Blogs

I'd been training pretty well for the 100, and had a bad setback last weekend, with a bad cold that put me in bed for about half the long weekend. I spent the week recovering, and had my first tentative ride on Friday - 30min each way to work and back. So, the 100 was not really an option. I downgraded to the 50km and knew my past training would give me enough to get through it ok.

The start line had some serious talent, with ex olympian Paul Rowney, and a bunch of other well ranked elite, vets and masters contenders.

Christine came second in the Girls single speed class....Well done Sis

V came, I think, third in the girls open class, Well done V

I came in 7hr:17mins (by my stopwatch)
Beating my previous personal best by around 1.5 hours, Its amazing what a 4kg lighter bike can do for ones time.

I also successfully crossed the canoe bridge, I can now retire from stupid 100km races where you pay good money to ride somewhere you could any day of the week for free

Pikey

(Will update time once official results are posted)

Seemed to be well prepared...given a relatively last minute 2nd hand entry for the 54km ride ...three weeks out.
This ride was tough and not to be taken lightly. I pushed through the pain barrier on all but the steepest of hills (very first one!)
Making good time at the 28km feed station around the 1hr 30min...so went into Overdrive for the remaining hills and big decent.
The last 15km were dirt road and the legs were feeling the strain towards the end, while the 100krs were flying by!

The week leading up to the event wasn't ideal. I caught a cold off a friend the weekend before the race. It wasn't too severe so I went ahead with the 100. I wanted to get close to the 6hr mark but didn't quite get there in the end. Still it was better than last year so all good

Anyone see that inconsiderate idiot that cramped on the canoe bridge and held up stacks of people for about 5 minutes? That was me
Sincere apologies to anyone behind me. There really was nothing I could do, movement was not an option, I have never had cramp that bad.

I thought I was on for a cracker of a time up till then too, as it was, with the 5 odd mins. lost on the bridge and from having cramp for the remainder of the ride, loosing loads of places etc. I was only in 2 mins. slower than last year. I suppose I could be pleased with that, if it wasn't for the shame.

Well .... I'm finally off road again !

After 11 months enforced recovery from my last outing ( http://nobmob.com/node/9627) I finally got out to do a couple of very tentative loops at cascades. After the first ten shaky minutes I was ready to sell the Yeti and buy a road bike but common sense prevailed and I kept going.

On the penultimate day of our family holiday to China, I was finally allowed out for a bike ride. It was led by an expat Aussie, Tim, who runs a cycle tours business in Beijing, and the four was made up by my BIL Rob who lives in Beijing, and his neighbour Reece.

Reece is also an addicted MTBer and had dragged a collection of bikes with him from Canberra. Thus he could lend Rob and I a hardtail each. We spent a pleasant afternoon before the ride doing maintenance and set-up.

Good fun out at Lithgow for the first round of the Single Track Mind series.
Teamed up with a mate in the Pairs Category and apart from a rear shock failure on my 2nd lap which slowed me up by about 5 mins it was pretty smooth sailing the whole day. Big thankyou to Lifecycles who fixed up the shock enough to get me through the day.
Track was fun, not congested at all and everyone was behaving themselves with passing/being passed.
Ended up with 14 laps (7 each) for a total of 140km.
12th in our category which wa a good effort considering most of the teams above us were sponsored riders.

Track was perfect today, nice and tacky mostly everywhere. Happy with the 1:37 mins in light of the lack of training recently, I don't think that is far off my old times. It was good to get some hill training done after the race as well.

Well done to Steve and Gazza for a nobmob 1, 2. Sorry I wasn't around to make it a 3 as well, but this is one hellish competitive race

Just had an awesome session with a bunch of blokes from Taree this moring riding the trails around Kiwarrak.

Best fun I've had for a very long time. There's something like 30km of singletrack hidden in there, maintained by some very active trail fairies. Bridges, berms, see-saws, ramps and jumps, All-mountain, downhill, dirtjump, XC loops, it's all there. Apparently for the Easter weekend they had a few hours spare so they walked around with a petrol blower blowing the dust and leaf litter off the trail!