Ryan Gilchrist Takes On Cannonball With His Pirelli Scorpion Rubber

Cannonball is undoubtedly the biggest MTB festival in Australia so whenever I get the opportunity to visit the alpine village to froth over bikes with like-minded shredders for a week, I make it a top priority to get there. My plan was to race 3 of the 5 events then do a late-night drive to Canberra then catch the ferry over to Tasmania for nationals. You’ll find out later on in this article that things rarely go to plan at Cannonball.

My first day was a full day of practice on the hill. My goal was to get a solid grasp of the tracks without destroying my body because it was going to be a very very long week. My strategy was to record as much GoPro footage as possible and do a lot of my track study off the bike. The conditions were loose and dusty and it would stay that way for the rest of the week. 

Tyre choice was highly important because I needed to match the dusty loose conditions, rough rocks and hardpacked bike park corners with a tyre that had sufficient grip and also rolled fast enough. My initial thought was to bring in the big guns and run the prototype #0 downhill tyres front and back. My thinking behind this was that Thredbo is incredibly rocky and getting flats was absolutely not an option. The Pirelli prototype downhill tyres have a criminally thick sidewall and are very difficult to damage. In the end, I actually decided to run my enduro tyres. Pirelli scorpion Enduro S 2.4 hardwall upfront and Pirelli scorpion Enduro R 2.4 hardwall in the rear. Although these tyres aren’t as heavy and strong as the downhill tyres I decided that rolling resistance would play a huge role in deciding the results of the more pedally events and I had a bit of help against the rocks running Tannus armour front and back. Tyre pressures I opted for throughout the whole week were 23, 25 front and back respectively. This was enough to keep me above the rocks and have plenty of traction in the corners. 

Day 1 of racing would be the all-mountain assault. In previous Cannonballs, this had been my best event. It had the perfect mix of pumping, cornering and brutal pedal fest to satisfy my psychotic race track desires. It used to run from the top of the Gunbarrel chair all the way into the village for a total race run of ~10 mins. That was subject to change this year with the race beginning at the top of the new sidewinder trail, cutting out a lot of the highly pedally traverses at the top for a total race time of ~6 mins. It was going to be an awesome event. My Racing-run didn’t feel like anything special. My focus for the run was pumping everywhere, dodging rocks to find the smooth line and sprinting as hard as an I could in the pedal sections. I stayed in my comfort zone, didn’t blow up any corners, no stalls and no near misses. I came into the finish arena knowing I did a good run but had no idea the time would be that quick. I took the win by 5.482 seconds with a 6.31.664. Completely unexpected, I claimed my first ever novelty check and stood on the podium with Luke Meier Smith and Tim Eaton. Stoked.

The next day was a lay day for me, doing some of my media obligations and bike setup. I filmed a chatterbox on this day. I did GoPro runs of all the tracks and managed to con EWS racer, Josh Carlson, into featuring in the episode riding down the all-mountain track. Mechanic man Lachie got my bike running mint and ready for Friday’s doubleheader. 

I think the Fox Flow Motion Cup is the trickiest race of the week. It’s ~8 mins long and features some super long pedal fest straights, held together by clapped out, braking bump infested bike park corners, notoriously good at stalling you out and ruining your speed on the straights. I want to take a second to mention the resistance advantage in this race. I chose the enduro tyres over the downhill tyres purely because the knobs were smaller and the casing was lighter so it would roll faster. Aero tucking and stem chewing were massive on this stage. With racing as tight as it was I believe that tucking in your jersey could save you up to a second on the flow track. Crazy.  Pretty much exactly the same as the flow I put together a smooth and consistent run with barely any mistakes. By the bottom section of the run, my forearms and fingers were so pumped up and sore from all the braking bumps. I managed a P2, 3 seconds behind Luke Meier-Smith. Another novelty check and another epic race done.

That evening was the Pump Track party. I love pump tracks and racing them is always super gnarly because it's the manic mix of pushing the straights as hard as possible and railing the corners to the limit of traction to carry speed. It was a time trial format and I seeded 4th. Racing came around and the riders in front had been putting in low 20 second runs. I was the first person to go sub 20 with a 19.902. It was scary being at the bottom knowing that I had put in the fastest run of the day but the boys about to drop in were super fast and were going to throw down under the lights.  Duke Millington and Connor Fearon put down heaters, just missing the sub 20. Luke was the last to drop as the fastest seed and put together an insane time of 19.992. I managed the win, only 0.09 seconds in front of Luke. At this point, Luke and I had occupied the top 2 spots in every event which was awesome but I could tell that things were going to change.

I was going to leave that night and head off to nationals but Nigel and Lachy at Fox convinced me to stay for the downhill. Downhill isn’t my primary event so it was more about doing my best, staying alive on the enduro bike, and holding out for the near-impossible king of Cannonball. I wasn’t planning on doing the downhill so I didn’t bring the downhill tyres. I would have loved to run the Prototype #0 beasts but the Enduro tyres did just fine. I rattled my way down the track for a p15 in elite. Hats off to the boys who smashed the downhill track apart that day, truly amazing. 

Finished things up with some squid whips and race scrubs in the Whip wars and that was the end of an awesome week in Thredbo. Massive thanks to the people who made this event happen. It's always a pleasure racing with some of the best riders in Australia and meeting all the faces that love bikes just as much as I.