Hi fellow mud lovers.

Hi fellow mud lovers.

What a race. Everything was running so smoothly until the GP finished. When planning the event we thought that it would be smooth sailing after that... oh how wrong we were
When I went out on a lap to check the track at about 7pm it wasn't good anymore and we went through a couple of options that we had prepared in terms of redirecting the track via the firetrail. However when I came back to transition and it REALLY started to rain I knew that there was no safe option anymore other than to pause the race. Doing this 2 years in a row hurt and having 100% of riders tell me that it was a good call made us feel a little better - thanks for doing this.
When we went up to dig trenches on the fireroad I could barely see anything because the rain was so heavy and the road was essentially a river. This was enough confirmation for me that even a detour mid race would not have been an option anymore.
Digging trenches in the middle of the night in pouring rain seems a bit odd in peacetime and I thought I'd surely have to wake up from this soon...
When we restarted the race again in the morning and the racers came back from the first lap with big smiles telling us that they loved this new track too our moods lifted again and we had a smooth run until the finish from an organisational point of view.
I felt that the vibe at transition was awesome especially during the starts and finishes of GP and 24 hour. A lot of supporters cheered every rider on and honoured the achievement and the will to keep riding no matter what the conditions. The spirit of "we are mountain bikers and that's what we do" was hanging in the air and that drives us on as well.
The amount of prizes we could give away a the ceremonies was huge thanks to all the great supporters of the race.
The amount of positive emails we get and feedback from the forums is amazing and it means a lot to us to hear that you had a great time.
We know that a lot of bikeparts got destroyed during the race and we are talking to bike shops now to get some specials for racers on the way. We will post in on our facebook page.
After the race I went for another lap to take the arrows and bunting down and was surprised to see the damage of the flood in the creek. We built the track 2 years ago and it held until Saturday 7pm. After that the water was so high that it started to flood the track away. Apparently it was the most rain Sydney has seen in years withni 24 hours so if anyone knows a track that can handle this much water we'd like to hear from you.
Results and media release are up on our website and the JetBlack twenty four hours Sydney will be back iin 2011. I will talk to the BOM to find out which are statistically drier months before we set the exact date
Thanks again to all the riders, volunteers, staff, supporters and sponsors and congratulations to all the winners. It was a great weekend together with you.