We arrived at the venue pretty early and MAN was it cold!!! Only a couple of degrees!! Pretty soon it started raining which made the cold a bit worse. Fortunately the rain would help settle the dusty course that lay ahead.
The Start started a little earlier,being at 08:30. After a good warm up we took our places on the line. The first two or so km's there was a neutral zone, as soon as the lead vehicle peeled off it was peddle to the metal. I put in a good attack and managed to split the field slightly, unfortunately as we hit the first downhill I sliced my back tyre and this forced my pace to slow slightly. After the tyre had sealed I began to charge hard again to close up the leaders.
Eventually I made contact with James Reid in one of the single track sections. Pretty soon it became a three way battle between Trav Walker (DCM Chrome) James Reid (Mr Price Scott) and myself. The pace was super fast, and it did force some mistakes in the single track from all of us. After the first big climb, we crossed the Currys Post road and entered a long flat single track. James got in first and immediately upped the pace, however, he came into one of the sandy corners with a bit too much hot sauce, and got a face full of sand. He got up quickly only to clip his peddle on a stump a little further on, this time hitting the deck really hard.
Eventually we hit the main climb of the race, about 25km in or so, and we were still all together. Unfortunately, after taking one of the turns too tightly, I punctured again, but this time I was left for dead. I bombed the tyre and got going as fast as I could, but with it being on open roads, Trav and James were able to work together and managed to open up a gap.
I pushed on as hard as possible, and by the time we reached the top of the big climb, they had opened near 2minutes on me. Going down the most technical single track of the day, I went absolutely to the limit, I could hear the gap was closing, as I could hear the rattling of their bikes in the corners below me. But as soon as they hit the open roads again, the gap just kept on stretching. By the end of the day I was 4minutes down, and in third overall.
I was pretty stoked with the result, despite having the problems, but I guess that's what comes with the sport of Mountain biking! I was still able to win my age group, and claim the third spot, so all in all, pretty good days racing.
This coming weekend is the Sardine Classic,one of the best races to go to if single track is your forte! See you there!
Ciao
some images from the weekend
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