Fun weekend

Had a great time at this first time event last weekend.

Entered the 2 person team category for this event, as neither my mate or I felt up to the full 4 stages over two days. We ended up being the oldest team by a fair way I think.

We got to Crackenback on the Friday arvo in time for a brief recce of the prologue track and a bit of the uphill start and downhill finish. Rented a lakeside unit about 100m from the event centre, which was ideal. The whole setting is incredibly picturesque, with morning mist drifting across Lake Crackenback each morning and the mountain range looming in the background.

Did the prologue on Saturday morning, which was an individual time trial around a 5 km mainly single track around the resort. Only managed 7th place out of the 8 2-person male teams, but apart from the top 3, there was only a few seconds between the rest of the teams.

I drew the short straw and did the uphill run to Thredbo later that day. Took me 1:30:02 (6th), with again a lot of the teams quite close. My team mate did the down hill run later that day and I cruised down afterwards enjoying the shared waking / mtb track without the race pressure or pedestrians.

The next day the final stage was a 75 km marathon, using a 15km lap taking in the resort and the tracks up to Thredbo Diggings (Bullocks Flat) and back. Knocked out 3 laps all around the 50 minute mark, which I was pretty happy with. The elite winners were down around the 32 minute mark.

The tracks at Crackenback are terrific for this sort of event, the new River Trail between Thredbo and Crackenback is especially good downhill, but quite a manageable ride uphill as well. Thredbo are also working on an extended downhill XC track from the top of the chairlift which will feed into the River Trail and provide a 40km + downhill XC experience.

Will definitely be back for this one if the knee holds up.