazing guys who I was racing against on our liaison’s when I was fumble fucking around with my poor running drive train that wasn’t maintained good enough “sorry sram”.

My next event was the XC e-bike race and after pre-riding the stage all I could do is laugh because these damn Aussies just love to challenge us. The climbing was next level with us running up one of the downhill tracks and once we got to the top, we went down a stage of the EWS endure course that had multiple drops, doubles and technical lines to navigate. There were some folks that were complaining about the technicality of the course, but in my opinion the e-bike course should challenge the riders up and down the track. I have never raced an e-bike race but I have spent plenty of time riding them so I knew that the pace was going to be extremely fast where we would be riding past the power assist. If you haven’t ridden a e-bike I want to let you know that they can climb whatever has traction and, in this instance, we had traction and some steep technical climbs to get up. Racing the XC e-bike race was last minute and so last minute in fact that I was riding a demo and before the race a rider took the Intense Tazer out for quick rip and I wasn’t aware until I went to the line. Once I turned the bike on, I noticed I only had 4 bars and not the complete 5 bars that shows a full charge. I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t make the entire race, but I had never ran a e-bike flat so on the day I wasn’t that concerned. The race was off and instantly I knew the speed was fast and it was going to hurt like a traditional XC race. I was running 3rd until we hit the technical climb where I made a bad line choice and had to turn around and make another attempt on the climb. My second attempt was much better, and I continued where I would make multiple passes on the technical downhill section. After the first lap I was in 4th and making ground on 2nd and 3rd, but the leader Josh Carlson was long gone! I made steady ground on the 2nd’ and 3rd place rider and getting ready to finish the 3rd lap onto the 4th and final lap the bike showed one bar of battery left. I came around yelling to the team that I needed a battery possibly but because they weren’t in a designated aid station area, we couldn’t do anything. I immediately went to the eco mode for the first sustained climb to conserve the battery. I started losing touch with 2nd but was holding steady over 3rd as I went into the last technical steep climb. I was worried about the battery dying as I needed boost mode to make the final technical climb. I made that climb and was on my way to the podium with only two slight grades to come and that’s when the motor switched to eco and suddenly died! I couldn’t believe it. I had a podium in the bag, and it was done. When a e-bike doesn’t have a pedal assist up climbs it makes it almost impossible and for me I had to run the bike and that’s when 3rd and 4th place caught me and left me in the dust. I crossed the line gutted and disappointed, but I quickly reminded myself that I was here to work and represent Intense Cycles first and race second. We know why the battery died and that’s important to have riders trying the bikes so moving forward we will make sure I have a battery on tap if I’m riding a company demo at a race.

My last race of the weekend was the XC race. It was the same course as the e-bike race minus the extremely steep technical climb, but it was one more lap for a total of 5 laps. I want to be transparent I was not in the best form to be racing a national championship in the XC class, so I entered for the experience and just a hard ride. When they blew the whistle to start the race I took off as a survival race, I wanted to finish all 5 laps and do my best. Wrapping up lap one I can tell you that I was just surviving. The course was the hardest XC course that I have ever ridden. So many punchy climbs, with great technical descents. If you were in good shape you would be rewarded but as I stated I was just surviving. Lap 2 was halfway done when a course marshall let me know that the race had been red flagged, and the race was over. I have never had this happen in a XC race but due to the severity of the rider’s injuries it was the best decision to stop the race. After a few minutes following all of us riders coming across the finish line Australia Cycling decided to call the race after 1 lap. I had made a few passes on the second lap, but my result of a 12th place finish was my final position. To be honest 2 laps on that course in the fitness I was in was enough for me. I thought when Australia Cycling told our group that we were done there would be more push back but there wasn’t one person who was upset, and I think it was the difficulty of the course.

As you can tell I did a lot of riding over 10 days and I’m still recovering two days later. My takeaway from this event is Australia Cycling and the Maydena Bike put on a world class event for every discipline in the Australian National Championship. I was really stoked to be able to meet so many great people in the Australian Cycling community. After returning home to the Gold Coast, I have plans to return to the Australian National Championships more prepared in 2022. I do encourage everyone to visit the Maydena Bike Park in Tasmania. The trail network and staff are first class!

I’ll see you at the track, trails, or races,

Mike Sleeter

Bikes

Intense Carbine Intense Tazer Intense Sniper T

Tires - Maxxis Asagai, Disector, Rekon, Rekon Race, High Roller

Gear

Enduro Helmet - Bell full 9 XC Helmet-Bell Z20 XC E-bike Helmet- 100% Altec Short- 100% Celium Jersey- 100% Celium Goggles- 100% Armega

Glasses- Hypercraft Socks-100% Terrain Lycra- Muro XC Shoes – Giro Chamber

Bike Bag – Thule Roundtrip Gear Bag- Thule Roadtrip

Nutrition- Ryno Power

Lubricant- Maxima

Bike Wash- Krush

Camera- GoPro Hero 8

More Information on Maydena Bike Park click HERE