all74's blog

Parenting is tricky business in the modern world and can certainly have its up and downs, victories and failures. Today was a victory, when my 12 yo son approached from behind at the 32k mark and said "Dad, keep up the pace"

At first I was very disappointed with my time as this year I actually did some training and rode lots of hills, even rode broke back mountain, felt good, pushed where ever I could, drafted behind my faster mate, I literally had nothing left at 100 metres to go and had to granny gear over the line. But only 2 min faster than my fatter arse managed last year! Ok so I've calmed down now poured over all the stats and it looks like (for me, at least) the course was 10-15 min slower? General agreement on this?

I was certainly underdone going in and a friend reassured me that single track and mountain air would get me through, and so it was.

It was a tough red ring, LOTS more single track but largely great fun. I was stuck in traffic for most of it, (made me feel faster). My recent upgrade to XT brakes made a fantastic difference. Everyone I was following seemed to continually lock the rear wheel, but the XTs are so subtle I rarely if ever had a lock up. A soft rear tyre slowed the last section a bit and my speedy transition plan, lost a few minutes pumping it up.

I first rode a mountain bike about 12 months ago and mistakenly took it along with a couple of other also middle aged newbie mates to Manly Dam. Sorry to anyone who was behind us that day. Thankfully we started at the golf course sniggle and I was hooked from the moment my knobbly tyres hit the first berm.

So that was 12 months ago and about 15 kilograms in weight loss ago. I've since tried to ride most weekends even now forcing my 7 and 10yo boys to join in.