Carlgroover's blog

LUCKY
I've been called a lucky guy a number of times in my life and feel luckier than most right now. Team Groover fell into place in the months preceding this race to give me my best chance at the World solo's down in Canberra. I was honoured to have so many friends and family step up and offer their help, which in turn enabled me to have my best performance ever in a 24 solo and this was my 8th.

THE TEAM

Well what a great time we had, I got to the track around 6am on race day to find Whisperer had claimed an awesome spot on the track and erected 2 large tarps to set up camp under. The race started at 9:10am and the pace was furious, we had a ok lead after around 6 laps but we weren't holding anything back, the track was a lot of fun and took me back to 2003-2006 when the 24 hour races were held there. I thought the track would be in worse shape than back then but happy to say it has improved noticeably.

Wow, what a race! I found the track exciting the whole time and the change to the night lap and back added more interest.
The fast downhill sections had the adenaline pumping so hard I never felt sleepy or struggled to stay focused for over 25 hours, with the size of the rocks that line track you know they are going to hurt if you make a mistake. Lucky I didn't!

This is the 1st time I've ridden the Pivot at Stromlo and it ate all the technical parts of the track with ease and I find I can ride it fast while staying relaxed so it was perfect, I never touched my spare bike the whole race.

Got to St. Albans just after lunch with Alex and set up camp in perfect weather, plenty of others were turning up also and it wasn't long before we did some carbo loading, I was quite happy with last years race time of 5h 27m (1 flat) so I didn't want to change too much.

Went to bed about 11:20 for a rather restless 3 1/2 hours sleep and up at 5am keen to get started, it was so much nicer without the freezing temps of last year.

I had such a great weekend I'll certainly be back next year. We had the whole MoB camped in one area which made for an enjoyable time.
CORC did an amazing job of the track and running the race, thanks a lot Guys.

Thank you to the support crew (my family and the NoBMoB clan) who worked tirelessly though out the 24 hours to keep us all fed, watered and the bikes running nicely. I'd bring a bike in filthy due to the rain and when I came back in for it, it was shiny clean and the drive all running sweet, awesome effort!

Went down to Nowra to do the inaugural JetBlack MTB101 which was about 100km of all single track, the track was good fun with some techy bits over rocks. The event was well organised and run by elite energy.

Many people pulled out before the finish as it was tempting being a 7 lap race, each time you passed the start finish. A lot of people on Farkin thought it was too hard being all single track but I preferred it to courses with a lot of fire road and paddocks to cross.

Team Groover all enjoyed themselves this weekend and I'm very grateful for all the support I received, my wife was there constantly passing me food and drink and even putting it in my mouth so I didn't cover it in mud. Jason my 10 year old was there cleaning the drive train or passing me food for much of the race and Toasted although a bit soggy were always there to help clean me and the drive train before another lap.

I had a blast on the weekend with so many happy and appreciative riders doing the same, we got to the single track and split into 2 groups the XT's and the XTR's, I was fortunate to have Alex helping me and he led the XTR's out at a good pace both groups met up just before the Junkyard and we all had some fun there, we continued sending the XTR's off on the the longer and hillier routes which worked out very well with a large group. Lunchtime was a treat under the shadey trees at Lawson school and with such a large group it made sense to get a case of beer. To be continued after some sleep

I had prepared for and thought about this race for so long I just couldn't wait to get going, so when I did I went too hard at the start, but it just felt effortless even though my heart rate didn't agree. One thing that was plain to see on my 1st lap (blue) and knowing the red lap from the 8hr was this course was not going to be easy to ride the full 24hrs, I sort of shrugged and thought I'll worry about that later.

What a race, that would have to be my favourite course ever, the relentless climbing was soon forgotten when whooping around the single track that seemed to get better as the race progressed. I found the track exciting and at the same time safe with no sudden surprises, I hit a max speed of 66.3kmph and I'm keen to hear what others did especially your max Steve01 crazy man? I think I went out a little hard early (like most) as I had a 50km time of 3:00:55 and the 2nd 50km took 24 mins longer so maybe a slower 1st half may have resulted in a shorter overall time.