Blogs

Last weekend most of Australian MTB watched on in awe and delight - Paul VDP dominating the Eliminator, and the Aussie Downhillers showing they really are the best in the world. It felt like it would be something of a comedown this weekend I thought to be heading out to Canberra for the final round of the Shimano GP Rnd 4.
How wrong I was.

I have done one race now in Wellington and it was a very tight track with a course that went straight up, then straight back down. I have also been for a walk around Mt Wellington and its got some steep bits and a few fairly technical sections which is why they have used that track for world cup races. I know there is one other MTB park in Wellington itself and at least one 15k up the road in Lower Hut.

As others have noted, it was a mild to warm day in Wollombi for this race this year. The temperature had reached 28C by the time I crossed the finish line about 11.30am.
The format had reverted to the original one of either a 60km, a 30 km or a 15 km loop after a flirtation with longer distances last year for the XCM series.
I decided to do the full 60 (58) instead of the 30 (seemed hardly worth getting up at sparrows' and driving up there to do 30 km!), along with 215 others.

Finally got some time to finish the blog for what turned out to be a very *memorable* event in an unexpected way...

In St John's Gospel, Chapter 14, Verse 6, Jesus says, “I am the way.” Well, if only Jesus had come along to Brownie Points Burner, everyone wouldn’t have gotten so darn lost!* It said on the race website, “This race is not to be missed.” But from what I saw, plenty of the signs that were meant to show the route on the course certainly were (missed)!

Well... no-one likes a smart @rse, but... told you it would be a good weekend

For full Race report:

http://sxcracing.com/jet-black-12-hour-sxc-racin...

Well after a lot of time in the planning, the Jetblack 12 hr at Dargle farm represented the first real team hitout for the SXC Racing Team.

After are few last minute injuries and a bit of team juggling, we managed to enter 3 teams for the event – Masters Men, Open Men and Mixed Open Teams.

The weather for the day was spectacular, and after a pre course recee ride the course was also in perfect condition.

Round 2 of the Chocolate Foot series was delayed by a couple of months due to the bad weather but the time had come to ride Coondoo Road single track again.
Team BMORC were coming off a good 2nd place result in round one in a pretty thin field and we knew competition would be much tougher in Nowra. Unfortunately, Paul managed to break his wrist and we needed to find a replacement rider. Cue Mr Pidgeon who performed very well in his first short lap race and allowed us to stay in our category to go for an overall result in the series.

This was my best 3 Rings ever. The track and weather were sublime and I was feeling great on the day despite 3-4 hours sleep in the tent. Hit the creek crossing really hard and had a blow out on my rear tubeless tyre (IKON) which I was racing on for the first time. Had a relatively quick change to a tube but it cost me as these things do.

All a great day and was most enjoyable.

I was grateful to Rory who helped me fix my puncture - very good samaritanish.

Well done to Gazza on a top ride and to other members of the MOB.

This was my first attempt in the 3 Ring Circus and was not sure what to expect. Previous years I had been soft with the prospect of mid winter conditions and having my mindset biased towards the full marathon events. But 2013 was time to have a crack and set a target time of 2:20. There was plenty of fast competition so the plan was to try and hold on to the early pace and not to blow up in the process.