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HMBA Round 3 - A lesson in preparation.
A lesson in preparation.
As I ran out the door at 8am, I grabbed my gear & threw it in the car. I'd never been to Singleton before, but I was guessing it was 90 min away. As I put my bike on the roof, I noticed that the back tyre was flat. I'd ridden it just yesterday for 20 min and it was fine... No time to fix the tubeless system now.
As I arrived at Singleton, I quickly registered, and upacked my gear. As I put on my sunglasses, the frame broke. (Thanks to Andy for the loan of his 2nd pair) I quickly threw a tube into the rear tyre & raced back to the start.
By now the A graders were racing & I had to dive off the track to avoid them. (Yes, that was me...)
I turned around with a minute to spare & then noticed that my phone & keys were still in my pockets. Damn. I through them into my saddle bag, put my gloves back on, and, ...... GO!
So, I made the start by 10 seconds.
No warm up.
No fluid management.
No lubed chain. (It needed it)
Front tyre, 27psi. Rear tyre, 34psi.
On the start line, Andy says to me - "Watch out for prickly pear, don't go offline..." Damn, I just put a tube in! What happened to my reliable tubeless / Stans???????
Great fun at the end, I'll be better prepared next time. 
Singleton was a hoot. I'll be happy to make the trip up there again.
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ha ha thats gold, im glad im not the only one who had a crap day, first day at singleton, first hmba race, started well in d grade, but half way through my first lap, i hear a knocking sound from my front end, dissapointed i withdraw and return home only to find when i had installed my new headset last week, i inserted the old lower bearing, which is slightly smaller then the new one, i tried to fix it onsite but it just didnt want to work for me, what made it worse was my rebound had been wound to max, oh well you learn from your mistakes, +1 on the singleton course it is one of the better xc trails i have ridden, so 2 thumbs up to the trail builders cause i just found my new favourite trail