OMV Bike Festival Cyclocross Race

In the weeks preceding the OMV bike festival a few Over Yonder Racing
riders ventured out to do a bit of a recy on our cyclocross bikes of the OMV trails.
That day was dry & dusty & the sun was baking hot & humidity high.
We all had a blast railing the corners & humps on our cx bikes
& were pumped for the upcoming race.

Come the 13th of December, & the conditions were much different.
In the days leading up, Sydney has received its fair share of rain,
& on Thursday, it was looking like the wet weather may even postpone the event.
thankfully the weather cleared up & we were greeted with a cool
( by Sydney summer standards ) day, with a trail in great condition.
The dust was gone, & there was plenty of grip on the (hero) dirt sections.
It looked like a great day of racing was going to be had.

Arriving early to the event centre i saw Dave Musgrove
at the Cell bikes Marquee. After a quick chat Dave kitted up
& we had a quick recy of the cx course.

I was quite interested to see what course designer
Alan Miller had bunted out for us in the grassy paddock
that's not part of the existing trail network.
What we saw was a soggy paddock that featured lots of mud
& standing water. On that first recy lap, it was obvious
that this section of the course was going to get chewed
up real quick once a few racers had been thru.

More & more riders began to arrive & it was great to see
a large OYR team representing.
10am was soon upon us & we all gathered
at the bottom of the valley for the race start.
36 riders lined up at the start.
I got a good grid position on the front row & was ready to race.

As the whistle blew, we all sprinted up the fire road,
bypassing the brutal run up on the first lap.
The fire road did a good job spreading the field out,
& at the top of the hill i was happy to be sitting in 2nd place
behind Tom Green, with Oliver Whalley & Peter Fisher close behind.

The descent down the fire road was going to be interesting
as it was quite loose, so some caution was needed.
the best line was to hug the grassy inside section
which had some grip & missed the loose rocks.
Having cleared the descent it was time to enter the paddock.
I was really happy to just sit on Tom's wheel & let him control the
pace while the gap back to 3rd & 4th was kept in check.
The race for me continued like this for the next 2 laps,
until Pete & Oliver closed the gap right up in the boggy paddock section.

I put in my first attack for the lead but was unsuccessful with
Tom quickly thwarting my challenge. I said to Tom,
"there catching us, we need to pick up the pace"
A few corners later i made another attack & this time it stuck,
& i pushed on & managed to make a gap thru the lower valley dirt rollers.
Approaching the climb i had a nice buffer.
I was feeling pretty good but new i couldn't push to hard on
the climb as i could so easily blow like i did in the super
cross race weeks earlier. I also needed to save some legs for
the horrible run up section, so i shifted into a nice gear & did
my best to spin up the climb without pushing myself to far into the red zone.

Tom came right back at me up the climb with a big effort & when
we dismounted at the bottom of the run up we were right back together. Damn!
we both scrambled up the hill & I did my best at a fast clip in with mud filled
cleats to ride the short techy section from the top of the run up to the road.
I got another little gap on Tom thru this section & going into the timing zone
on the 4th lap i had the race lead & approximately a 5 second gap.

I pushed on pretty had on this lap, bombing the descent
& did my best to clear the mud sections that were getting
harder & harder each lap as smoothly as possible.
At this point it looked like Tom was under pressure from a fast
finishing Peter Fisher. A few errors were starting to happen & i
got a bit loose on a few sections on the dirt rollers.

Coming into the final Lap timing zone, i could see that Pete
was in 2nd place& was hot on my heals.
Thru this stage of the race lapped traffic was becoming another obstacle,
but all riders were great in making room to pass as quickly as possible.
Coming into the final climb, the gap to Peter had closed up even more,
I was really suffering & was just hanging on.
On the final run up i got that sensation in my calves that i was about to cramp.
my legs were burning & i felt like i was close to popping.

thankfully i got to the top of the run up without cramping.
I remounted but couldn't get clipped in properly.
My heart was in my mouth & I only just cleared the tech section without binning it
while also dealing with some more lapped traffic.
I got over that final wooden bridge, & put my head down
& pushed as hard as i could up to the road.
A quick glance over my shoulder & i had a gap. yeeeew!
I couldn't believe it but I was about to get my first win in a cyclocross race.

congratulations to fellow Over Yonder Racing team mate Peter Fisher
for his storming ride to take 2nd Place.