3rd time a charm - Just your average Joe

This was my third consecutive DW and once again it didn't disappoint. It very nearly didn't happen for me after having my car taken off me at the 11th hour by the missus. I couldn't get hold of my ride buddy and neither of us had made plans to travel together so thought he had already left. Put a call out on this site and got some kind offers of a lift. Thank you all. However my ride buddy finally answered his phone and travel was all sorted.

We drove up on the Saturday night and got corralled into the 50km parking area by the RFS, apparently all the camping in St Albans was gone. With 10mins to spare we took off on the bikes and headed over to to rego. No ride shoes or helmet and one set of lights between two bikes. We quickly discovered that the 50km area was bl00dy miles away. So turned back to the safety of the car and drove in to St Albans. Luckily Rego was still open and we found an awesome camp spot too and got some last minute carbs in The Arms.

I picked up a case of Giardia after The Mont so that put a bit of a dent in my training then the rains came to compound this (glad I didn't do the Easter Monday ride). So I ended up going in to this event having not been on the bike for at least 2 weeks. Not ideal but, the Giardia was great for some last minute weight loss - bottomed out at 60kg!!! on Easter Sunday. Did a last minute weigh-in on Saturday and came in at 62kg's when I got home last night I was back to 60.3kg's. Sadly this super light Phil can't convert into super quick Phil. My power/weight ratio is all t'cock.

First 50
Jos and I just made it into the cut-off for group 1 and we rolled out the back of the pack leaving the quicker boys to fight it out along the road for position to attack the hill. By the time we reached it it was nice and clear and I got a good run up the first half saving my legs in the second half as planned. Up along the ridge line it was pretty heavy rolling, very similar to last year, then the puddles came, then the lakes came. I don't think I've ever seen so much standing water up there. It made the downhills very sketch and very slippy. Still nursing from my broken shoulder I proceeded with caution. The run along the top before the descent to Clares was very very very wet. I saw one poor guy go arse-over-tit into one of the bigger lakes. He was ok and was pretty funny to watch. I lost Jos around the 40 and rolled into 10 Mile Hollow in my slowest time just over the 3hr mark to find Jos washing off his bike and relubing - a fantastic idea - so I copied. After all the chatter about the Easter Monday ride I knew this wasn't going to be a sub 6hr day for me.

Second 50
Jos headed out a minute or two before me I found him halfway up on one the corners with his bike upside down swearing and cursing about his burped rear tyre. He caught me up passed me on the last climb before the GNR. The GNR was fun fun fun fun and knew I was going make good time here. Pretty much in the dog the whole way except for the climbs. Got off and ran the reverse drop section as planned. I was following a roadie who looked very nervy on the techy stuff. I could just tell he was going to bottle it at the bigger stuff and I was right. I saw him grab his brakes and stop as I went flying past him rolling off a drop and into one of those lovely rock gardens. I've never seen the GNR so muddy. Shepherds was good fun I still had my brakes and picked a pretty good line through it. There's a couple of gnarly bits where the line wasn't obvious but I made it to the bottom in one piece. I rolled into the last water station to see Jos and Lana. I took the bridge first and Jos the bridge virgin followed me. We both made it safely across winning a coveted armband each. Onto Womerah. Was about 50 meters behind a pack of riders on the road to see them all suddenly swerve off onto the other side. I couldn't see what made them do that but apparently a Red Belly had jumped out onto the road and spooked the pack. I passed Brian cramping on the side of the road. Womerah was horrible as always, the initial climb up was ok but the that long hard slog up the ridge never seems to get any easier. Jos, Brian and me played leap frog for quite a while then I lost Jos around the 80 and I passed Brian walking up a pinchy climb somewhere before the top. The top couldn't have come quick enough I managed to find a second wind and big dogged it all the way to the top of Jacks. Jacks was really sketchy and slippy this year. Took it quite slowly and the steeper sections. The rest of the road, water crossing and road was pretty uneventful. Was happy to make it back into St Albans in one piece. No offs for me this year and the shoulder held up really well. This was my slowest time at the DW100 but given the slippery conditions I'm not disappointed with my time. I did take a few unscheduled stops to help people and lube my chain but probably nothing that amounts to maybe 10mins at most.

My legs feel pretty rooted today, It's been a while since I last rode that distance and it showed. But I got my armband so I'm a happy camper. Speaking of which it was so nice to roll back to camp to pack up a dry tent - unlike The Mont

See you next year

EDIT: Just saw the average time for the category 06:36:31 I was 4 secs off the average. Call me Mr Average (bet no-one else got closer than that!).