Thursday, November 26, 2009

Rainbow colours on the mid week fatties ride?

Yes that's right, believe it or not, Nicole Cooke, 2008 Olympic and World road champ, on a mountain bike, belting along the Yarra trails with the local motley crue.
Ya don't get that every day... and yes she hooks along on the fat tyres very tidily indeed.
Wow.
And apparently yawl get to see her form at the Kona this weekend too.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Dirt crits

A healthy and formidable turn out last night for the half hour of fat tyre power.
20 or so riders funnelled into the tight single track. Ben was on fire. Great to see a couple of chix.
And an honourable mention to dirt crit virgin Jim who jumped in on the Shogun,
without hesitation, and has vowed to be back for more.

1st Ben R
2nd Russ C
3rd Shaun H

7th for me

Next in 2 weeks

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Gravity 12hour - raced and WON!!!

Yep, that's right, the 'Emergency Merkin' team of Tim and I slogged it out in the heat to eventually win by 8mins in the male pairs category and possibly more impressively, 5th place overall against the more widely resourced teams of 3 and 4 riders (and much younger ones also).
A couple of laps pre-race roll around the 10.8k (by my GPS measurement) circuit revealed the same familiar course but sporting the effects of a bushfire some 8 months before. Burnt out bridges, black ash in the dust, more exposed to the sun through lack of foliage and quite a bit of loose gravel on the usual well packed surface. 'Sketchy', I thought, and it was but the track soon packed down.
I got a bad start in the run with the majority of riders in front of me, so I just sat in until I could overtake. Tim took over and showed that we were here to race! by belting out a quick first lap. We tagged each other for the next 12 hours with barely a "nice work", time gaps and "GO!!!" spoken between us for the period. About half way through the day I followed our category leader, the strong Brad Davies, for a lap and eventually we overtook his team and slowly extended the gap.
Tim rode like a pro, the best I've seen him and my times were pretty consistent all day.
We were
glad to see the sun disappear for a couple of cooler laps at the end of the day.
Both shelled by the end, but elated at pulling the win.
I couldn't have done it without Torq products to fuel me all day, no cramps, no flat spots and no bonking.

Great race on a great course as usual.
Well done to all of the 600 or so competitors.
Well done to The Spin Room boys on winning their category.
Thanks Tim.

Mountain biking, as much as it takes out of me and hurts at times, I just fucking love it!!! (der...)

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Gravity 12 hour - this weekend

After whipping around in the erratic B grade, Kew Blvd, crit last night, there will be no more hard efforts before the Gravity kicks off this Saturday at 9am.
Tim and I are set to take it on as a pair (of idiots), which will no doubt take it's toll by the races end, some time after 9pm that evening.
The weather is expected to be, well... perfect!

Consistant, quick laps that are faster than last years consistant quick laps, is the aim.

A great event on a course I could ride with my eyes closed after having done the last 6 or so years.

Good luck to all, stay upright ay!

Sunday will see a trip over to Bright to ride to Mt Hotham return.
Recovery? I think not.
There's time to recover next week...