Bushmans Classic - Estcourt

This weekend was the Bushman's classic, held at the WagenDrift Dam. The early start meant we'd be racing in some cooler conditions, and that we'd definitely beat the heat! There were some big names like Trav Walker, Andrew Warr, Carl Calvarley and Andrew Hill.

After a very brisk warm up we hit it to the start line. A brief riders briefing took place and then we set off on the brutal 50km course. For a change the start wasn't to quick but as soon as our tyres touched the dirt it was game on. Carl took to the front and drove hard. I managed to follow his wheel and by the time we hit the first single track we had a decent gap over Travis and Andrew Hill. Unfortunately some ignorant lead motorbikes went into the single track ahead of us and cost us our gap.

Trav and Andrew H caught us and we rode together for most of the race. At around the 20km mark I could see Andrew was hurting a bit so I made my move up a long rocky climb. Trav followed and we opened up a gap. We hit a single track section an my bike began to make a very heavy knocking sound with every pedal stroke. We hit another dirt road and the pace slowed which allowed Carl and Andrew to catch back up. We hit the next climb and the pace heated up. The knocking got louder and louder and I began to worry that it might be causing damage. I decided to bite the bullet and carry on racing. Trav put in ferocious attack and Carl followed... after 5 or so seconds a decided to go and managed to drop Carl after catching him and slowly began to close in on Trav. We got to the bottom of a very long single track and had opened up a good gap on Carl and Andrew. The knocking had now become very bad, I pulled to the side of the track, letting Trav passed, and began to make an attempt at fixing the problem. After knocking the cranks with my hand it went away slightly but, it had allowed Carl and Andrew to really close the gap. I got on and before I knew it, they were on my wheel. Carl put in an attack and Andrew was able to follow, I chased but the knocking got worse still. I stopped and hit the cranks again to try and get the knocking to stop. I jumped back on and chased as hard as I could on the following 5 km district road. With only 5 or so km left I hit a mighty mushroom cloud, and quite frankly blew. I did damage control to the finish and managed to hold onto 4th overall and 2nd Junior.

It was a super tough race, but really good prep for the National XC coming up !

Until Next time
B