g'day,
Great event on the weekend. Thanks. Nice to be out there and not have to ride through mud. Or replace my break pads after each ride. Which was happening during the planning for the aus champs. Went through about 6 pairs!
I thought you might be interested in some of the things which happened to alex and i on the day.....
The day started for alex randall and i at 6 am. An early start to get to the calga time trial for an 8 am start. Both of us didn't feel that great in the tt. For those of you who don't know about road time trials it's very simple. You get on your bike and ride as hard as you can for distance, 25 km in this case. Fastest time wins. On the plus side you get to buy lots of really fancy gear (aero helmet, skin suit, deep dish or full dish wheels, tt bike, etc) which looks really cool as long as you're in or near a time trial. Otherwise you look like a bit of dork. anyhow, we both were slower than our pb's but we're putting that down to the cold, humid conditions.
The next important stop was a cooked breakfast at peat's ridge cafe. fuel for the mbo race!
About an hour and a half later i was at the start line with alex. once again i started in front of him but was quite pleased to feel good on the mtb. Well, more surprised than pleased. It must have been all that racing at alice springs last week. the first leg was easy. not really a route choice, just kick on through the sandy tracks. After a week in alice springs last week i was comfortable in the sand and concentrated as i cruised through a big patch, missing my turn off to the first check point. Some minutes later, that orienteering 6th sense said i'd gone wrong. all the tire tracks had disappeared too. A sure sign i wasn't on the best route choice....
How to recover. Well i figured i'd just keep riding until i hit something i recognised. This took longer than i expected and when i did it was cessnock racecourse a little to the north of the map. ok. I'd not been there before, but knew roughly where it was. A bit too roughly to find my way back onto the map, so i did the only thing i could and headed south, only to hit some properties. Still no idea where i was. All the time not changing speed, i figured i'd just keep going south and perhaps i'd recognise something. Eventually i did and came in from the west of the check point. paul 15.36, mel 10.30, alex 8.22. oops!
Never mind i thought. Just re-set your brain and use the rest of the race as practice. Except i then missed the joining track to #2 and after that rode down a water run-off into the bush which finally petered out. Another 2 minutes gone.
After that things settled down quite well for a while and i rode strongly. Alex and i took the direct route to #5 and despite riding almost all the way were about 25 seconds slower than damien going around the long way. Smart choice by damien. #7 went smoothly for me, although alex spent a couple of minutes looking for it. It was about now alex decided to get a bit gumby and missed a turn off on the way to #9, losing another 2 minutes. Both of us went around to 11 but then alex boldly - oh so boldly - decided he'd go through the small tracks to #12.
I was happily scooting down the track just before the check point at #12 when i clipped the end of my bar on a tree beside the track and got significantly airborne, breaking the map board mount in the process. So picked myself up and mumbled something to the next rider i'd just passed (stylin here of course). Except it wasn't that rider. I was quite shocked to see alex, who mumbled something about a really dumb route choice and falling off regularly on small, eroded tracks. He lost another 3 minutes there. So then we pretty much cruised back to the finish, me doing my best not to run over stu adams and his troop out for a ride.
The cruellest blow of the day was reaching the killingworth pub to find the kitchen had closed......
Things don't always go like you plan.
pd
