Blogs

Here's my race report that I wrote for our race team facebook team. **I've been mainly road riding for the last year as driving to trails to go mtbing became tiresome so it's a predominantly roadie team.**

I nearly didn't do this race, bring diagnosed with cellulitis 48 hrs before the start wasn't ideal but against medical and the wife's advice I did it anyway!
A very early alarm call started the day, followed by a 2 hour drive to St Albans. This is the worst part of mountain biking when living in the city - no trails nearby.

After injuring my knee in early 2015 and then having knee surgery in February 2016 it's been a couple of years since I've raced my mtb. I finally got back on the mtb at the end of last year and then decided to get a bike that was more for fun than racing as I was currently on an Epic. I got the Rocky Mountain Element and have set it up with wide rims, 2.3 tyres, dropper post, short stem etc so not really a XC race bike.

Preparation was a bit disrupted by a 3-week trip to the US for my son’s wedding during April. Only one flat ride early in that trip meant there was a bit of catching up to do once back in Oz the week before the race. After a few rides that week, I felt pretty good on the lead in and was hoping for a better result than last year’s 6th in the really old blokes’ category.

The weekend weather forecast had been foreboding, but reports from Wingello indicated it wasn’t looking too bad on Saturday afternoon. After waking to heavy rain early Sunday, a quick check of the BOM radar and the NOBMOB weather page convinced me that heading off into the wet darkness was right thing to do.

The BMCC has released a proposed Master plan for the eastern Blue Mountains escarpment including Knapsack Gulley and Yellomundee Regional Park as well as Yellow Rock. Please take time to invest in their very short survey and propose more cycling infrastructure including the reopening of the old Glenbrook tunnel. https://bluemountainshaveyoursay.com.au/seemaste...

Hi

I went out for a night ride on Monday night to experience the BIG moon and our trip out to Perimeter was perfect and uneventful.

On our way back, a 40ft GUM had fallen across the track.

PLEASE be careful at all times, it was not windy and there has only been nominal rain

After being happy with last years result but feeling I could do better, I immediately ramped up my training. I joined a group of roadies and trained with them during the week and rode the mtb on the weekends.

The training definitely paid off as my results show.

With a hectic work schedule over winter I was looking forward to my 3rd 50km Kowalski Classic and a weekend away in the nation's capital. Having the race postponed was a good thing for me and allowed a full recovery from a rather nasty flu in September.

I'm kinda glad the race got postponed as I couldn't imagine riding the trails last month after that amount of rain they've had in Canberra. Overall the trails were in really great condition, some entry points were a mudfest with really soft energy sapping mudfest.

My time is about the same (1 minute slower) as the time I did my last half Kowalski in 2014, but my overall position improved from 133rd to 83rd and my category position improved slightly from 26th to 23rd. Next year I will aim to be in the top 20 for my category.

Kowalski 2016

The Kowalski Classic is one race in the year that I really don't like to miss. The amount and quality of singletrack really make it unique and also perhaps the toughest race on the calendar. After a long wet winter I had almost no time on the mtb but I had been doing plenty of road km's in preparation for the Tassie 3 peaks. So I was pretty fit and raring to go! No excuses this time!