Jason English

2011 Chocolate Foot Awaba 8.25hr

2011-12-20T09:40:00.002+11:00

With the 8.25hr being rescheduled it was now going to slide between school holidays and family Christmas parties making it a possibility for me to attend. An 8hr is always a good way to justify overindulging at the dessert table.

After riding an 8hr at Awaba earlier this year I had the plan to stay on the hardtail for the whole 8hrs again. The first few laps felt fast, my heart rate jumped over 190 on the camelback climb and Andy Hall was crazy enough to try this pace too. The tracked flowed as well as I last remembered but with a bit of rain falling between this race and my previous visit the track was far more harsh on the hartail. I had to slow the pace on the downhills to prevent my bottles from ejecting.

I rode around with Andy for almost 3hours until some pedestrian traffic separated us. I was pretty sure I would see him again as my legs had seen a hard week back on the bike and were feeling pretty smashed. I took my first full week off the bike which is the longest break I have had since breaking vertebrae in 2008!

I spent the next couple of hours thinking about how flogged my hands were getting until I finally gave in around the 5hr mark and pulled out the Merida 96. I don't know why I didn't do this earlier. It took me a lap or two to get use to the duallie but my wrists started to feel relaxed. I was smashing the downhills heaps faster and started to have a whole lot more fun. It ended up that my last lap was my fastest of the day once I had both the track and duallie dialled in. I was just disappointed I missed the cut-off by two minutes preventing me from getting another sweet lap in on a sweet track on a sweet bike.

A big thanks to Paul and Di who managed to race well in a mixed 3 and also feed me during the race. They did a great job.

As this is my last race for the year it is worth acknowledging all my sponsors for 2011.

Adidas eyewear have been very generous with their support this year, especially given the rate that I break and loose glasses!

Anytime Fitness have supported me for over the last year. The 24hr access gym with a 24hr rider!

Continental Tyes have had me covered all year. I have been running a Protection Race King on the back and X King Race Sport on the front in all races that I attended this year. I only went a Protection on the front out at Alice Spings, just in case!

Dirtworks lined up an arrangement with Ritchey this year for me which was great. The hollow carbon rail 130gram seats are really comfy even for 24hrs.

JetBlack Products have looked after me through:

Crank Brothers - I'm running eggbeater 11 pedals which are the lightest pedal on the market. They also work well in mud and clay as they are so open.

NiteRider - I run the 3000 lumen lights on the bar and a minewt 700 on the helmet which has worked very well.

Stans - I have a set of the new stans titanium 1200 gram wheels on my duallie and my hardtail also run podium rims.

Weldtite - I have been running wet lube all year. My bike only needs re-lubing under 8hrs in really dusty or muddy conditions. I have also started using wax on my road bike which keeps the whole bike a whole lot cleaner.

Merida have invested heavily in me. This year I have had two 96 Meridas for 24hr racing, an 0-nine hardtail for shorter races and a team roadie for training and road racing. I have been very lucky. These bikes are impressive, not only the weight but the way that they ride.

I'm going to miss the 96 bike when it goes. I have only ridden it at races over 10hrs. This will change next year when I get on the 99's and start enjoying how much fun duallies can be. The 0-nine will stay in my garage for a while as I compare it to the new carbon big nine (29er).

SRAM have also made it possible for me to race so successfully. They have helped build my bikes up with their amazing XX kits. They have also provided ongoing support at races which has been much needed.

Gordon Street Cycles in Port Macquarie have spent hours keeping my bikes in perfect working condition. My bikes have gone into the shop several times barely working only to come out like new every time.

I'm sure Darryl from Shotz Nutrition didn't know how much I ate until he started sponsoring me. I'm really a big fan of the caffeine gels during the night, electrolyte every second lap and protein recovery bars after hill repeats.

Lazer helmets have been looking after me for the past 4 years and I still love the ability to adjust the helmet tension on the fly.

On The Go have been looking after my casual gear. Next year I'll be matching my year 12 students in their On The Go year 12 hoodies!

2011 Sydney 24hr (again!)

2011-12-12T18:30:00.004+11:00

The Sydney 24hr is an important race to me as my sponsors JetBlack are the major event sponsor. It's great being able to show off their cool products and race at the same time!

The JetBlack 24hr also fell at a time of the year where I knew I would be getting over doing high intensity races and it gave me a good excuse to have some time off the bike to complete the Overland Trail in Tasmania with some kids from school the week after the race.

I had the intention of doing this race on a single speed to give Ed Macdonald a chance to flog me but the only way I was going to single speed it was on a 29er. Unfortunately I won't be seeing any 2012 bikes for a while so, much to Ed's dissapointment, it was XX gears for me!

With Jen deciding to stay home with Archie, I was thinking I was going self-sufficient until my parents decided they could help out. I think packing for a 24hr is getting easier. I now have a lights box, a nutrition box, a gear box and a tool box. Too easy!

The race started out with a seeding lap and Ed attacked off the front. I didn't want to get dropped quite so soon so I tried to stay with him. This was my first lap of Mt Annan. It had at least one "A-line" that was just as quick as the smooth "C-line". It had quite a few rocky gardens that made me wonder why. It had some pinchy switch backs that were not single speed friendly but it also had quite a few fun little sections where you could carry some good speed.

We took a few turns early on to see who was going to do the pace setting. After a couple of laps Ed rode away from me but I eventually caught back up and tried to maintain the pace we started at. The temperature seemed to get hotter as the race progressed so fluid intake was critical. I was surprised at the amount of people out on the course cramping. I guess they don't all use Shotz!

It wasn't until 4-5pm when I eventually got a small gap on Ed. I was feeling really good during this time and managed to stretch this lead out in the first part of the night. However feeding eventually became a bit of a challenge. I was doing around 30min laps which were half the time of the laps at the Scott 24hr where my parents had their first real go at feeding me. They were generously feeding me the same amount of food each lap so by 7pm when the pizza arrived I was only able to put down a couple of slices. From 7pm to 5am all I had were Shotz gels and fluids as I had developed quite a full stomach. I still felt ok during the night energy wise and the caffeine gels did the trick to keep me awake.

During the early morning I had settled into a comfortable pace and Ed was starting to catch back up. I knew he was working harder than me to make up the time and I was getting prepared for a very hard finish to the race. At around 7:30am I got a message from Ed's support that he was on his last lap which really surprised me. We were eight laps up on third place. As Ed didn't go out for any more laps it meant I didn't need to either to keep my position. At the time we were sitting 3rd and 4th overall against the teams and my mum was dissapointed I didn't go out and race for an overall position! It was time to recover and get sorted for a 60+km walk rather than destroy myself!

A big thanks to my mum and dad for stepping in and looking after me! Thanks to JetBlack for all the great stuff they give me - Stans wheels, Weldtite lubes, Nite Rider lights, 661 gloves and Crank Brothers pedals. Thanks to Gordon Street Cycles for keeping my bikes going. Thanks to Shotz Nutrition, Adidas Eyewear and SRAM for their ongoing support. And finally, a big thanks to Martin and Juliane for another great event!

2011 Bottlebutt 100

2011-11-20T17:05:00.002+11:00

After a reschedule the Bottlebutt 100km finally came around. It was dropped from the xcm marathon series as the new date was after the series final, the Highland Fling. I was interested to see what elite boys would turn up considering it was the week after the Highland Fling. On the start line it was Lachlan Morton who I knew would be the biggest challenge. He is an absolute gun on the roadie and with some mountain bike experience I was really interested to see how he would approach the race.

The race started with about 500m of tar which, combined with the next technical fireroad downhill, really sorted out the field. I moved to the front early on and tried to get some sort of head start on Lachie heading up the first significant climb. Halfway up he had caught me and starting riding off. I caught back up on the first decent and over the next 4km there seemed to be a pattern where he would get away on the climbs and I would catch up on the downhills. This only lasted so long until my legs had had enough. We were 15 minutes into the race and I felt like I couldn't pedal. I was putting it down to walking up North Brother Mountain the day before but I think I hadn't recovered that well from the Fling. Once the pinchy climbs started so did the chain suck and it was all big ring and walking up the steep climbs.

The first 27km section of the course was mostly fireroad with about 1km of single track that will be completely groomed for next year. The organisers (iAdventure) had decided to leave out an additional 4km of single track here which I'm sure was a good idea based on the time it took to do the first loop.

The 100km riders got to do 2 laps of the Jolly Nose track which was mostly in good condition. I went into this section 60 seconds behind Lachie and caught him playing in some mud not far along. He had attempted to ride through a puddle which ended up being deep enough to hide his 29er completely. I'm not sure how long it took him to work out that it's often quite shallow around the outside!

I thought that these two loops around Jolly Nose would be the only chance to make some time on Lachie and I made an effort to keep the pace on. The last stage was going to be mostly fireroad so it would have been a good chance for him to put the power down and catch me. I mostly knew where the track went but I was quite surprised we went so far up Jolly Nose. It was loose and rocky and required the granny gear which wasn't going to work for me. Apparently this climb wasn't supposed to be in the race and next year riders will get more Jolly Nose with less climbing.

Between my first and second lap a massive tree fell on the course. It must have taken out an area of track around 15m by 15m. When I got to the tree I though I must have gone the wrong way! I'm just glad there was no one under it!

Rolling into the last drink station before the final lap I had drunk my full 3L camelbak and drink bottle. This feed station was awesome. I held my hand out for a lollie or 2 and got it loaded up to overflowing. I'm glad I punished so many lollies as I had finished 3 gel flasks already and had only 2 caffeine Shotz gels left. Combined with a banana and I just had enough food for the rest of the trip. Before I headed out I drank half a bottle and went out with a full bottle of electrolyte thinking that would be enough for the final 20ish kms to the finish.

About 2km past the feed zone I went to have a sip from my bottle. As I removed it from the cage a big hole opened up in the bottom. I quickly tried to drink as much as I could and then had to store the bottle upside down in the cage. With about 10km to go I had almost no fluid left at all and just kept riding the hills conservatively while looking behind every 30 seconds to see if Lachie had caught me. When I rolled across the line Lachie was there in front of me as he had missed a turn and saved about 10km of riding! He decided not to go back to where he missed the turn and the eventual second place rider was around 60minutes back. Lachie would have been less than 10, not bad for a roadie in such technical, nasty conditions. This race had a significant amount of unrideable components that will be taken out for next year!

Thanks Matt and Amanda from iAdventure for bringing a marathon to Port Macquarie. I'm so keen for next year where the local mountain bike club will be involved in ensuring a trail that is faster, smoother and far more rideable.

I'm glad Shotz were a major sponsor of this event. I really needed those electrolytes on the last loop to keep the cramps away. None at all!

A big thanks to Gordon Street Cycles who had the bike in great condition.

The XX gears were still working even after the muddy conditions. SRAM has always been super reliable in the mud.

I have the best Continental all round combination that seems to work really well in dry, rocky or muddy terrain. X-king on the front and Protection Race King on the back.

2011 Highland Fling

2011-11-13T20:35:00.008+11:00

I got an email a few weeks ago from Wild Horizons letting me know I had a free Jersey for racing in every Highland Fling. The Fling is one of those races that just must be done. It's a good way to guage form as it attracts the best riders. This race has always been one of the biggest marathon events in Australia and after winning the 2010 Elite 100km I was pretty keen to give the 100 mile a go for a change. I have done the 100 mile on 2 occasions but I have always finished second. This year I was keen not only for the win but I also wanted to get under the 7hr mark.

Camping with a baby wasn't an option so the race really started on Sunday morning getting from Mittagong to Bundernoon for rego. The very helpful lady at the rego table emphasised the importance of me stapling my second number on my back but made no reference to the critical transponder in the bag...

After a few desperate phone calls I managed to get my transponder and got to the start line with 2 spare minutes. The race felt like it started out fast but there was no surging or attacks off the front which was far more enjoyable!

The first transition was a little strange with some riders choosing to ride straight through whilst most stopped to make the most of the untimed 5 mins. I was first in and last out to try and gain any time advantage I could. I was expecting the race to be pretty close.

Starting the second stage about 20 seconds behind after using as much as my free time as possible, I was left with the task of catching back up to the lead boys. This wasn't too much of a problem and it was then a battle for the first spot into the single track. At this stage of the race it's worth racing for as there are usually a few strong guys around who just can't ride single track fast. Andy Fellows beat me into the first 2 sections and put the pace on. At the third single track he let me in first and I was trying to ride fairly quick to to stay out of his way.

Approaching the drink station Andy and I had a little lead over the rest of the field. It was the next climb after the drink station that Andy seemed to sit up. I tried to encourage him to stay with me but even with some soft pedalling I seemed to be getting further up the road. I wasn't keen to ride the rest of the race by myself due to the amount of firetrail but I was starting to feel pretty good so I just found a comfy pace and rode.

At the end of this lap I started to do the maths. If I managed to do the second lap in around 2hr 30min and the last lap in under 2hrs I would be close to doing a sub 7hr race. After coming across the line in 7hr 40mins on my last attemp I was prety keen to see what I could do. I know Dennis Van Mill who has won the race 4 times had gone low 7hr so a sub 7hr time would be fantastic.

By having a good aim now I tried to keep the pace on. I was a happy to finish my second lap of the 50km loop faster than my first. With just under 5hrs on the clock had around 30kms left of the race I was feeling pretty optimistic about getting in under 7hrs.

As I started the last loop all I was thinking about was the massive grass climb towards the end of the race. I felt like my pace had dropped off significantly but acording to the results only one Elite rider was faster in this section!

I rode past the 5km to go sign with just over 6hrs on the clock. Doing the maths I could see it would not have been a problem for sub 7hrs. There was quite a bit of traffic around during this last loop with both 50km and 100km riders on the course. It was great to see so many people out having fun. It was reassuring to be on the Shotz electrolyte. I can still recall my earlier days attempting the Fling with both legs cramping as I didn't know better.

Coming accross the line I still felt pretty good and managed to sneak a little wheelie in :)

A big thanks to Jen, Kylie and Archie for feeding me. It's a long day out for the 100mile support crew. I tried to get home as soon as I could!

I'm not sure what GSC did to my bike but it felt quick.

It was also great to hear Tony from JetBlack had a crack at the Fling. It's great when brand owners get out and use the products they sell.

The 26er behaved itself during the race but I'll be on the 29er for next year. Look out for a super blinged up Merida Big 9 very soon.

2011 Cape to Cape - Stage 4

2011-10-30T20:01:00.002+11:00

Later in the day after stage 3 it was announced that 2nd and 3rd place overall were racing for cash. This changed everyone's approach. Overall Andy was 7 or 8 minutes ahead so just had to stay on his bike to win. It was the 2nd to 4th place that was decided on the last stage. I was in second and had 2 seconds on Craig who was sitting in 3rd. Craig is an amazing sprinter and I wouldn't have a chance in a sprint against this guy. Pete was back in 4th but only 40 seconds behind me. I kept waking up during the night as I considered how tough this race could be. All I had to do was keep on the wheel of Craig and try and keep close to Pete by the end of the stage.

As the race started there were several moves off the front. Pete tested the field a couple of times early on with a few surges but it was some of the lower ranked riders that had a good go off the front to try there chances on a stage win.

After about 10km of this 70km stage it was clear it was a 5 on 1 race. Pete and Craig were initially taking turns at attacking off the front to make me chase them which was busting me. 25km into the race and I was still managing to hold onto these guys. That's when different strategies were employed. The one that really got me, involved a rider coming past me and getting in my way so that Pete could attack past both of us. I would then need to brake to avoid the rider and then try and accelerate to get on Pete's wheel. In the end, I couldn't match this type of racing and Pete and Andy got up the road. Craig sprinted across and the 3 of them swapping off turns and working together should have managed to stay away. I'm not sure how it happened, but I managed to catch back up and the fun and games started again! With about 5km to go a group of around 10 riders were together and I snuck 3rd into the single track behind Andy and Pete. All I had to do was stay close to Pete and ahead of Craig. In the end I was around 10 seconds behind Pete and ahead of Craig keeping me in 2nd place. I would have to say this was the nastiest and toughest stage/race that I have ever done!

2011 Cape to Cape - Stage 3

2011-10-30T19:58:00.002+11:00

Stage 3 is the highlight stage of the race. It starts and finishes at 2 local wineries and takes in the best single track in the area. The race started out of Xanadu Winery behind a quad runner for the first 2-3km to escort riders across some of the busier roads in the area before we hit single track.
It seemed strange but in the first 5km of the race we did a loop around and crossed over the track that we had been riding along. If you can imagine 750 riders out on a course that crosses over itself it got a little crazy. Once we crossed over marshals weren’t in place to direct us so the lead group of 5 riders including myself went straight past the turn that we were supposed to take. By the time we worked out we were heading in the wrong direction at least 30 riders made it into the track before us. It seemed like a pretty serious battle to get past everyone before we hit the main single track of the day. I managed to be first in which meant I could control the pace and ride at a level that I found comfortable. At around the 30km out of 50km mark into the race I hit my seat and the nose slid right down. This meant I wasn’t comfortable on the bike and I couldn’t really get into a position to get the power down. Maybe 1km after this Pete Hatton rode off. I wasn’t even thinking about chasing him down as I was more concerned about learning to ride with the seat in such a funny position.
I was behind Craig when Andy rode off the front and once again I was concerned to be putting the power down in an unfamiliar position and was happy to ride to the finish with Craig. I didn’t realise how close behind Pete was sitting and tomorrow will decide who gets 2nd and who gets 4th. There is no money in it but it’s always good to try and hit a top 3.

2011 Cape to Cape - Stage 2

2011-10-30T19:53:00.002+11:00

Stage 2 was a race from Hamelin Bay to Margaret River. It was just over 60km and after being not impressed with the choice of course in stage 1 I was looking for something a little more friendly. The race started with a fair bit of fire road and tar which was broken up with some cool single track sections that we were flying along. For this stage there was a group of around 6 or 7 of us that stayed together. While my average heart rate was 13 beats a minute lower in this stage I was more busted at the end of this stage. There were multiple times where I got caught up in the single track and needed to bridge back across to the lead riders. This did take its toll.
What hurt the most in this race was at the same moment that Pete Hatton attacked off the front around the 15km to go mark, I got a small stick wedged into my front brake pad. I had to take the front wheel completely off to get the thing out. By the time I got the wheel back on I wasn't expecting to catch the boys again. I was pretty destroyed when I did!
With 10km to go it was all fun and games with people attacking off the front one after another. I wasn’t playing any silly games as I was just trying to hold the back of anyone. In the end I rolled across the line in 5th with the main group. I'm not sure what the overall time breakup at this stage would be but I shouldn’t be too far off third overall.
With tonight being the invitational 1.5km Red Bull Shootout, Ill attend but will be looking at trying to save anything I have left for the next 2 days. This intensity stuff is killing me!

2011 Cape to Cape - Stage 1

2011-10-20T23:14:00.000+11:00

2011 Cape to Cape – Stage 1

I was only able to start this race with the help of Bruno Wicki and his family. Having Marlene being our shuttle driver and Damo sorting accommodation made it all possible.

Lining up on the start line I wasn’t aware that this race had attracted so many elite riders from across Australia. The boys I knew would be hitting it hard included Chris Jongewaard, Andy Blair, Shaun Lewis, Matt Flemming and Peter Hatton. There were a lot of other unknown riders that were also pointed out as being hot contenders from Western Australia.

The start of the race had us riding up a fairly significant climb from the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse where there were several attacks off the front. No one got away early on until around 5km into the race where the track just went straight up into a climb that was barely rideable. From here Andy made a gap. Chris and Pete were in second and third and I was a few hundred metres back with WA local Craig Cook who was smashing it!

About 25km into the race and I almost didn’t finish as I tried to double a rock section. My back wheel landed harshly and would have been flat if it wasn’t for tubeless. A slight buckle and dings but the wheel was still rolling well. From here it was only another 5km where we hit the beach section. Looking up the coast I could only see 2 riders Chris and Pete who were both walking. I thought Andy must have taken a wrong turn. I was trying to ride as much as possible and it was here that I was hitting my max heart rate as I was trying to maintain my momentum. I rode ¾ of the beach however, most of that was at 5km/hr as there were so many soft sections of sand.

Coming off the beach was a few hundred metres of sand running before the trail become rideable with many steep undulations. Craig and I had gone past Pete on the beach and had almost caught up to Chris but he must have put the power down over the last 5km into the finish. With 400m to go Craig wound up the pace and I wasn’t going to go past him when he was doing 62km/hr…

I came across the line in 4^th with a time of 1hr 36mins. I don’t train for races this short!

2011 Scott 24hr

2011-10-13T18:05:00.005+11:00

The Scott 24hr is always an important race. This one was even more so as winning it included an air fare to the 2012 24hr world champs in Italy. I knew I wasn't the only one intending on having a crack at the win so I was keen to ensure I gave it a really good go.

In preparation I got my bikes fit up by Mark at TBSM who uses Retul. It was fantastic knowing that each of my bikes were going to be setup exactly the same to the mm! It was always going to be a risk running a new setup but I really enjoyed the Merida 96ers this race.

On the way down to Canberra I also got to drop into JetBlack products and pick up my new 3000 lumen bar lights and 750 lumen helmet lights. These NiteRider lights are crazy, I really only tested them out during the race. They can burn through the 6 cell battery in under 1hr however, I just programed in an intensity that allowed the battery to last 11hours and it was still plenty bright enough. I was also not disappointed to put the new Stans Podium Wheelsets on the bike. There is nothing like a 1200gram wheelset to help get you up the hills.

Carbohydrate loading began the moment we stepped into the McAvoy household and the amount of food they kept shoveling into me was the perfect preparation for such a long race. After just picking the bikes up from Gordon Street Cycles I was enjoying taking it easy the day before rather than the usual run around like silly trying to get new tyres to seal etc.

The forecast wasn't looking good and I wasn't going out for a practice lap when I picked up my rego kit as it was raining consistently. I chose to run conti race king tyres on the back with the x-king on the front for a little extra grip and made sure I had a couple of pairs of clear glasses to swap out during the race.

I was really looking forward to the 2 lap hourglass setup that they run at the Scott24hr. It keeps the riding interesting as the combined loop is so large. I was stoked to be riding the Skyline Luge combination. It allows for a good rest down the hill where you pretty much don't pedal for 3-4km.

On the start line it was Ed McDonald and Andrew Hall that had me most worried. Andy demonstrated some good form at the JetBlack 12hr a month earlier and Ed, now racing with gears for the first time, has given me a run on his single speed on several occasions. I wasn't setting the pace early on and I was happy to watch Ed ride away as he powered off from the start. I tried to ensure I wasn't too far away from him and for the first few laps could see him off in the distance. It wasn't until lap 5 that I managed to catch back up to him and we spent the next couple together before Ed stopped to play with a leaking tyre.

I used this as a chance to try and settle my pace and get into a consistent rhythm. I built a buffer here of just over 10mins which I carried into the early night. Ed was lapping faster during the night and clawed back quite a few minutes during this time. I was being careful and was just thinking about the home advantage during the night and how much easier Ed would have been riding. The night was surprisingly warm, I took arm warmers but mostly didn't have them pulled up.

My caffeine strategy this race was to simply take a Shotz wild bean gel with 80mg of caffeine when I was tired and they worked a treat. I think I ended up having 8 of them during the night! At night time I also got to try out the new NiteRider 3000 which is a joke! I had a setting where I could burn through the battery in under 1 hour but I programmed in a setting to let it run for 11 hours and that was plenty for the pace I was going.

When daybreak came around there was well under 10 minutes back to Ed. I started to increase the pace a little as I was still feeling fairly good and I wanted to keep Ed out of sight. I got to do a few laps with an old friend from uni which was awesome as it's great to have someone to talk to when your busted at the end of the race.

By about 9am the blue lap was really starting to hurt. Not my legs but my arms and upper back. It seemed to have lots of techy rock sections that required little power bursts to punch up over rocks and steps. I was getting some feedback to indicate I was building a significant lead so I backed the pace off even more. My last few laps were getting slower but it seemed the rest of the solo field was starting to struggle with lots of people pulling out early. I was quite happy to see Ed had stopped riding just after 11am which meant I too could finish early and escape from the building storm.

I was impressed to see Jen and Archie out for so much of the race but I need to thank Chungy and my parents for feeding me during the night as Jen took Archie back to our accommodation. The food options were a little different with my mum running the menu instead of Jen. Toasted banana sangers were great, thanks Mum!

Merida have been very generous this year to help me out with 3 mountain bikes that were all used during this race. SRAM were also available to ensure I had bikes in top working condition.

A big thanks goes out to CORC for putting on the race and providing me with flights to attend the World Champs in Italy. I think I'll have a couple of easier months and start training seriously next year.

2011 Dwellingup 100

2011-09-18T10:41:00.004+10:00

After doing the Dwellingup 100 last year I was really keen to come back. The trails at Dwellingup are well planned and have enough technical elements to keep you thinking but also have heaps of flow that make you want to go back and re-ride sections of track. The course is made up of an initial 40km loop that is mostly firetrail with a significant amount of climbing that comes back through the start finish for a feedzone. A further 60km takes riders out to Turner Hill via 7-8 km of tar and from Turner Hill it is a fast 35km back home on a combination of flowy single track, gravelly descents and fast fireroads.

In order to get to Dwellingup I spent Friday heading into primary schools to promote the event and mountain biking in general which is a rewarding experience in itself. The school visits finished at 3.00pm at Dwellingup Primary School which allowed enough time for a quick spin around Turner Hill. I headed out with local junior gun Reece Tucknott and world cup xc superstar Gracie Elvin. It was awesome riding this track again however the torrential downpour put a dampener on the enjoyment!

Race day started out overcast so I went for the lightest tinted Adidas eye wear as rain was only forecast for the afternoon. Lining up I was thinking I would have to fight hard to get onto the podium at all with Andy Blair and Pete Hatton being on the start list with several gun locals.

The race started out very interestingly with people attacking the climbs quite hard but nobody really got away for any significant time. The pace was quite moderate on the flatter firetrails and through the undulations. It seemed nobody wanted to be riding alone for the 7-8km tar section at the 40km mark against a headwind and so we had a group of around 6 riders. Once we hit the tar it felt like the pace dropped off to around 20km/hr and no one was willing to try and attack up the road or pedal hard into the wind. I was getting scared that the cross country boys would be super fresh for the last 40km of the race and I wouldn't be able to match the intensity that they were going to drop on me.

I made the decision that I had to try and be first into Turner Hill and see if I could put down a little buffer and it paid off. I may have got 20-30 seconds here but it was enough of a gap to try and extend. I really put everything on the line for the next 5-10 minutes to see if I could keep the boys away and get a safer gap. I was starting to get a sore neck looking behind me on every firetrail but as I couldn't see anyone I kept the pace on. I got to the "Lieutenant Dan has no legs" section and I could barely pedal my legs were drilling but I knew from last year that there wasn't a whole lot of climbing left so just pushed through.

I was glad to see the Marinup loop and I really enjoyed the fun flowy final 15km of the course. It was good to win this race for Shotz as Darryl, being a major sponsor of the race, was out promoting the product. Obviously the stuff works with a win in both the mens and the womens race. I'm sure this was the easiest first 50km of a marathon I have done and also the hardest last 50km of one. I really needed the 10 normal gels, 2 caffinated gels, 2 choc almond bars and electrolyte tabs, thanks Shotz Nutrition!

Also a big thanks to Sram for putting a new drive train on my Merida 09 and Gordon Street Cycles for getting my bike sorted in such a short time for this event.

Coffs Harbour Pleasure and Pain Marathon

2011-08-29T19:13:00.004+10:00

With a couple of weeks worth of rain leading up to the Pleasure and Pain Marathon I was expecting there to be a little bit of mud on the track. I had considered running more aggressive tyres but I went with the usual Continental X-King on the front and the Race King on the back. Riders who completed a practice lap on the Saturday were impressed with trail conditions and were raving about how fun the track was. I really wasn't keen to drive up to Coffs Harbour for them to cancel the race but apparently the race was going ahead regardless of the forecast rain. Arriving in Coffs Harbour around 2pm the rain had already started. It seemed to get heavier as the night went on and I went to sleep with the sound of quite significant rain.

When the sun came up on Sunday morning there was not a cloud in the sky. On the roll down to start line there were quite a few puddles around and I wondered how much of the track would be changed or removed due to the rain. At briefing it was determined that the race would be the same course as per dry conditions.

I was quite determined to get to the single track first and took off fairly quickly from the gun. I think this was a sensible decision as people behind were often slowed by riders who had to unclip etc. The Coffs tracks are fantastic and I was a little disappointed I couldn't rail the corners hard due to the amount of mud on the track. The Pleasure and Pain is a lap based event with the full distance being 4 laps of the 25km course. Half way through the first lap I had slipped into a survival/play safe mindset and was quickly reminded that this was a race as local gun rider Evan Jeffery managed to catch back up.

The first lap was actually quite fun. The 'cows with guns' section was mostly dry and very fast while the first section had some thick muddy single track. By the time I hit the second lap and after everyone had ridden the course in front it was a slop-fest. Comparing this race to Capital Punishment '10 I would say the conditions this race were far worse! Capital Punishment still had fireroads that were quite ridable and Stromlo was still fantastic. This race was amazing. There were all types of mud. Red mud that grabbed onto your tyre so tightly that no grip could be achieved. There was thick rainforest mud that was so thick it was a mission to push through. There was the mud that sprayed up from the water on the course and there was just swamp mud to ride through in low lying paddocks!

There were actually some really fun sections to be slipping and sliding through but I wasn't disappointed to learn, when starting my third lap, that it would be my last. I spent most of lap 2 and 3 in the big ring to avoid chain suck and the mud was just taxing. It was hard to eat and drink and I'm sure this was my worst race in regards to eating. In the end the result was closer than I would have liked with Evan finishing only a few minutes behind. I'm putting it down to local advantage!

I was so glad to have crank brothers pedals for this race. I put on my cheap candy pedals which retail for under $100 and they were perfect for the mud. I was disappointed with the amount of shoe rub I put onto my frame but other than that I think my bike pulled up pretty well.

I'll need to give the boys at Gordon Street Cycles a big thanks in advance for getting my bike repaired and back into race condition!

Jen also did well taking Archie out to his first race. It was awesome to have the little guy cheering me on :)

Sydney 12hr 2011

2011-08-14T22:35:00.002+10:00

I wasn't planning on doing the Sydney 12hr as it would have meant a race every weekend in August so with the cancellation of the Mawson Marathon the weekend became available and it was a great chance to attend an event that JetBlack Products heavily supports.

To make the event easier for me Tony from JetBlack let me crash at his house which is located a convenient 20mins from the race track. I still have nightmares after the 12hr at Dargle Farm last year where I had to break the ice off the tent zipper to get out in the morning so I was very thankful for a good sleep and warm conditions before the race.

I didn't have Jen supporting me again at this race so I had to fill up 12hrs worth of drink bottles. I had packed almost any bottle I could find in my shed and some possibly haven't seen a wash ever. I think there was only one really rank bottle which tasted nasty for a couple of laps.

When I arrived at the track with an hour to get sorted I didn't want to be under prepared like the Awaba 8hr! I had a loaf of bread filled with spreads placed in zip lock bags and a big box of random bars and gels for a lucky dip. I filled the 500ml bottles with water and the 750ml bottles with 1.5 electrolyte tabs. My night helmet was already fitted with lights and my warm gloves and arm warmers were ready to go. The night bike was left with the JetBlack crew to deck out with NiteRider lights all just in time for the start.

My warmup was a 50m ride to the race start and I think that was the first time I had ridden the Merida 96 since the Easter nationals. After the start it became apparent that the seat was too far forward but at the time I didn't think this would be much of an issue. It just meant my quads were getting hammered right from the start. It took around 1.5hrs before I started to warm up and my legs we starting to get use to the bike setup. Up until this time there were a few teams up the road and I was struggling to hold onto the back of Brett Bellchambers and Andrew Hall in the solo category. These guys were moving!

I'm not sure how it happened but around the 2hr mark the Bernard Beer Boys 4 man team caught up and I thought I would try and ride with them for a couple of laps to increase the slight lead I was developing in the solo category. The couple of laps turned into over 10 laps when I managed to get a lap up on Andrew in second place. Part of me wanted to keep trying to stay with the boys for as long as possible but I always had the aim of backing up for the 8hr on Sunday. I thought riding with Andrew would be a sensible option to allow some recovery time. In the end this wasn't the case, my legs were getting busted from the pinchy climbs and going hard early on was taking its toll. The last 4 hours seemed to drag on for ages but there were some pretty of cool sections of track that kept me wanting to go out for another lap.

During the race I crashed twice, once at the start and once where I ghostied the bike into the back dam. I wish someone got to see this event. I was just following Andrew, hit a root which caused the front wheel to slip out. I over-corrected and the bike went straight off the end of a 2m vertical bank into a dam. I managed to bail out and with one hand holding part of the bike and the other holding a tree I managed to save the bike from a full submersion. It was quite a challenge to get myself back up to the track let alone wrestle the bike back up the bank!

I met heaps of cool people out on track this race. There were quite a few people who were up for a chat and it's amazing how much quicker the time passes when you can both race and talk to like-minded people at the same time.

By being a lap ahead during the race I kept riding around with Andrew until 11:40 of racing where I could pull up short and let the recovery nutrition work its magic. I was really happy to have come down to Sydney for the weekend. It was great to catch up with the regulars and was a good chance to get some kms in before the Scott 24ht in October.

Rocky Trail Entertainment did fantastic job yet again! The bon fire, the track, the food, everything just ran perfectly. I'm just a little sad I couldn't have backed up and had a serious go at the 8hr on the Sunday!

It was great to see the boys from JetBlack products not only promoting their products but getting out and using them on the track. I didn't really get to see the new NiteRider lights but everyone I spoke to who saw them were amazed. Hopefully I'll get to see them before the Scott 24hr!

2011 Flight Centre Epic

2011-08-08T21:14:00.001+10:00

I was a little bit disappointed when the Husky 100 was rescheduled for the same date as the Flight Centre Epic. Being a Flight Centre sponsored rider I decided to choose the Epic and Im really glad I did for so many reasons.

Flying up to Brisbane gave me the opportunity to catch up with family and also travel out to the race with my brother and cousin who were already signed up. It was great to talk race tactics and strategies and try to pass on any advice that could make their day more enjoyable. The family made carbohydrate loading far too easy with my cousin having a highly over catered birthday party. I could barely fit breakfast in Sunday morning and I questioned my Aunty about the over-inflated number I was reading on the bathroom scales pre-race...

A race start time of 8:30am at Hidden Vale was very sensible. It allowed for an easy drive out from Brisbane and plenty of time to rego and drop bottles into the drink station crates to get them taken out around the course. Three drink stations on a 75km route seemed like heaps. I found Bec from Port Macquarie to pass me a bottle at the check points which was awesome. Thanks Bec!

As the race started I got a clear reminder as to why endurance mountain bike riding is far more popular than short Olympic distance. It hurt, my heart rate was going nuts and my legs were burning. I almost got dropped in the first 100m as the pace was ridiculous. I had to chase hard at the start and bridge gaps that were starting to form as people were suffering with the pace. Chris, AJ, Aido and myself seemed to make a small gap from the rest of the field. That is until the climbing started.

The riders who had started in an earlier wave helped to split the group. I was looking for any excuse to back off the pace and once I lost contact with the boys at around the 10km mark I started to race sensibly. I was getting glimpses of Aido and AJ up the road for the next 5-6km and managed to get across to them shortly before the first drink station. We had a few 50km riders with us that were happy to swap off the turns as we made our way to the base of the first big climb. I was thankful here that the boys were riding a more sensible pace and we rode together until the next drink station. The terrain here was mostly through farm paddocks so the trails were all double track and allowed for plenty of overtaking which we were still doing at this stage.

The second drink station was unsupported. AJ and Aido quickly found their drink bottles and were back racing while my bottle ended up staying back in a crate marked to go to drink station 2. Thank you Mr Marshal at drink station 2 I really needed your drink bottle!

The boys must have backed off the pace to wait for me a little however before I caught up I had to pull a u-turn to find my dropped bottle...
Another 20mins later and I was back on the wheel of Aido and we chased to stay on AJ through the single track that finished at the 3rd drink station. It was only a few kms from the end of this section that we went past Chris who wasn't having much luck with flat tyres.

It was checkpoint 3 that Bec held out 2 drink bottles for me. I had the impression that there would only be 15km left so took the 1 bottle of Shotz and charged through. I looked at my garmin a few minutes later and noticed we had only covered 45km leaving 30km to complete on this last bottle.
At the next big climb it was a definite walk. It was here that AJ and myself managed to outwalk Aido and didn't see him again. We kept the pace on to ensure we were making a gap and made the decision to cross the finish line of the Flight Centre Epic as two Flight Centre riders in first place.

I made the comment during the race that there seemed to be heaps of single track. I think this place has a lot of potential once the graded sections of course become bedded in. It was obvious lots of work had gone into the single track. I'm keen to come back to the Merida 24hr next year to see what they have achieved by then!

A big thanks to all the Merida guys who came and introduced themselves to me, its fantastic to put faces t names.

A big thanks to all my sponsors but most notable for this race were Gordon Street Cycles once again for getting my bike into race condition, my brother Mat for the ridiculously early airport drop off and pick ups and Peter from Tailwind Promotions for organising such a professional event.

2011-07-20T20:15:00.000+10:00

Rocky Trail 8hr Grand Prix

This was an event I had wanted to put on my calender but couldn't due to a pending birthday. It all worked out perfectly with Jen wanting to show off our new son Archie James to her grandparents so we had to make a trip to Newcastle!

On race morning I felt I had everything under control. I arrived a few minutes before rego however by the time I did four trips from the car to the race track and had a chat to a few guys there was only five minutes before race start and I didn't even have race numbers on or drink bottles sorted. I guess I rely on Jen a little bit to help me get organised!

I rolled down to the race start with pockets jammed full of food. I had less than 30 seconds and the race started. My warm up was the first two laps and I finally started to feel like I was racing. Without Jen feeding me I was loosing heaps of time each lap stopping to to grab a bottle and putting a Shotz electrolyte tab into it.

About 2-3 hours in I managed to recruit Paul and Di Perry as feeders who I think were feeling sorry for me! They were great and each lap I was grabbing a bottle and food which was perfect for the 35 minute laps.

On lap 3 of 4 I had caught up to Rockstar racer Troy Glennan and I was keen to see how long I could stay with him and Dwight as they tagged teamed as part of a 2 man team. After 3-4 hours it became apparent that we were 1st and 2nd overall racing for the top position. Even though we technically weren't racing in the same category it is always a pretty good claim to win overall. I wasn't going to attack the boys at any stage during the race as I felt I was riding to my limit however, when Dwight slowed down with 3 laps to go I thought I would keep trying to maintain the same pace. In the end I'm glad I made the move then as another 2 man team was also chasing for overall line honors and moved past the Rockstar racing team to finish only 3 minutes behind me at the end of the day.

I really liked this race, it was great to race around with Troy and Dwight and the trails were fantastic. After a predicted showery day it was awesome. No rain at all and the temperature was perfect. Everyone was so friendly out on track and I was surprised there were no massive bank ups with 400 people racing and so much single track with limited passing chances. The race felt very professional, we could have been at a National Series race with all the sponsors flags and bunting. It was a great atmosphere. Thanks Rocky Trail Entertainment.

I also need to make a special mention of my local bike shop Gordon Street Cycles who had a very successful team result across both the 4hr and 8hr events.

Jetblack Products sponsor me and also the event making it possible for all to race and have something worth racing for. Having light weight wheels was such an advantage on this course as there are so many corners to accelerate out of and being light on the climb was awesome.

The Merida hardtail also performed very well during this race. It is the longest I have ever been on a hardtail for during an endurance event.

Shotz nutrition also had me on some special mango passion gels. I think they will become available soon, they are awesome!

Stage 7 - Ingkeereke Commercial Mountain Bike Enduro, Alice Springs

2011-05-23T19:20:00.000+10:00

Starting the last day I wasn't too keen to race. I was still disappointed that I didn't get a real race on the Thursday night. I was super keen to ensure that I was first into the single track so I could set the pace and not be held back from riding fast and having fun. After the police lead out I did manage to get there first. My aim wasn't to go nuts and try to bust off the front but to just set a pace that kept the boys working. There were quite a few sections where it would have been an advantage to sit on the back however I was enjoying setting the pace.

The first 20km to the drink station was mostly on new sections of track that still needed bedding in and often lacked flow. The second section had some awesome pieces of trail. In this section I tried to put the pace on a little and at times felt like I was making a gap. With about 10km to go I managed to get some serious chain suck and the boys went past as I was trying to unjam it. The chain had started its second lap around my front chain rings! Once I got sorted again it took quite a few minutes to catch the boys again. When I did, Aido was up the road a little as Andy looked like he had dropped it. I'm surprised he didn't launch a massive attack and we easily caught back up to him. With about 2km to go no one could get away so we decided to dedicate the stage Willo. This stage has traditionally been a stage dedicated to riders who had their lives cut short.

I really need to thank JP (from Merida) and his wife Em for taking us in for the week. You guys were awesome hosts! Thanks for looking after me and a couple of kids from Port Macquarie. Also a big thanks to JP's mate who was flawless with his drink bottle passes!

The Merida 09 was awesome for this event. There is no way I would want a dually on such short days when this bike is available.

My school, Heritage Christian School have also been very supportive in making this event possible for me and a couple of students.

Stage 6 - Ingkeereke Commercial Mountain Bike Enduro, Alice Springs

2011-05-19T22:32:00.000+10:00

Going into the night stage I had a pretty significant time gap to the boys in front and the boys behind. I was sort of under the impression from the start that Aido and Blairy would work together to catch me down if I got ahead. I was a little suprised as to how far they went to ensure I couldn't get to the front. The course is basically 2km of fireroad at the start and finish with no overtaking anywhere else on course.

Heading out on the firetrail I tried a couple of times to get past however the boys seemed to take up both paths of the trail to prevent me getting past. Once in the single track the pace backed right off. Andy was just riding a casual pace and we had quite a few riders who caught back up. At one stage in the single track a small gap opened between Aido and Blairy and I saw an easy chance to sneak up a place. I guess Aido was pretty keen to block me from getting through so accelerated to close the gap to stop me getting through. The rest of the single track I was keen to be racing not just being blocked behind these guys. With about 5km I was anticipating riding the A line around one of the corners. As I hoped the boys took the B line and I managed to get to the front. With 5km to go and most of that being fireroad there was no real point trying to get away. I gave it a bit of a go either way and the riders seemed to spread out behind. I was actually feeling really good, then the cord to my front light came out. I felt like both my light had gone out! I then rode quite sensibly down the final decent using Andy's light. On the final firetrail and we had a group of four of us together. Ryan Standish tried to lead me out but in the dark managed to lead out Andy for the win and I rolled across second! I bit of a frustrating race, but I do love riding in the dark. I cant wait until they run a 24hr race out here.

Stage 5 - Ingkeereke Commercial Mountain Bike Enduro, Alice Springs

2011-05-19T13:49:00.001+10:00

Stage 5 was the 22km time trial. Perfect for the xc rider, such as Aido and Andy. I started off second last as I was in second place going into this stage. Andy started 30 seconds behind me and it only took him a couple of minutes to catch me. He was flying. I increased my pace to stay with him however, after 10mins I managed to hit my pedal on a rock which saw my lying some meters from my bike fully winded. I cant remember the last time I have been winded, it isn't fun when your heart rate is over 180bpm! By the time I got back on the bike I had lost a bit of drive and it took a while before I managed to increase the pace again. I managed to get past a few riders who had started in front of me however, every time I got a glimpse of Andy he was putting more time into me. Coming across the line I was over a minute behind both Andy and Aido. By the time you add the time bonuses they receive Ill almost be 2 mins behind overall. I think the boys have just been playing with me all week. They are strong! Hopefully I wont finish too far behind in tonight's night stage.

Stage 4 - Ingkeereke Commercial Mountain Bike Enduro, Alice Springs

2011-05-18T14:09:00.000+10:00

Stage 4 was the longest stage of the week. I always thought this course would decide who wins for the week. It was a tough call deciding to either stay in the group and have people to work with or trying to get away early on during the more technical sections. In the end Andy, Aido and I came through the 25km drink station together as no one could get away. From here there was a 17km cycle path where we just cruised and a group of around 6 riders caught up to us. There were a couple of riders who attacked off the front while Andy, Aido and I let the boys fighting for 4th and 5th battle out to try and make some time. At the 55km drink station we still had a group of around 6. At about 65km the tracks started to get a little more technical and I moved to the front and increased the pace a little. I took a few risks down the final 2 downhills and overtook the two riders who had ridden off the front. I had a small gap at the stage and put the power down. Not knowing how far it was to the finish and with Andy quickly bridging the gap it was an easy decision to sit up and pedal sensibly. There were a couple of obstacles on our way to the finish which gave the other boys a chance to attack and almost get away. Heading into the BMX track I managed to sprint to get the first corner around the outside of the track, Andy pushed passed on the next straight. I pushed passed on the next corner onto the BMX track and had the lead through the gates. Andy started to go high on the first corner, I took the inside line which was heaps quicker. Heading into the second corner I was ahead and tried my luck on the inside line again. After I decked it, Aido and Andy rolled past, took the time bonuses and I think I am now sitting in 3rd around 1 min behind Andy.

Stage 3 - Ingkeereke Commercial Mountain Bike Enduro, Alice Springs

2011-05-18T13:43:00.000+10:00

I really wasn't looking forward to the hill climb stage. I had looked up my time from last year at 49 seconds and I wasn't planning on going as hard. This hill stage is a good chance to destroy your legs for the rest of the week.

The course is a 300m climb that isn't really steep, but requires you to punch the pedals quite hard to maintain any speed. I was just keen to be consistent rather than going hard at the start and having nothing left at the top. This was the plan, and that pretty much what happened. In the end I think I may have lost around 5 seconds to Andy and about 16 seconds from Aiden who got a 10 second bonus from getting second overall. 54 seconds was also slower than Billy Sewell who was quicker than me on this stage!

Stage 2 - Ingkeereke Commercial Mountain Bike Enduro, Alice Springs

2011-05-17T13:10:00.000+10:00

Stage 2 was a 39km race. It started with a police escort out of town for the first 5km and I started the race with a 11 second lead over Andy and Aido. I wasn't keen to try anything silly in the race and just planned on finishing as close as possible to the boys to eliminate time loss. Once the police car turned offed the race was on. The pace was high for the first 10km of fireroad and it wasn't until the single track where the pace slowed down a little. I was happy for Andy to set the pace as all I could think about was the hill climb in the afternoon and the long stage tomorrow. I really wanted to save my legs as much as possible.

Several attempts were made by Andy to get away but were chased down early on. With 5km to go 3 of us were still together. With about 2km to go there was a super technical hill climb that Andy made the smart move of pre-riding. I stuffed up towards to lower section and found I was running like crazy to try and keep up. At the top I must have been down by less than 10 seconds. I had started chasing and I was feeling like I was gaining on Andy as we approached the velodrome. As soon as I got onto the velodrome my hamstrings started to cramp from running up the last hill and hard. I actually started to ride one legged around the velodrome until I could get going again! I managed to finish 14 seconds behind which gave Andy the overall lead by 3 seconds. A well deserved win for riding the final technical climb.

Stage 1 - Ingkeereke Commercial Mountain Bike Enduro, Alice Springs

2011-05-16T18:33:00.000+10:00

Arriving in Alice Springs on Saturday with a few juniors from Port Macquarie it was time to check out some of the 1st stage course. After 2.5hrs we had only seen half of the track as we ran out of light. I was thinking it was going to be a long day for some people out there.

As the race started Monday morning I wasn't keen for a hard race. I was hoping that the boys would be looking after their legs for the week but Aiden Leiftman took off like it was a 30second race. I was just thankful there was a massive chase group that I could hide in until my lungs caught up. There were a few little attacks off the front that were wound back however, Aiden managed to get away at about the 5km mark. At around 7km in I was trying to hold onto Andy Blair's wheel and we had a fair gap back to 4th place. At about 12km I had to stop and grab my drink bottle that had tried to escape and later crashed trying to catch Andy as I was riding like an idiot taking far too many risks!

I finally caught up to Andy and Aiden around 18km into the race. I finally started to feel ok when I was riding with them and at times it felt like I was riding with mates out in the bush having a great time, I almost forgot I was racing as I was loving the technical trails. My legs were feeling the effects of chasing hard however.

5km from the end of the race it turned into an tense road finish, there were attacks going and I was doing everything I could just to hold on. I was keen to win but I was more keen to make sure I didn't loose too much time on the boys. With 1km to go I got forced out the front. I did the pace setting expecting a big final attack to go leaving me to ride over the line by myself. The attack seemed to take too long to happen so I gave it a go and managed to get to the entrance to the casino first. It was almost impossible for the other riders to get past me the way the final corners were set up. This gave me a very close stage win with Andy and Aiden equal 1 second behind!

The last 20km of the course was awesome. I just hope there is more like this later on in the week!

2011 Australian Solo 24hr Championships

2011-04-29T22:25:00.000+10:00

My lead up to this race wasn't perfect. In fact, I could barely pedal all week following the Marathon Championships. I was a little concerned on Thursday afternoon when I aimed to go for a 2 hour ride and came home after 60mins busted. After a quick pre-ride of the track on Friday I was starting to feel better as there was no significant climbing. A serious carbo loading festival at the McAvoys helped restore my glycogen levels and I started to feel good Saturday morning before the race.

As the race started I remember the pace being quite high. I had the plan to head out slowly and then see how the race unfolded. In the end I was first back across the line after the lap one. For the next 8 hours I was happy for other people to control the pace. It ended up being David Ludenia who set most of it. I let him go off at his own pace a few times as he was charging and at times I was feeling I would be racing for second place.

I stayed on my hardtail until after 4:30pm when it was compulsory to put lights on and I was amazed at how much more efficient the dually suspension bikes were on this track.

At around 8pm I noticed that David seemed to ease up a little on the hills so I thought I would try and maintain a similar pace to what we had started with. As I came through transition a couple of laps later Jen was letting me know that David had slowed up a couple of minutes per lap and I was building a buffer. By 8pm I was also starting to feel good as Jen was bringing out the pizza and other comfort foods!

By Midnight I was still lapping around 2 mins a lap faster than the other boys. By 3am David had slowed even more and dropped back a few positions. By around 7am I had caught up to Stuart Brown and rode around with him for a few laps. I then dropped back a few minutes to ride with Ed McDonald who was placed 3rd for a couple of laps.

On my last lap we caught Jason McAvoy and Andrew Hall I stayed with them as their pace looked more fun. We tried to take our time but we still had 10 minutes to kill before the clock ticked over 24hrs and we could finish.

I didn't feel too busted coming across the line. The only issue I had was with my wrist that didn't enjoy the harshness of the track.

Another big thanks to Jen for staying up all night and for Paul and whoever else Jen dragged in to assist at certain times.

It was great once again to be looked after so well (and fed so well) by Kylie and Jason McAvoy!

Mal at Maladjusted looked after my bike while JetBlack sent lights and pedals, SRAM sent derailleurs, DirtWorks returned my wheels there and Conti sent new tyres!

2011 Marathon Championships

2011-04-20T19:54:00.000+10:00

Over the past few years I have been getting keener to do more 100km events. I think as my experience and training increase I also see an improvement in my results. I am at a stage now where I feel I can race a 100km event rather than just trying to hang on for as long as possible until my legs blow to pieces and I'm left cramping at the 60km mark.

I got a suprise result in 2009 in the marathon champs where I placed second. I had booked an early flight home as I didn't anticipate being on the podium. In 2010 I was 4th over the line so this year I was also hoping again for a top 5 position.

Leading into the week of this race I was torn between getting lots of training done in preparation for the 24hr Solo Championships which are a week after the Marathon champs or tapering to keep my legs fresh. I decided to go for a fairly serious start to the week and had covered over 650km before the race started.

Heading up the first climb I was seriously regretting my hard training week. I started to ponder the type of training the other elite riders must do in order to set such a ridiculous pace from the start. About 15 minutes into the race and I had given up being able to hold the pace of the top group of 10 riders, I had to let them go. I was still hurting at the slower pace I was going up the hill by myself and I was stoked to catch up again on the amazingly long first downhill. After the first 5-10km of the race I was convinced I didn't like QLD tracks but by the end of the lap and after riding some really cool single track I was keen to head out again for another lap.

At the start of the second lap there were still 10 riders all together. I was suffering big time and had already hit my max heart rate just trying to stay with the group. I had worked out the course basically had 2 big climbs. Not long after the 1st climb had started a group of 4 including myself dropped off the pace. I was thinking I could sneak through but my legs decided to stay back and ride at a sub maximal pace up the hill this time. About half way through this lap I thought I would increase my pace and see if I could work into the top 5 overall. I caught up to Dyllan Cooper who was sitting in 5th place. I had a little washout with a slow tyre leak and it took me until the finish to catch him again. At this stage we had also caught Ben Mather so it was now a battle for 3-5 places. After a quick shot of Co2 my tyre was back to a suitable racing pressure and I only lost a minute or two. Five minutes later I had caught back up to Dyllan, another 5 and we could see Ben Mather ahead who had managed to bridge the gap to Andy Blair and Pete Hatton. As I got closer Andy rode away from the others. I managed to sneak in front of Ben and Pete before the start of the first big single track climb and started to work pretty hard to try and wind Andy back. I think we were working just as hard as each other. It seemed like there was a 10 second gap that I just couldn't bridge. After what felt like 10-20 minutes I managed to catch right up. At the bottom of the first massive downhill Andy slowed down during a feed zone and I tried to maintain the pace that we were hammering along at. Every time I looked over my shoulder he wasn't far behind. I thought if I could just get out of his sight he might back the pace off a little. I was starting to get a niggling cramp from when I had crashed earlier but appart from that my legs still felt pretty good out of the saddle. The problem was, most hills were too loose to stand up on so I just had to keep grinding up everything seated to try and maintain traction. I was stoked to come up the final rise and see the finish line. I was still checking over my should constantly expecting Andy to be on the chase at any time. Coming across the line I tried to pop a wheelie and cramped spectacularly! I was so busted after the race I think it took a full 24hr for it to sink in that I had won the national marathon champs! It also took another 2.5L of water to get a suitable urine sample for the drug test after the race. As if a cyclist with hairy legs would bother with drugs anyway.

A special thanks to Jen for feeding, Mum and Dad for coming out to cheer me on, Lloyd from Gordon Street Cycles for assisting in the pits and having the Merida o-nine in perfect condition.

Tathra 100km

2011-04-01T21:12:00.000+11:00

I had put the Tathra 100km on my calender almost 6 months ago when John Blankenstein started to talk up how good his home trails were. I was all set to go but I was also keen to see if I could squeeze the Terra in the week before. It ended up being too hard to do both so I flew down to Tathra on the Saturday afternoon just in time for the 10km prologue. I lined up a few minutes behind Blankenstein which meant there were 5-6 people between us as the event was an individual time trial with a rider heading out every 30 seconds. When I started I didn't hold anything back. I was keen to catch John and every person I went past meant I was getting closer. I kept checking my heart rate monitor and it was going through the roof. I felt like I was riding fast but I still couldn't see John anywhere. I came across the line and I possibly one of the reasons I didn't catch him was he'd headed home mid race! My legs were busted after that effort.

I have always looked at the dash for cash before the Highland Fling but have never entered it as I have thought I wouldn't pull well the next day. I was interested to see how I would pull up after the Tathra 10km prologue and was surprised how smashed my legs were. My quads were hammered from sprinting off the seat out of tight corners.

It was great to catch up with the Canberra crew on Saturday night as we hit up the local restaurant to carb load for the main event.

The race started with a run to spread the field out a little as the track headed straight into some very cool single track. In the first 17km loop were plenty of switch backs, some steep descents onto bridges and lots of close trees to negotiate. During this section I could feel my front tyre starting to head down. I gave it a shot of CO2 hoping that the Stans Fluid would do its job. Thirty minutes later and I needed to give it another go. About 1hr and 15mins into the race I decided to put in a spare tube. It was obvious why the tyre was loosing pressure, it was completely dry with no sealant at all left. As I had almost finished fixing the tyre I could see Brett Bellchambers in 5th position start to catch me. In a desperate panic I threw on my camelbak and put my gloves in my mouth as I couldn't handle being overtaken by a single speed rider!

Back on the bike and I really started to feel how busted my legs were from the prologue. I had to spend heaps of time sitting down and spinning as my quads were feeling very heavy. Twenty minutes after fixing my flat I managed to catch up to 3rd place. Mark Tupalski claimed he hadn't been able to train for the past 2 months but was setting a great pace. I then rode for another 45mins by myself thinking I still had 3 hours of race time to catch the boys in front. I was really enjoying this section around the 50km mark. The fire trails had been raked! Most 100km events would have you dodging sticks and sliding on debris but here it was all smooth sailing. At this stage of the race I couldn't tell if my legs were busted from the day before or if there was just a serious amount of climbing!

I caught up to Ben Henderson again around 2.5hrs into the race and asked him if he knew how far ahead the next guy was. Ben gave me a funny look and exclaimed that he was first and there was no one else up the road. I talked to him for a bit and decided that the other person who was in front of me must have got lost as I hadn't seen him as I caught Ben. I rode with Ben for maybe 5km before he slowed up on a climb and I thought I would keep racing. Another 45mins down the road and I started catching 50km riders. One of them took me ages to catch, until I worked out he was in the 100km race and was somehow in front. He was under the impression that Ben was still out the front and he we rode together for a few kilometers around the 75km mark. I was still feeling pretty good and after my second Shotz Wild Bean gel I felt quite strong. I really enjoyed this section of track as it was quite undulating fire roads that weren't really long climbs. Most of the climbs you could attack with speed from a previous downhill so the 70-85km section went past pretty quick. There were a few kms to get back to the race start/finish where we were sent out for a final 10km loop of the sweet poo pond single tracks. Half way along this section and I was really unimpressed with the marshal that pointed me right to the top of the hill again. It wasn't a really steep climb but with 2700m of climbing already on the clock I was looking forward to a downhill to the finish. Even after the hill this section seemed to go on for ages. I was stoked when the terrain became familiar and I knew it was all downhill to the finish line!

I thought this course was fantastic as it had a bit of everything...creek crossings, steep pinches, bridges, off camber, techy rocky descents, fire roads, single track and a good mix of fire roads and 4WD tracks.

It was great to talk to the guys who have done a fair bit of the track work and I'll be impressed if they can improve their already superb course for next year. I'm amazed by what can be achieved with those excavators. I think we need one for our club!

I need to thank locals Stacey George for helping me get to Tathra and Jake Iskov from Tathra Beach and Bike for sorting my accommodation. Thanks for the invite guys I had a fantastic weekend.

Does anyone have some pics?

Port Macquarie 12 Hour

2011-03-24T21:39:00.000+11:00

I was interested to see how I would pull up after the Armidale 12 hour race only a week before the Port Macquarie event and, I'll have to admit, I was a little surprised. I still went out for a ride Friday morning as I was half expecting the race to be called off due to the forecast but the conditions were perfect. There were a few muddy sections but with the addition of several bridges the track was great.

My race plan was to start out fairly quickly and ride with the top team riders for as long as possible. I thought the team of local guns Billy, Blake and Kye would be my toughest competitors. Then I saw the Bernard Beer Boys had entered. I managed to stay with them for 5 hours at the Sydney 24hr before being lapped several times.

My race didn't start out as I planned as I had carbohydrate loaded a little too hard. I need a more conservative approach when I don't have a full nights sleep to digest my dinner before a race! I made a decision to take it easier until my bloating had settled down.

At 1:30am I was riding around with Blake who was sitting in 1st place for the teams. I rode around with him for a while before thinking night time might be the best chance I have at getting some time into their team. At this stage Tim was still a fair way up the road.

Around 2:30am I was starting to feel tired. I had made a decision to try and limit my caffeine intake and try and build up my tolerance to sleep deprivation. I quickly threw that idea away as I was loosing enjoyment and consumed 2 Shotz caffeine gels. It's amazing how quickly I forgot how tired I was feeling.

At 4:00am the rain started. I had ridden past Tim and I wasn't very excited about riding in the mud. I was just so thankful that the rain only lasted only a few minutes and that's what we had all race.

A few hours into the race as I headed out past transition with Tim close on my wheel I heard an "oh no" and then I spent most of the time between 4-6am riding solo. For some reason it felt like the sun was about to come up at any stage.

As 6am approached I thought I really needed to get through transition before the 6am 6 hour riders started. I got through at 5.59am, about 30 seconds after all the riders had started. I was really keen to try and stay with the top 6 hour riders to add an extra challenge. I managed to catch up to the top Solo rider Geoff about half way through this lap and then really busted myself for the next 6 hours to try and stay with the top pairs team who were smashing it. Jen couldn't work out why I was so desperate to charge through transition each lap, she just thought I was 2 laps up and should be taking it easy. I had a race on my hands!

It was really good to have company for the last 6 hours and it was great that the boys pushed me so hard. I only swapped onto my Merida 96 which is a dual suspension bike for the last 2 hours as I was loving riding the hardtail. I certainly wasn't disappointed with the level of comfort the duallie offered and I think I actually rode it faster!

I wasn't keen to take it easy on my second last lap when the 6hr leaders slowed a little as I was still scared Billy, Blake or Kye would catch me. I couldn't let them beat me, Lloyd would have lost the $200 he advertised to any team that finished in front of me!

I need to thank Jen for giving up her night to be support, Duncan for getting us out to the race while our car has been off the road (4 weeks now...), Scottie for organising McDonalds hotcakes for breakfast, Merida Bikes for supporting the race, Jamie and the crew from the club for putting the event together, Lloyd and Gordon Street Cycles for swapping all my gear with the new Ritchey Superlogic everything and NiteRider lights. I also can't complain about the Shotz Caffeine gels that kept me alert during the race.

Armidale 12hr

2011-03-13T19:45:00.000+11:00

The Armidale 12hr was a perfect fit for my calender leading up to the 24hr Solo Nationals at Easter. I have been fairly consistent with my training and with constant changes happening with my bikes I was keen to see how the new setup would go.

Two weeks ago I put new egg beater 11 pedals on my bikes. Last week the new Ritchey superlogic components arrived. The seat is a carbon rail 135gram seat that still had enough padding to be comfy over 12hrs! The bike is almost setup how I will run it for most of the year which, at 9.6kg including pedals and "protection" tyres, is not bad for dual suspension bike!

I had the intention of starting the race on the hardtail and moving onto the dually as the race went on. This plan was thrown out the window as I discovered I had left my shoes back in Port Macquarie and had to rely on phone calls to get a set of shoes and pedals before the race start.

I hadn't ridden the dually at all since the Sydney 24hr and with the new setup including shoes etc I found it took me ages to work out how to ride the bike. I changed to clear lenses so I could see in the dark pine forest but it took around 2hrs until I finally felt like I was racing when a team rider came flying past me. It just gave me that kick into gear and it was on!

The bike started to feel great, it was handling the downhills easily and climbing was a joke on such a lightweight machine. At about 3hrs I checked my average speed and I was sitting around 20km/hr which could get me close to 250km if I got in a sneaky lap at the end. Then all of a sudden I couldn't pedal, my front derailleur had dropped down into my front chain ring so the cranks wouldn't turn. Good thing I was only a 1km away from the finish to borrow a torque key.

Back on the bike again and I had no idea how I was for position as there were no live updates so I just kept hanging out to see if Jen could find out anything. I was starting to enjoy the track by around the 4hr mark as I worked out what lines to take and where all the muddy corners were hiding. The track started with a pine forest and followed the gradient of the hill for most of this section so it was super smooth and fast. The trail then headed across a paddock and into a series of switch back climbs and downhills. The whole track seemed to follow contours rather than force steep climbs. The back section was quite rocky and offered a series of A and B line options which was great to have some sections to think about. These A lines included steeper descents and narrow log rides to save time.

By the time the sun went down I had a few laps up on second place in the solo category however, there was only one team 9 minutes ahead. With 4 hours to go and under 30min laps I had to ride at least a minute quicker per lap. I was hoping with my lights and experience in the dark I could make up some time but I kept getting the same feedback "5 mins up the road". With 3 laps to go I was pretty tired and busted so I took a couple of Shotz caffeine gels and was happy to struggle home. The gels did the job and I actually came good but with a 5 minute gap I didn't have the legs. Coming across the line I had 248km on the Garmin which is a massive PB for me and the results showed I finished 15mins up on the first team?

I'm now hanging out for the Port Macquarie 12 hour next weekend to see if 250km can be hit especially if I have 2 bikes to play with!

I'll post a pic up of my 3 bikes when all the parts come in to build them up!

Thanks NEMTB club for the event, Mark for the pedals and Scotties parents of the serious carbloading fest.

Otway Odessey

2011-02-27T21:53:00.000+11:00

The OO has become an important race on my calender. It is the only marathon race in Australia that pays out the top 5 riders across the line and attracts the highest level of competition.

With the race on a Saturday I had to take Friday off work and fly down Thursday night to get sorted. I was really fishing for favours to make this race a possibility and I was fortunate enough to get help from Aaron from the Rotorburn forums to transport me from Melbourne airport to Forrest where race rego was being run.

We arrived in Forrest around lunch time. There was a bit of moisture in the air and the radar map looked hopeless. I still managed to sneak in an easy 2-3hr pedal to check out some of the awesome trails in the area before rego. At rego I hung out with Darryl and Steph at the Shotz tent and helped them sell and give out product to riders as they cashed in their free gel voucher. There were so many riders who were planning on heading out on course knowing nothing about nutrition!

My next favour came from Norm and Jess who, being locals to Forrest, managed to find some space for me in their house and gave me a lift down to the race start. Jess had to start 45mins in front of the men so she had us all up at 4am on race day. After an ordinary sleep due to the constant battering of rain and wind I was pretty tired come race start.

The first 11km of the race is tar which finishes with a timed hill climb and cash for the fastest up the hill. Last year I was 28th and my only goal was to be top 20 here. I managed to stay with the top group and 3 of the boys rode away just near the top. I wasn't too concerned as I assumed they would just sit up and wait for the group at the top. As it turned out they got to the top and then put the power down.

The group I was in just sat up and left it up to Matt Flemming to do the pace setting. There was an amazing head wind and no one was keen to help him out. At about the 20km mark Lauchie Norris who was up the road broke his chain. He managed to fix it and get back onto the group I was in. Another 10km later the Drapac team got fed on the side of the track and Andy Fellows put a massive attack on. I had to do my best just to hang on here.

Most of the group stayed together until we hit the first of the real off road 4WD tracks. I found it quite entertaining as I sat back in around 8th place to watch all the lines everyone else was taking to try and avoid getting rag dolled which was happening quite a lot. There were several times where we waited to ensure the latest crash victim was ok to continue.

Coming across one of the major creek crossings we hit the first part of graded fire road. It was hopeless, the gradient wasn't that steep but it was almost impossible to get traction due to the clay that had been exposed. I made an effort to try and maintain momentum which kept my heart rate close to 180bpm but it was at this time I managed to put a small gap into the group I was sitting with.

I kept the pace on from here and was amazed at some of the crazy trails we were getting sent down. There was one section where I had considered getting off and walking but I couldn't afford the time so just held on knowing that I couldn't stop once I had committed.

When I got to the Red Carpet which is the timed decent for another $250 I was more concerned about riding efficiently and not crashing rather than taking risks for a chance to beat Jongewaard at something! I didn't crash down Red Carpet but waited until a 15m tar section to slide out. I got up expecting my handle bars and seat to be twisted but luckily escaped with a grazed knee and bruised wrist.

Heading across the dam I looked behind and could see a few riders so I was torn between taking it easier and waiting for them so we could work together on the fire roads or to keep the pace on. I backed it off a little and had heaps of fun through trails 4, 5 and 6.

As I headed down towards the Forrest oval I couldn't see anyone so I tried to maintain the gap I had leading into the Shotz 20km Superloop. About 5km in and I could see a few riders behind me as the track looped around. It was hard to gauge who was in what position. I had considered slowing down a little if it was AJ behind to give him a tow out to the last section but I wasn't sure if he was just behind me or a long way behind.

This section of single track is heaps of fun but nothing is marked as dangerous. After one corner I ended up on a log ride which felt like it was 2m off the ground. Combined with muddy tyres and a wet surface my skills were pushed to the limit! With 13km to go I headed back out past the feed zone and threw down a Shotz caffeine gel for an extra kick to keep me ahead of the other guys. I had been given a split of around 9 minutes to the leaders so it was all about staying ahead of the next riders. There was a fairly nasty climb in this section which seemed to go on for ages. With 30 minutes to go it was time for another caffeine gel and I started to feel like I was ready to race.

Coming across the line I was thankful that the race was over due to the cold, wet and dangerous conditions but I still felt like I had heaps left. Maybe I should stick to only one caffeine gel at a time! I was stoked to get across the line in 3rd place. Out the top 5 riders on the podium, 3 were Merida riders and 4 were Shotz. Surely the sponsors will be happy with that!

Getting back home was the next challenge. Norm had organised a screening of the film made up from the 2010 24hr solo world champs and luckily Lance was willing to drop me at the airport on his way home. I am sorry I wasn't much company on the way home Lance! Once the caffeine gels wore off I was gone!

A big thanks goes out to Hamish for being my support at Forrest, Norm and Jess for organising my way back with Lance, food accommodation etc and Aaron for getting me down to Forrest to start with. I couldn't have done it without you guys.

New Year - Sydney 24hr

2011-02-13T17:10:00.000+11:00

It has been a long time since I have made a blog post. I have been waiting for pictures to turn up from the Sydney 24hr that show me racing in green! It was a hard choice to move to Merida however when Pivot couldn't offer the same level of support as I had in 2010 my local bike shop saw the opportunity to approach Merida. The big positives about moving to Merida are the crazy light bikes, the same nutrition sponsor and a positive association with JetBlack products that look after the Merida team with NiteRider Lights and other JetBlack goodies. I will also be riding Stans Wheels, Egg Beater pedals and using Weldtite lubes also provided through JetBlack Products.

The week leading up to the Sydney 24hr was a little crazy for me. I was trying to juggle work with negotiating with sponsors to try and get two bikes built for the race. In the end most of the parts arrived on the Friday so the boys at Gordon Street Cycles did some serious overtime to get the bikes ready. This time I took my new Reactor roadie in that I have had for a few weeks to ensure the setup was perfect.

I was stoked with the end result. A hardtail that sits in the low 8kg's and a dually that is in the low 9kg's. I can't wait for a hilly course!

Looking at the forecast for the race we grabbed a few bags of ice on Saturday morning on the way out to the race. I justified smashing down a few icy poles in the car to keep my core cool. The outside temp on the dash was reading 33 deg at around 8am....

Arriving at the race track around 9:30am gave me heaps of time to setup, rego and hydrate like crazy. I packed on the sun screen and zinc knowing there would be a lot of exposed open climbing.

As the race started I tried hanging in the top ten and let a few riders charge off the front. I had a discussion with Ed Macdonald about my race plan. I told him I would sit back, save myself and see how I felt in the early morning as the temperature dropped off. During the second lap I couldn't help myself and decided I would race the top teams for a few laps. In the end I was racing them for just over 5 hours where I just couldn't get enough fluid down. I was drinking 2 bottles a lap which were well under 30mins. It was close to 3L per hour!

After I settled down I still felt surprisingly good energy wise. I think because of the short laps it is easy to eat well. But I just wasn't enjoying the heat. If I didn't drink my biddon in the first five minutes of any lap I couldn't drink it because it became too hot. I was looking forward to the night time to bring some relief. At least the lack of direct sunlight stopped the burning sensation on the climb, however it was still mid-high 30s at 1-2am in the morning. The coolest it got down to over night was 33 deg around 5-6am.

The second day started out at a good temperature. The clouds were out and I could ride with some of the guys from Gordon Street Cycles however, at around 9am the sun came out from behind the clouds. Next lap I was ready to check my position and evaluate how much further I needed to ride. I wasn't keen for another 40 degree lap! After doing the maths I was seven laps ahead and second place was going to need to smash out some good times to catch up so I spent the last few hours of the race in the pool!

A big thanks to Jen for supporting again. Rocky Trail Entertainment did a fantastic job as always. I thoroughly enjoyed the Merida Bikes. And JetBlack Products and Gordon Street Cycles get a special mention for their awesome effort to get the bikes ready in time.

In future I'll try to post a few new toys that I will be getting on my bikes to make them lighter and faster :)

National XC Round 1 - YouYangs

2010-11-22T21:54:00.000+11:00

I had been looking forward to doing the xc national rounds ever since I got a bling 8.7kg hardtail from JetBlack and Pivot. It was just a good bike because it was so light. Since that bike died I got used to riding the Mach 4's in shorter races and the newer 2011 bikes seemed to be a whole lot racier than the previous 2010 model.

During the Highland Fling I was starting to wish for a super light hardtail on a couple of the hills in the middle of the race but by the end I was having heaps of fun on the duallie on some of the technical single tracks and it felt like it climbed really well.

I went into the first national xc round with the expectation that I would keep enjoying the duallie and it would feel quick on the climbs. I wasn't disappointed.

On the start line I was ready to charge off from the gun. Sitting back on the 4th row meant I didn't get to see the front at all. I must have been in the mid 20's heading into the first single track climb. From here it was almost impossible to pass for about 3km until the track opened up to fireroad. Once in the opening the pace became crazy as people tried to overtake and make up lost time. I don't know why so many people go stupid hard to get to the front just to hold everyone up in the single track. After a couple of laps there were less hold ups.

About 2km into the third lap (out of six) I managed to bend my chain. I'm not sure if I have done this before. I thought my race was all over. I stopped and had a look but thought I'd keep pedaling until it snapped. Another couple of laps and the chain was still together and I was picking up a few more places. I think someone called out that I was in tenth place and I was pretty stoked with that. I was starting to enjoy these laps even though my chain was skipping so bad I had to sit down and spin most of the race.

I was starting to catch up to a few riders who I highly respect on the xc circuit. When I went past Ben Mather and Shaun Lewis I knew I must have been going alright. I was surprised to catch Paul Van Der Ploeg and Andy Blair on my second last lap however, I didn't think I would ever finish a xc race in front of Lauchie Norris. He must have been having a bad day. Coming across the line I thought I would be just inside of top ten however I had made it to fourth which is my best result at the national level at Olympic distance. Maybe I should give this style of racing a serious go?

In the afternoon it was awesome to see the local young guns from Port Macquarie, Billy Sewell and Blake Polverino, take out 1st and 6th in the u19 race. I got to hang out with these future stars for the weekend and I'm training that little bit harder to make sure I can stay ahead of them!

The Highland Fling

2010-11-15T21:04:00.000+11:00

The Highland Fling is always a must do event on my calender. I really enjoy the way this race is run and the ratio of single track to fire road. It is always an interesting race as there are benefits of working together for a large component of this race.

The night before the race I made the most of the meal at the community hall which happens to also be the rego hall. It was fantastic. I need to thank the marshal who thought that I needed his sticky date pudding more than he did. I regretted it afterwards but the food was so tasty!

Tenting was the choice of accommodation for the night and we were directed to the overflow paddock at the pony club. Rain during the night had me wondering about the integrity of the track however we woke to a clear sky. It was warm early on so I increased my fluid intake and started preparing for a hot day out.

It was amazing watching all the 100mile and 100km age group riders start. Their start was 30mins in front of the elite 100km riders. As I watched them take off I thought about trying to get passed many of them later in the day!

As the race started I was quite happy sitting back to see how it would all unfold. Well, that was my race plan. I then found I was just trying to stay with the top riders as I watched my max heart being maintained for far too long.

Somewhere is the first 10-15km Matt Flemming rode off the font in his usual unbelievable pace. It was quite depressing to be sitting on my max heart rate and see him ride away. He seems to have a habit of charging away up the road. The Rockstar boys had quite a few riders in both the 50km and 100km elite event so there were a few riders who were able to work to try and get Shuan Lewis down the road. Josh Carlson was quite happy to bust his guts out the front as he was a 50km rider and I'm surprised he didn't catch us up to Matt with the pace he was putting on.

Coming into transition there were some small attempts by some riders to put a gap in before the untimed section however we all seemed to come across the line fairly close to each other. Matt was a couple of minutes up the road at this stage.

We left the untimed section and I must have been a little slow getting sorted so Troy who also rides for Rockstar got to the front and started smashing the pace. I had to work pretty hard to get back on. I didn't realise but after a few kilometres Pete Hatton also rode away from the group leaving a small group of about 5-6 of us trying to work together. In the end the chase group got smaller and smaller then there was just Andy Blair, Shuan and myself. We were setting a pretty good pace and I wasn't enjoying the speed that these guys were pushing up the hills. I was thinking we were now racing for third. Eventually they seemed to slow down slightly and I tried to maintain the same pace.

I was quite surprised to see Matt and Pete about a kilometre later towards the top of one of the last hills heading back into town. I was sure they had seen me and I was convinced they would be giving it everything to away. I was determined to get on to their wheel before the final gravel road back into town and watched my heart rate sit at about 95% max for what felt like 5 minutes. I must have just got on their wheel before they started to wind up the pace heading into town and we worked together to put a gap into Andy and Shaun. I soon started to get a few crampy twinges which reminded me to get some more electrolyte down!

We made the most of the final untimed section and let the timer tick almost right down to 5 minutes. I filled the camelbak up with another 1.5L of Shotz electrolyte and took another water bottle on the bike just in case. We headed out from transition at a pretty serious pace. Matt was pretty flogged by this stage and was just trying to hang onto the back. When we hit the first single track I was at the front. I was feeling pretty good at this stage so I tried not to slow down too much as the gradient increased and I could see Matt drop off initially and then Pete.

When the single track opened up to fireroad I decided to see what I had left in the tank. I really started to wind the pace up and I was surprised that I could still pedal quite hard despite the ridiculous intensity early on. As the race continued I was convincing myself that the big hills were all over and I could just punch up all the small hill and have fun. I was out of the seat for all the climbs and I was enjoying how good the bike felt through all the single track and dips and fun sections, that is, until I crossed one of the last water crossing and headed up. I wasn't too concerned as I had convinced myself this was a hill right near the start/finish so I tried to push up it pretty hard. I enjoyed the next little down hill but I really wasn't prepared for massive grass hill that came next. There were people walking every where and I could see why. Over the other side I had to re-convince myself that it was all flat and downhill in order to wind the pace back up! I was back into familiar territory as I started to recognise the final few kilometers from last year. When I got to the "your call" section I went for the shorter harder way and I couldn't recall it being so slow and tough going. I lost all my rhythm going up this climb and it took me a while to wind it up again at the top. I was still nervous about being caught at this stage but I was happy in that I was feeling strong and knew I was giving it everything. Even the last few kilometres felt fast. I just backed it off for a wheelie across the line!

A big thanks first to Jen for hanging out in the sun and being my support all day. She even managed to medivac Craig Amour back to the race HQ for some ambulance action.

Darcy from Gordon Street Cycles must have redone everything on the bike to get it in perfect race condition. It went great, I can't believe how much racier the new bike felt compared to the 2010 model!

I was loving the Shotz electrolyte tabs during this race. I think I had a total of 11 to keep the cramps away!

It was great to see all the Anytime Fitness crew at the race. They must be happy with both the Male and Female Elite wins!

And thanks to JetBlack for keeping my bikes updated and for the new Stan's wheelsets.

24 Hour Solo World Championships

2010-10-13T22:10:00.000+11:00

This was always going to be the highlight race of the year for me. I was a little disappointed not to be heading overseas to race but with the race being held in Australia in front of family and friends it was always going to be a special event regardless of how I performed. With all the media hype around this event, the amount of quality Australian riders and the various National Champions from around the world I was quite prepared not to win this race.

I arrived in Canberra ten days before the event after a massive ten days of riding for me leaving me with just enough time to recover before the race. I tried to get around three hours a day of training in this final week and a half but with a significantly reduced intensity. After doing one lap of Stromlo I wasn't excited about the track but by the second lap I was loving it and couldn't wait until race day.

Jason and Kylie McAvoy were generous enough to put us up at their place before the race and it was fantastic to be able to talk mountain biking 24/7. The only downside was I started my carbohydrate loading a little to early... Kylie is an awesome cook!

On the Thursday before the event everything started to fall into place. I got my new Stans wheels, my new tyres, my new race kit, and a bike that evening. Friday was off to rego and briefing where I picked up my other new bike. I got to sleep Friday night around 10:30pm after choosing the wheels and tyres I wanted to race with. It was a tough call and everything was weighed. I ended up choosing the new Continental X-Kings 2.2 on the front and the Continental Race King 2.0 Protections on the rear. I didn't want to be stopping to fix flat tyres.

On race day it was time to take the bikes for a pedal, test out the new tyres, adjust shock pressure and get the seat height to a comfortable level. Moving down to the marshaling area we had to get the bikes racked. I managed to get mine in the prime position which meant I had the shortest distance to run. After the run I must have been the third rider in the pace line which was moving out of transition at a seemingly silly pace. I was happy sitting behind knowing that someone out the front was going miles too hard. Looking behind it seemed like there were heaps of riders together at this stage before the first climb started. Andy Fellows clicked it up a few gears and I was just going to watch him ride off, that is, until he realised the first climb went for a few kms! It was the Canadian National Champion Cory Wallace who was happy to bust off the front and no-one else seemed keen to follow him. I was sure he was going to blow up.

As the race continued I was determined to get to the front of any downhill or technical section before the other riders as I had been practising the quickest lines all week. This strategy paid off and it allowed me time to recover slightly up the hills as the riders behind caught up. There must have been 5-6 of us riding together for the first 3-4 hours before I managed to get ahead and catch up to Cory who must have been slowing down. I was finally getting to a speed that was maintainable and I was starting to put time into the rest of the field.

By around 7-8pm I got one of my first race splits in a while and I was quite surprised to hear I was 25 minutes ahead of second place and 35 minutes ahead of third place. This time also happened to be pizza time and it was fantastic. I was knew my pizza was being rationed as I only got three small slices over three hours, compared to the National Championships where I ate around ten slices in three hours...

I was enjoying the night riding however by 10pm I was starting to get tired. No wonder, I had missed my caffeine hit! Around 1am we changed batteries and I started to look out to the east each climb in search of the glow indicating the sun was about to rise. After the sun was up I really enjoyed my breakfast of super soggy Weet-bix in a drinking flask. The stuff was great as I was looking for a change from sweet bars and gels. Everything was going to plan and by around 9am I had lapped third place and was 4 minutes away from lapping second.

The thing I wasn't counting on was my knee blowing out. I have never experienced anything like it before. The only thing I can put it down to was riding these new bikes, one of them was way too high for a lap. I'm just not sure why my knee started having issues then and I wasn't sure if I would be able to finish the race. It was such a weird experience. It took me a while to work out I would suffer less from pushing a harder gear and by locking out my hips. I pedaled most of the last three laps to the finish with most of the pressure on just one leg. The Neurofen gel did nothing for the pain. I apologise to anyone that tried to talk to me on these laps as I was just feeling sorry for myself. I was also trying to work out if the prize money would cover a knee reconstruction if I caused further damage!

As I came across the line I really wasn't enjoying the experience (due to the pain) until the ice came out and I could sit down and appreciate the amount of effort my pit crew and supporters had invested in seeing me succeed at this race. I need to say a huge thanks to all my sponsors. This race obviously means the most to all of them.

JetBlack Products and Pivot Bikes invested heaps of time and effort leading up to this race. I must have called them most days to see when the new drive train, new frames, new seats, new wheels, new hand grips, new lights, new gloves etc would be available! Their physical support at the race in servicing the bikes ensured I always had a fresh bike to race on.

The NiteRider lights I used only recently turned up in the country and the 1400's were fantastic to have on both bikes. I programmed them exactly how I wanted and this ensured I had a good broad beam on the bar and a 350 spot on the helmet.

Fox Forks came to the party to provide me with the latest oversized 2011 forks for the 2011 Pivot Mach 4 frames that I received on Friday!

Sram helped out with a new XX drivetrain to ensure I had no issues at all getting the power down.

Continental tyres did everything they could to try and get me the latest x-king in time for the race and all the different versions of all the tyres they do. I had too many options on this front!

Shotz Nutrition provided me with their whole selection of bars and gels for the race and the electrolyte tablets assisted my hydration especially during the warm afternoon on the Saturday.

Lloyd from Gordon Street Cycles in Port Macquarie came down to pit for me and did a fantastic job. I was scared to ask how much time GSC had spent putting new drive trains on bikes and swapping frames and forks in the lead up to this race. These guys have been great!

It was great to meet Chanh from Adidas Eyewear who made sure we had every possible combination of lense available to suit all the conditions that Stromlo could throw at us. Not to mention the super bling gold Evil Eyes he bought out for preso!

Anytime Fitness were there in force across the different age group categories and in elite. It was great to see Richard Peel use this event as a fundraiser for juvenile diabetes.

Cannibal clothing whipped up a green and gold kit for me with only a few days notice and it was super comfy, no issues at all. I wouldn't dare use anything other than their clothing during 24 Hour events!

The Weldtite Wetlube has previously kept the chain quiet for up to eight hours at a time at Stromlo so was the oil of choice. I'm also stoked that JetBlack Products are now doing Stans wheels, as I need another rim - oops.

My mate Scottie was a fantastic support in the pits. And Jen is amazing. She keeps me coming back to 24 hour racing.

Thanks CORC and 24 Hours of Adrenaline for the awesome experience!

Dwellingup 100

2010-10-02T09:42:00.000+10:00

The Dwellingup 100 is a race just out of Perth that I have been keen to do for a while now. Last year I was about to lock it in before the National Marathon Champions were announced for the same day. This year the organiser Dave from Trievents was able to find a government grant to assist Jodie Willet and I in getting to the event. In exchange, we promoted mountain biking and the event to some local primary schools. This was a pretty good experience and it was amazing to hear some of the questions primary aged students would ask in regards to 24 hour mountain bike racing.

We arrived in Dwellingup a couple of days out from the event which gave us a chance to ride some of the best single track I have ever ridden. There were two areas of single track that I would compare to our local single track in Port Macquarie but with more hill. Really flowy, no brakes required just hold on and have fun. Marrinup was the closest section to town and consisted of a gentle 5-6km climb followed by a gentle flowing single track. This was a really well designed section that I must have ridden 6-7 in the couple of days I was there. The second section of single track called Turners Hill was used as a timed component of the race that had $100 on the fastest male and female lap. This track had a few more technical sections but had some really fast sections where I was just hoping the pea gravel wouldn't take me down!

The race day conditions were perfect and I was feeling pretty fit going into this race. That is, until we hit the first hill and some of the Perth local guns started to ride off on me. We had three of us heading into the 40km drink station and then there were just two of us. Riding with Chris Fisher we were trying to put some time into Jon Gregg who was a little off the back. I felt like I was on the front smashing it as hard as I could as Jon rode back up to us. At this point I knew it was going to be a hard race. When we got to the timed section I made sure I was on the front and I was happy just to sprint out this section to see if I could at least get ahead on this section. Coming out of timed section I couldn't see the riders behind me so I kept the power down to see if I could stay out of their sight. The next 45kms to home were a little hillier than I had first thought. I kept the pace on and was looking forward to the Marrinup section where I could have a rest through the single track and knew there would be less than 20km to go. I kept looking over my shoulder expecting to be caught at any time. It was a pretty cool touch to have a motor bike lead us into town and I was stoked to finish ahead in this race!

I need to put a big thanks out to Darryl at Shotz Nutrition for helping me and Jen get to the race and for our time in WA. Also Dave Budge from Trievents for driving us around everywhere and organising the whole trip!

I enjoyed riding the Pivot Mach 4 through the single track and the Continental tyres are proving themselves to be quite reliable!

Mawson Marathon

2010-10-02T08:20:00.000+10:00

The Mawson Marathon is a 360km route that can be raced over 4 stages or completed non stop if you race with a partner. I had thought that this race would be logistically too hard so I didn't think any more of it until I got a phone call from Andrew Bell. He had sourced a support mechanic, tents, support car and everything to give us the best chance in this race. I thought there couldn't be too many people who would be able to keep with us and so I committed to racing with Andy.

Taking a couple of days off work I flew down to Adelaide on Wednesday afternoon for a 7hr bus trip on Thursday to our race start at Blinman. I was hearing rumors of gun teams that had entered the race and I was hoping we could battle to make it into the top 3 overall.

The race started right on 7:30am, in the 15 minutes before this time I going through thscrutinising processes whilst a camera man was trying to stick a bar mounted camera on my bike. It was amazing the sort of safety and back up gear required for the race. I still cant work out why we required a spare tyre each!

The start was almost 20km of mostly down hill tar road and Chris Jongerwood made a few attacks to try and get away. Being a team race, all we had to do was mark his partner Brett Anderson and make sure they didn't go together. The partner ruling meant these guys had to ride within 50 meters of each other. After a couple more unsuccessful attacks the pace was quite civilized, until we hit the first 4wd track.

Another attack went from Jongerwood and I was quite happy to sit on the back of Brett. The pace that they were doing was unsustainable however, if we could stay with them through the rough sections we would be able to sit on an enjoy a tow during the flat sections of the race.

We must have stayed with them for 5-10 minutes however, Andy clearly wasn't enjoying the pace and I thought it was sensible for us to drop off and wait until they destroyed themselves. We could see the Torq team catching up at this part of the race and rode easy until we were with them. We tried to work together however, the pace would often drop right off to a point where I was taking photos etc. I think this is where the leading team of Jongerwood and Anderson put the real time into us.

It would have been 120km down the road where we left the Torq boys as they seemed to be struggling and it was no longer worth our time to wait for them. I remember a time feeling quite ordinary at about the 180km mark. I changed my fluid strategy and started to feel great.

By the 200km mark I was getting sick of the constant pedaling. Normally during mtb races you only pedal for around 70% of the race distance as you stop pedaling to negotiate trees, hit corners or just roll downhill! This race was constant, you were pedaling up slight raises or pedaling down slight downhills. It didn't matter what direction you were facing, you were riding into a headwind!

I was glad to see the night fall and a chance to ride in the dark for a bit of variety. I was glad to come across the line around 10:30pm before the real cold set in. I was lucky enough to only need arm warmers. I dont envy those who came in after me and needed to fully rug up to combat the cold conditions.

I was quite amazed with the camera crew that were following us for a large proportion of the race and how quickly they were moving between the top few teams. Im pretty keen to see their video as they filmed us during an amazing sunset that I am sure will look good on video. Im not so excited about the camera that was sitting on the bars facing me for the first 5 hours!

I think if I come back next year, I hope the rules have been changed to keep riders on the same bike for the whole course. Being able to change to TT bikes on the road would have been a massive advantage and creates a significant disadvantage to unsupported teams. Maybe have the race so that outside assistance isn't allowed at all!

I enjoyed having a big crew from Gordon Street Cycles at the event along with many regular faces from 24hr racing. It just makes the whole event more fun. I apologise to the people who picked up my Mach 4 and made comments such as "cheat" or "that's unfair". The bike did go great, i was comfy all race!

I used the Continental Protection Race Kings in 2.0 tubeless for this race which worked great for this event.

A big thanks goes out to Ben Randal for being our support during the race and throwing me Shotz nutrition for the race. I ended up consuming over 17 gels in 14hrs...

I need to also thank Anytime Fitness, Pivot Bikes and JetBlack products for your support.

Sydney 12 Hour

2010-08-16T21:42:00.000+10:00

It was a tough decision, either a two hour drive to the the Coffs Pleasure and Pain Marathon or a five hour trip to the Sydney 12 Hour, sponsored by JetBlack Products. I thought it would be a great opportunity to show off my new Mach 4 and I also knew Rocky Trail Entertainment would put on a good show as always so we packed for 12 hours of racing.

I was carefully watching the weather forecast leading up to this event and at one stage was considering how I was going to get hold of a single speed for the event. I wasn't too keen for another muddy race. In the end the track conditions were fantastic. Having to crack the ice off the tent zipper on the morning of the race wasn't a good start to the day though!

I love that 24 Hour races start at midday so you have lots of time to get sorted. At 9am on the start line I was still deciding about leg warmers etc and the race began. I didn't want to start as fast as everyone else and quickly lost the lead group. It seemed like the front boys knew it, so they put the pace on.

It took me a couple of laps to catch back up and after a few laps Brett Bellchambers and I were leading overall. It didn't take long for the mens four teams to catch up and I decided to stay with them for as long as I could manage. It possibly wasn't the smartest move but it was good fun. I would try to get away on the single track and technical sections before I was easily caught on the double tracks. Then I would try to sit on as hard as I could before the next technical section. It wasn't until about 7hrs in that I gave up trying to race the teams and settled my pace down to something I could maintain.

By the seven hour mark I had developed a significant buffer so I could take my time eating meals and I made an effort to stop and put warm clothes on. I was still getting lap updates on Bellchambers just in case he worked some of his magic and I kept an eye on James Lamb who was also a little further back again but is a strong rider.

The course was almost identical to that of the original Sydney 24 Hour race where I competed in my first solo 24 four years earlier. There were lots of fast flat sections separated by small sections of single track that was fun to ride. The grass paddocks that we started racing on soon became single track and at night time the track was getting pretty good.

In the end I was happy to have smashed my legs pretty hard. It was great training for the worlds, which I need...

Jen and I were really grateful that Tony from JetBlack products looked after us on Saturday night. I don't think I could have handled a cold shower and frozen tent again!

Darcy from Gordon Street Cycles spend most of his Friday building up my new Mach 4 and hopefully I will have a few pics of it up soon.

It was good to see the Anytime Fitness boys out in force, maybe next time Gaz and Rich will be 5 minutes faster to beat all the solo guys!

Merida 24hr

2010-07-29T21:36:00.000+10:00

It all began on a Friday afternoon, packing our car and trailer with bikes and school kids before we headed north for Old Hidden Vale, near Grandchester QLD. The trailer almost doubled our fuel consumption and we were filling up every 200km but it was great to give the kids another race.

It seemed I wasn't the only one not looking forward to the run start in this event as a massive cheer was let off when race organisers told us it would be an on the bike start! Having not done a practice lap I was happy to sit back a little from the gun to see what the track was like.

I was surprised to see so many solo riders charge past but I was pretty determined to take it easy and see how the course unfolded. I had the bike in the big ring from the start and I expected keep it there but after the first 10mins of the first lap it didn't get used again!

The track started through pit lane and each lap you snaked past all of the pit row tents. This was a great idea as your support crew could see you several times in the transition area. After the transition came a grass downhill that had some different height hucks that kept the photographers entertained before some pretty cool burms which sent riders around the dam. After the dam were some undulations before the first climb. It seemed most of the uphill sections were fireroads and all the down hill sections were single track. Just the way tracks should be made! The first climb had a few sections to it before you hit a flowy, fast and fun downhill. It had rock gardens, log drops and plenty of corners to make it interesting. This was possibly my favourite part of the track. The track then started to head back up hill, not as much climbing as the first hill before a more technical downhill. This downhill seemed to follow and traverse a creekline before a fast single track with a slight gradient took you back towards the final hill at a very quick pace. The final hill was pretty nasty and had no places to pass. I knew this was going to hurt Sunday morning as you had to punch up some steep little pinches.

After about 1.5hrs I had managed to catch up to the lead solo rider Adrian Booth and we rode around together before he took a longer pit break. Adrian was a brave man trying to race this course on a hardtail. As Old Hidden Vale is a working cattle farm, the cattle make the tracks nice and bumpy! I had deliberately set my bikes up to be super soft. I was running under 100psi in the front and I had the rear set up with over 30% sag on the back. It was closer to 40%.

It took a few hours before the team riders caught up and I was finding it hard to work out who was a lap up and who was a lap down. I decided to just ride my own pace. After about 6-7hrs I lapped the kids I had bought up from Port Macquarie and I tried to spend a fair bit of time riding around with the boys. I was quite impressed with how well these three juniors went, 5th team overall!

As the sun started to head down some dark looking clouds started to appear and I was expecting another nasty cold race. I think I felt a few tiny sprinkles at one stage but I only had to put arm warmers on during the night. It was so nice to have a relatively warm race. I had a few moments during the race where I wanted to have a sleep but there was usually someone to talk to. I was impressed with how friendly people were on course. Almost everyone said g'day as we passed.

As the sun came up I was told I could catch the lead teams if I had a go. I put the pace on for a lap but I couldn't maintain the pace I went out at and it still wasn't going to be fast enough, so I took a more sensible pace as I rode to the finish. The last 3 hours seemed to go on forever and I was pretty happy to finish and shower up!

This race was my first 24hr in my new kit and I couldn't have been more comfy. Thank you Cannibal Clothing!

Husky 100

2010-07-10T22:00:00.000+10:00

This race had been on calender since the '09 Solo 24hr World Champs where Matt and Amanda were talking up a new 100km event being run down near Nowra. It turns out that they were running it and were going to look after me and Jen if we journeyed south. This race also had Shotz nutrition on board and it was fantastic to see Darryl make it to the race.

Having a look at the starters list I thought I would have a serious battle on my hands to get onto the 3rd step of the podium. In the end, a few of the other elite riders were out of town and I became more optimistic.

The race was always going to be quick due to a lack of significant climbs and I was pretty keen to see how the Mach 4 would go. The race started at a pretty serious pace and I was happy to sit back and let other people do the pace setting. Matt Flemming rode away at about the 10km mark and I chose to sit back and pace myself on the early climbs. After spending far too much of my training on the road it took about another 5km until I was starting to get the hang of the duallie. I was actually enjoying taking a few risks around some of the blind corners and I felt confident on the sandy section from recently racing at Alice Spring and at the Mawson Trail. I was actually quite surprised to catch up to Matt during some flowy single track but almost straight away I had a stick caught in my drivetrian. I listened to Matt's advice to pedal backwards and managed to not only wedge the stick even further but also caused the chain to drop off, classic! Five minutes later and I was back on Matt's wheel. At about the 30km mark Matt dropped off the back during some pinchy climbs. I was riding by myself and the track infront seemed unused. I was pretty keen to be on the right path so I waited for Matt who was pretty sure we were heading the right way and so the race continued. On the next hill Matt dropped away again and I was riding by myself, until I hit the 50km mark. The 50km racers ride the same last part of the course with us. This was an interesting idea and so for the next 50km I was passing riders. I'm not that good at passing riders as I always get excited going past and usually waste alot of effort! Black Heart Events had saved some of the best trails to last and I was starting to have fun almost forgetting that I was still racing. I was amazed that there was still a significant amount of water in the low sections of the track and often I was trying to charge through crossings as some were only a few centimeters deep. I actually got fooled by one crossing and ended up swimming in chest high water!

I did a time check when I got to the 90km mark and I was pretty sure I wouldn't be breaking the 4hr mark so I tried to be as patient as possible when I caught up to other riders. As I approached the line I could see 3:59:59 from a distance and rolled across the line just over 4hrs!

Thanks Amanda and Matt for the fun race, I cant believe it was you first mtb event, fantastic!
Thanks Darryl for your ongoing support, the strawberry recovery drink was fantastic.
Thanks again to JetBlack and GSC for keeping me on my Pivot!

Capital Punishment

2010-06-01T21:36:00.000+10:00

Capital Punishment was a much anticipated race. It was suspected that AROC couldn't pull all the strings to make this event happen so when entries went on sale everyone jumped to get in, myself included. 2000 entries sold out for the most expensive 100km event in Australia. I think this is partly because of the location in Canberra but also because it was linking up some of the best trails around the city.

A week before the event I was trying to sell my entry. When I added up the cost of flights etc to get down to a Saturday race and to work through the logistics I had no chance. With the help of Anytime Fitness and the McAvoy's I made the commitment and bought the flights. Mid-week when Canberra was getting some nasty weather forecasts I wasn't sure I had made the right decision!

Looking at the start list I knew it was going to be a tough race. The full Rockstar team, Matt Flemming and a few local guns would ensure it was a battle to get anywhere near the podium.

Waking up on race morning to the sound of rain wasn't very motivating. I spent some time (over McAvoy pancakes) deciding what warm gear to wear racing. I arrived wearing a rain jacket and wind vest but opted for the arm and leg warmers instead. This was fine during the race and on occasions I had the arm warmers down to keep me cool!

The race started at a fairly comfortable pace and I had a couple of goes towards the start to see who was keen to push the pace a little harder. Heading into the first single track I would have been in the top 5. The conditions were wet but quite ridable. I was feeling pretty good with the race pace and I was trying to settle, ride safe and just enjoy the trails.

At 10km I was fixing a flat tyre that managed to slash on both sides! It took me what felt like ages to fix, the thing wouldn't come off and I hadn't packed levers. Normally I would take a skewer off and use the end however the ones I had on weren't going to help. I tried a few more times before I started to look for a stick or something I could use. By this time heaps of people had ridden past. I gave it one last go and managed to get the tyre off. It was quite hard to put a tube in without getting mud in also. After a bit of CO2 I was back riding.

The track conditions had deteriorated considerably with maybe 100 riders now in front of me. I worked hard to try and sneak past people but with the amount of single track I had to be patient and wait for fire roads to overtake. I thought I wouldn't see the top riders again and just aimed to try and get back to the top 10. By the 45km mark I started to catch up to Troy Glennan who informed me the other riders were only 100m up the road. We rode together and managed to catch up to the chase group of 4 riders. Brent Miller was still up the road. Heading over the hills toward Majura Pines, Joel and I left the group and rode through the pine forest together. As the hill headed up at the end of this section I found I was riding by myself so when the terrain opened up I put the power down.

I began to catch Brent heading into the start of the untimed section however he turned the wrong way so I entered the 30 minutes of free time first. In this section you have 30 minutes to ride 6km so I used this time to pump up my tyre which was sitting below 20psi for the last 50km. I had a chat to some of the 50km riders I had caught up to and I washed my glasses when I got to the end of the untimed section. I was happy just waiting for my 30 minutes to tick over but decided to leave early as Troy came through.

With only 30km to the finish I was pretty keen to get the race over with! The 3km section before Stromlo was the worst of the whole day. I didn't want to run as my shoes were pretty busted so I rode as much as possible at about the same pace as walking but with twice the effort. When I finally got to Stromlo the trails were super smooth and were holding up really well. I had run out of brake pads and just nursed the bike over the line. I was third over the line but with the use of the untimed section my race time was the shortest. Of course they didn't tell people their position until the presentation!

A special thanks goes out to Anytime Fitness for the financial assistance, Kylie and Jason McAvoy for looking after me over the weekend and doing airport shuttles, JetBlack Products for their support (and the brake pads!) and Gordon Street Cycles for completely rebuilding my Pivot!

Stage 7 Red Centre MTB Enduro

2010-05-16T17:05:00.000+10:00

I could hardly sleep Thursday night. There was some serious financial pressure to perform well during the last stage. I wasn't too concerned about how my legs were feeling but more about how my bike would cope. During day 1 I managed to destroy a carbon rim, during day 3 I managed a flat tyre because of a ghetto tubeless setup. During stage 6 I had dropped a light battery, I was just hoping for a day with no issues!

In the Mountains To Beach stage race, there was a much lower amount of money on offer for the overall win and cash prizes were given out each stage. This meant at the end of the week you could still go home with some cash even if you didn't make the placings. Going into the last stage, if I lost 10minutes I was out of the top 5...

The race started with a pace car around town before we hit a few kms of fireroad. I had no plan on setting the pace as I had a 3:30 lead and I was happy for other people to win the stage. About 10mintues in and Ben Randal had started to get away. I wasn't too concerned because of the buffer I had. I planned on catching back some time later on in the stage after riding with the chase group. About 20minutes into the race and I noticed my tyre was getting a little spongy. I rode the tyre for a few kms like this before stopping to give it some CO2. I couldn't get the tyre to seal so I threw in a tube. All I could think of was that I had lost my ten minutes here and my race was over! What seemed like an eternity later I had the tube in and was on a mission to minimize lost time. I knew I couldn't catch the leaders with their headstart but thought I could perhaps try and stay in the top 3-4 overall. Heading past the next marshall I asked for a time split and got told 10minutes. Doing my maths I knew this was 5th position for me. I kept smashing it along the fireroads and often surprising technical single tracks to see if I could catch down some of that time. At the half way point I was told I was a lest 5 mintues behind the group. I imagined that the group would include AJ, Ben Henderson and Andrew Fellows. Ben Randal was further again up the road. About 20minutes further down the road I could see AJ ahead. I was quite surprised to see him and he didn't seem to be enjoying the race. Riding past him I caught up to David who is a "local" who must have been sitting in 4th. I got past him and started following the final fence line that lead back to the Telegraph Station. I got to a river crossing and I couldn't see any tyre tracks so I looked back to the last check point and thought the trail could of led off over the fence along a more obvious path. I jumped the fence and rode a few hundred metres looking to pick up the trails but turned back resorting to the idea that I should be following the fence line. David caught up again and I eventually found another pink marker to keep me following the fence line. With about 3kms to go I could see Ben Randal up ahead. I suddenly became optimistic of a top 2-3 position overall. As I went past I handed him my last CO2 which I half used as he managed to get a flat also. Heading past the 2km to go sign I put the pace on and just hoped that Andrew Fellows didn't finish too far ahead. Coming over the line he was trying to convince me he had been in for around 4minutes meaning he would have won overall. The officials spoiled his fun and let me know it was only around 2-3 mins and I should have won overall!

Stage 6 Red Centre Mountain Bike Enduro

2010-05-14T08:13:00.000+10:00

Stage 6 was the same track as earlier in the day except it was starting in the dark. I was pretty keen for the night stage and I though I should be able to do pretty well with my crazy bright NiteRider lights. The race started at a silly fast pace and I was happy to sit back and let other people do the pace setting. I got into 3rd place by the single track behind Andrew Fellows and Ben Randall and I had the plan on just following them in to the finish. About a quarter of the way through the stage I tried to slide my battery pack up a little higher on my top tube and managed to eject the battery! I rode the rest of the stage with just my helmet light which was ok but not quite as fast. The boys on their duallies started to put a bit of time on me down the hills but when we got to the lower sandy sections I was having a shocker. I was sliding out, unclipping having to get back on etc. In the end, the two boys working together were smashing the pace. These guys are strong. I ended up finishing about a minute down on Andy Fellow and about a minute or two up on AJ extending my lead a little further.

Stage 5 Red Centre MTB Enduro

2010-05-14T08:01:00.001+10:00

Stage 5 was a timetrial that started at the local golf course. I had done a pre ride around this course on Sunday so I knew what to expect. I was a minute down on AJ and I was happy to try and keep this at only 1 minute. We were started based on our overall general classification so I started second last, 30 seconds behind Ben Randall and 30 seconds in front of AJ. I was tossing up between riding easy until AJ caught up to try and save my legs a little for the last 2 stages or to put in all on the line.

From the count down I took off fast, there was about 2km of flat at the start and by the end I could see Randall up the road. It took me a long time to bridge the 30 second gap but I must have caught up to him by about half way. He had also caught up to Ben Henderson in front. Randall is a very talented rider and with his 5" dually I had to wait to the uphills to make time on him! As I went past both the Bens I started to hit a bit of traffic. This wasn't too bad because 2 of these riders were local and they knew how to ride the single track.

I got pretty lucky with the lower sandy sections of the track and took most of the corners a little faster than what would be comfortable. The last 2 km of flat I wound up the speed but I couldn't quite catch Andrew Fellows who had stayed about the same gap up the road for the last half.

Finishing this stage I was the fastest by about 30 seconds which moved me back up to first position with a minute lead.

Stage 4 Red Centre MTB Enduro

2010-05-13T09:51:00.000+10:00

Stage 4 was the big race. 98km of mostly fireroad with little climbing. I went into the stage with the yellow jeresey and a comfortable 3 minute lead. All I had to do is stay with the top boys which shouldn't have been to hard as it was mostly fireroad.

At about the 15km mark I noticed my tyre was slowly going down. I had borrow a wheel and I didn't want to try putting my tyre on there without a compressor so I used what was on it. There was heaps of stans sealant in the tyre so I just put some more air in it and caught back up to the boys again. About 1km later it was flat again so I put the rest of my CO2 in it. It lasted for about another 500m and so I stopped to put a tube in. I couldn't work out where the hole in the tyre was located. There was no stans spewing out and when I opened the tyre there was still heaps of stans in there. I put the tube in and relied on Chris Herron for another CO2 to get me going. I was surprised how many people had got past me and I tried to put the hammer down to catch up to the faster riders ahead.

About 50km into the race I caught up to Ben Henderson and rode with him to the end of the race to finish 4 minutes behind the winners which dropped me back to 1 min down on GC. 3 stages to go and Im pretty happy with a second overall!

Stage 3 Red Centre MTB Enduro

2010-05-11T20:54:00.000+10:00

Heading into stage 3 I was 55 seconds down on AJ and around 30 seconds ahead of Ben Henderson who was sitting in third. Stage 3 was a 50km race and started out with mostly 4wd track. This changed as the race went on to include some pretty sweet single track.

For some reason getting ready for a race seems to take a little bit longer when you also need to think about a couple of school students and so we managed to arrive at the race start with less than 5 minutes to go!

From the start the pace was a little more controlled when compared to stage 1 and so we had a bigger group of riders together for longer. There was a lot less getting off the bike during this stage and the average speed was much higher. At the half point drink station there must have been around 6 or 7 of us still together and one of the local NT riders took the charge as other riders slowed to grab bottles. I manged to sneak past after a couple of kms while the NT local forced a little gap to form before Ben Randal got past and started to chase. I was torn between riding with Ben and working with him on the fireroads or the idea of trying to stay ahead. I decided to go alone and started doing the maths to work out how long to the finish. I started to enjoy the second part of this stage, it was fun to ride fast on it and most corners I was hitting a little to fast meaning I often ended up unclipping as the bike drifted out too far. When we got closer to civilization I thought the end must be near and started to put the power down, I was really unimpressed when I got to the 2km to go sign when I was sure the race finish should be approaching! Coming across the line I was keen to check the time split to see if I managed to grab the yellow jeresy for stage 4. AJ came in about 4 minutes behind me giving me a handy 3 minutes for the 98km stage tomorrow. Did I go to hard today? Only time will tell! My goal heading into this race was to secure 3rd place, Im stoked to have a yellow souvenir to take home.

Stage 2 Red Centre MTB Enduro

2010-05-11T08:38:00.000+10:00

At the end of stage 1 was making phone calls back to JetBlack to try and workout how to replace my rear wheel which had decided to crack in one place and pull a spoke in another. I would have though Dt Carbon wheels would have been strong enough.. In the end a local gun rider Paul had a spare wheel for me which will see me through to the end of the week.

Stage 2 on Monday afternoon was purely a hill climb. I looked at the times from last year and though if Ben Mather could do the climb in 42 seconds I should be ok for a 50 second run. Starting out my legs were feeling great. About 6 seconds in I was sitting down spinning as my legs were busted from the earlier stage. Over the line I was just under the 50 seconds and retired to the pool to soak the legs up for tomorrow.

Stage 1 Red Centre MTB Enduro

2010-05-10T22:49:00.000+10:00

Stage one was always going to be a tough day. 40km was in the brochure but 49.8km was the distance on the Garmin. I was tossing up between taking a camel back or 2 drink bottles and I'm glad I went for the camelback option.

The race started with a 6km mass ride with a police car setting the pace. After the police car turned off the pace picked up amazingly. I was pretty keen on letting the fast boys go as the pace was a lot faster than what I wanted to go.

The second part of the race was fireroad that followed the railway line before crossing over and following a trail called "hells trail" or something like that. And as Hell would be, the track was punishing. The punishment was so severe I'm borrowing a rear wheel for the rest of the week. I didn't just break a spoke but managed to crack the DT Swiss carbon rim that I was using. This didn't affect my performance at all and I just thought I had a small buckle in the rim.

In the last 16km after the feed zone I was riding with Ben Henderson. We had AJ out the from and we could see him each hill climb. The track was so twisty and windy it was pretty hard to make up and ground and we ended up finishing about a minute back. I was pretty happy for a second, but a 1 minute gap is quite significant on one of the smaller stages!

Australian Marathon Championships

2010-04-21T21:11:00.000+10:00

It was always going to be an expensive trip down to Melbourne for the 100km Nationals. I was thinking of taking Jen down to pass me bottles but it would have added another $500 to the trip so I took the cheap option and a camelbak. Trying to save more money I booked a Virgin Blue flight to Sydney with the plan of getting on a JetStar flight to Melbourne with 40mins between flights. If there was 42mins between flights I would have made it. I ended up having to pay an extra $70 to transfer to a later flight, so much for saving money!

Sam Chancellor met me at the Melbourne airport with his cousin Scott. These guys are both 24hr riders with some pretty handy results. Sam just won the Kellieville 24hr and Scott placed 3rd overall at the 24hr Nationals. I ended up staying with these boys for the weekend and logistically I couldn't have done this race without them!

On race morning I was still tossing up between using bottles or the camelbak as I knew the extra 3L of weight up the first few climbs was going to be a significant disadvantage. Playing it safe I took the camelbak and threw the Shotz electrolyte tabs in as per usual. My gel flasks were charged and I was ready to roll.

Having managed second place last year I was keen to see how I would get on this time round, especially after have an easy few weeks tapering and recovering after the 24hr Solo Nationals.

The race started at what I thought was a fairly sensible pace but my heart rate was sitting in the high 170's and telling me to slow down. Troy Glennan charged off the front and he must of had a significant lead by the time we hit the bottom of the first climb. This climb was around 600m of vertical height but wasn't terribly steep. I was sitting on close to 190bpm while dropping off the leaders. I ended up riding this climb with Ben Henderson and was hoping to work with him to catch back up later.

At the top of the hill once the tracks started to get a little technical I bridged the gap and caught back up to the lead group. At this stage there was only Ben Mather up the road. Somehow in the next 5-10km the group split. This must have been just before we hit fire road and as I was just hanging towards the back I ended up in the chase group.

I think Troy Glennan saw that AJ, Murray Spink and myself had dropped off and so he started winding up the pace. The three of us swapped off turns in our group but we were still getting left behind. Maybe if we had the assistance of Shaun Lewis who had the benefit of a rider up the road and no incentive to help chase them down.

By the time we got to the 60km mark Murray had dropped off the back and three of us continued until around the 65km checkpoint where AJ had to fix his front derailer. I was starting to run low on water so I grabbed whatever I could at the feed stations.

With around 15km to go and after heaps of crazy walking trails I managed to get to within 15m of Gordo. Looking up the trail I could see him walking and I punched it up the hill towards him. As the hill started to flatten off I had to bail off my bike with hamstrings cramps. Being out of fluid for the previous 5km had begun to take its toll. After a quick stretch I was back on the bike. Shuan had moved passed me and was starting to build a small gap. I was struggling to get back on the bike but eventually went past Shuan again as we approached some of the final climbs before the last feed station. I started to feel good again and wound the pace up.

Coming into the feed zone I grabbed a drink bottle thinking this would be great for the last 12km. But before I had even managed a sip the thing jumped out of my bottle cage as it was too small to stay in. From here I decided to take it really slowly up the hills to try and prevent further cramping and I actually walked quite a few climbs that I would normally find fairly easy.

Not being in a real hurry now (and more concerned about finishing at all) I managed to score an extra drink bottle of a 90km rider who had cut his day short. I stopped and filled up my remaining water bottle and moved it to the front bottle cage. It must have lasted in there for less than a minute before falling out and again, I didn't get a sip!

So I crept home in survival mode to a 4th position with a lot of "what ifs" to contemplate. I think I'll do some hill training before next year if the race is held at Avoca again. And maybe I'll take Jen along to pass me bottles!

2010 24hr Solo Nationals

2010-04-19T21:38:00.000+10:00

After a busy few months of racing I realised I hadn't done any specific training for this event so I was a little unsure how I would fair. After riding with John Blankenstein at the Sydney 24hr I thought my fitness could be better but I knew the flowy Majura Pines track would give me plenty of opportunity to pedal easy and recover.

The day before the race, I headed out for two laps, one on the Mach 4 that I had got use to and one on the Mach 4 that I was still setting up. It took ages to get the second bike sorted but I wanted to make sure I was happy with it come race day!

The race started with a gentleman's lap as we remembered James Williamson, the 2008 24hr Solo World Champion who died just a couple of weeks before. We also wore arm bands to show our respect and care.

As the gentleman's lap finished the pace didn't seem to get too silly. I was setting the pace most of the time and was happy to ride comfortably. Brett Bellchambers on his single speed couldn't handle us geared riders changing down to lower gears on the climbs and he rode off after a couple of laps. I wasn't too concerned, knowing he would have been destroying his legs pushing the climbs so hard. He must of stayed out the front for about 4-5hrs and his lead got up to two minutes. I was begged by some of his fellow single speed riders to let him stay out the front! I finally caught up to him and he must of backed the pace off, dropping back to 5th place. I thought I would make the most of the small gap that I had developed catching down Bellchambers and tried to maintain consistent laps as the night approached.

Just before the 7 hour mark I was ready for a sleep and had to rely on some caffeine to keep me awake! At this stage I was also hanging out for pizza and 7 or 8 slices later I was still loving the taste but not enjoying the volume in my guts!

I wasn't going too hard during the night. I had been watching my heart rate earlier on and worked out how hard I should be pushing the hills. I was getting time gaps and was making a siginificant lead up to the early hours of the morning where the gap started to become more consistent. With about 5 hours to go Andy Fellows in second place started to increase his pace and as the 6hr riders caught me I decided to try and race them. This was all fun and games until I made an attack on Mark Tupalski and possibly went a little too hard! It was around this time that I couldn't get enough chamois cream. I have never had any issues like that before but I have always used Cannibal Clothing. I'll be back wearing Cannibal Clothing for the next 24hr!

The last few hours I wound the pace down a little and tried to do the maths so I wouldn't have to do an extra lap. So with two easy last laps I managed to come across the line at 12:05 to finish ahead. It was great to have heaps of other riders from Port Macquarie come down and qualify for Worlds.

A big thanks goes to Jen once again for being support/mechanic/everything.
JetBlack Products and Pivot Bikes for 2 awesome specked Mach 4 bikes for 24hr racing.
Shotz Nutrition, I think we have a pretty good 24hr strategy.
Gordon Street Cycles for changing bits and pieces all the time, and keeping the bikes in top working condition.
My brother and his family for coming down to cheer and my parents for doing the pizza run!

Pivot 12 Hour

2010-04-06T10:25:00.003+10:00

The Pivot 12 hour ran by the Port Macquarie mountain bike club is an event I am always hanging out for. The event is usually a few weeks before the 24hr Solo Nationals and this year it was 2 weeks before. I was really keen to try out my new 1200 lights and get the setup perfect on the Pivot duallies.

I had some Continental tyres to play with and their light weight Supersonic tyres took 500g off my bike weight and I was racing on a 10.2kg complete dual suspension Pivot!

The race started at midnight and I managed to sneak in a couple of hours sleep before heading out to the track. The race started quite fast and I managed to stay with the top riders from the gun. I was pretty keen to race all the teams as there were a few hundred dollars on for the overall race leader. There were a few fast riders there including World 24hr age group champion Sean Bekkers so I knew there wouldn't be an easy race in solo. Tim Wynan was also going to be a top contender considering his consistent improvement.

There must have been a group of four of us that stayed together for the first half of the race then I ended up riding by myself. My aim was to maintain around 30 minute laps so I could sneak out for 25 laps. I was thinking the laps were around 10km so I was hoping I would come close to hitting the 250km.

With three laps to go Billy Sewell had the fastest lap and the commentators and other students from my school were hassling me about not having the fastest lap so my second last lap was a fast one and my last lap was a nice cool down.

I couldn't have done it without my awesome support. Especially Jen who gave up her race to pass me food!

Mountains To Beach Day 5 - Bermagui to Narooma

2010-03-07T14:50:00.002+11:00

The last stage was still being sorted out the day before this race stage started. With the original route flooded the organisors had to find a plan B. This involved breaking the race into 2 parts and giving the riders exactly 30mins to travel from part 1 finish to part 2 start. This happened to be around 6km so it plenty of time.

The race started with a police escort of Bermagui to the start of their mountain bike park. We did a lap and a half here. Towards the end of the first lap I noticed my rear tyre was going down. I was keen to try and just ride it until I get to my 30min transport stage where I could fix it. Unfortunately it was getting to flat and I had to stop and give it a quick squirt of CO2. The was enough to get me to the transition however the tyre was still loosing pressure. I decided to put a tube in and taking the old tyre off revealed a clear lack of tyre sealant, no wonder the thing went down!

By the time I got the the tyre fixed I had less than 15 minutes to ride the 6km down the road and relied on fellow racer Greg Porter to help me down the road at speed. I arrived at the check point around 30 seconds before I had to start! I was about 20 seconds down on the leaders when I was allowed to restart and caught this time up over the next couple of hills. There seemed to be a lot of grass riding in the second part of the race which was pretty tough going. About 15 mins into the second part of the race a few attacks went. Andy Blair rode off for a few minutes before Andy Fellows and Nick Both got away. Everyone was together at the first river crossing and I managed to get across pretty fast. This led onto the first beach. I clicked it up a few gears and tried to pick a few good lines down the beach. I didn't think I was going that fast but at this stage managed to put a gap into the rest of the field. Once I got off the beach I started to wind up the pace to see if I could hold the lead I had developed.

With around 10km to go on the clock I was starting to run out of water. I thought I might be able to ride 10km without fluid however I decided to stop at the caravan park we ride through for a quick refill.

I kept looking behind me during this stage expecting to be overtaken but I managed to come across the line first after punishing the bike in the salt water, sandy beaches and muddy paddocks!

Mountains To Beach Day 4 - Big Day Out

2010-03-04T16:05:00.002+11:00

Day 4 started with a lap around the Cooma horse racing course. There was a prize on this lap that went to Port Macquarie rider Greg Porter. Following the race course was a 90km race. After the lap around the race course the pace really dropped off. We had a group of around 20 riders that stayed together up to the first significant climb around 30km into the race. At the point Andy Blair rode off and I decided to let him go and wait for Andy Fellows and about another 5 riders that were around 100m away. I thought we would be able to work together to catch Andy Blair but in the end it was just me and Andy Fellows doing turns. At about the 45km mark I was having to wait for the other riders up the hills so I decided to ride off by myself and try and minimize the time that Andy was putting into me. I didn't think I would catch him, but with about 10km to go I could see him up in the distance. As I rode past him I thought he would have sat on the back and tried to keep with me up the final 3.5km climb however a quick glance over my shoulder and I was riding by myself. With a final 5km to go I knocked it up a few gears and put the power down to the line. I think I finished just over a minute in front of Andy Blair extending my lead to just under 10 mins with 1 stage to go...

Mountains To Beach Day 3 - Buckendera

2010-03-03T16:09:00.002+11:00

Day 3 started at 5.15am. This was the "dawn raid" requiring lights. I was looking forward to this as a kind of rest day as it was less than 30km of racing and about 40km of cruising. I was planning on taking it easy as I had a little buffer on second and third place and to save my legs for the more important longer stage on Thursday.

The race started out at a fairly sensible pace. I tried to stay away from the pace making for the first lap and made a small attack about a quarter of the way into the last lap onto some really rough terrain. My main reason for winding it up here was to purely get over this rough stuff as soon as possible. I made a fair gap but Nick Booth managed to bring the chase group across to me. I rode away from the group again up a small rise around 3km from the finish and Andrew Fellow bridged the gap to me and we rode together to the finish. I took it easy up the final climb and rode to a comfortable second place building another 30 seconds in the overall GC.

Going into the big Thursday stage I have a 7.30 buffer which I hopefully wont need!

Mountains To Beach Day 2 - Blue cow to Buckendera

2010-03-02T20:40:00.001+11:00

Going into the third race stage I was 1:08 up on second place. This was the first big stage and it would be a chance to make or loose time depending on the performance during this race.

I was planning on just watching second and third place during this race and letting them set the pace.

The race started at the top of the ski tube and headed up even higher before some undulations and a further climb up to the snowy grass plains where there were brumbys running around! On these plains about 30km into the race I was riding with Andy Blair and Andy Fellows. We had a significant gap over the rest of the field and we kept the pace going as we crossed over a few streams before a final climb back onto the main gravel road back to the old transition.

The other boys decided to let me ride off here and I continued the final 35kms to the end of the stage by myself. This was a tough stage as it had so many undulations and significant climbs. I kept thinking that the two Andys would be working together and so I tried to keep the pace on.

The bike seemed to climb really well and the new Race King tyres I were trying out seemed to be rolling quickly.

Coming across the line I was around 6 minutes up on Andy Blair who came in second place.

Hopefully this will make the rest of the week a little less stressful!

Mountains To Beach Stage 3 - Lake Crackenback

2010-03-01T20:15:00.002+11:00

Going into stage 3 all I needed to do was keep an eye on 2nd and 3rd place and make sure I dont finish too far behind these guys.

The race started at a pretty good pace, I had a bit of an attack off the front but thought I should save my legs and sat back in the top group of 5 or 6 riders and let them set the pace. The track was quite windy and bumpy which meant you had to pedal almost all the time. There was no real advantage in drafting, maybe for only 10% of the lap but I was once again happy to sit in and let the boys set the pace.

The track was 2 laps of the Crackenback resort mtb loop which had quite a few fun sections. At the pace we were going there wasn't much time for fun and we averaged a faster time around this track then what I did down the downhill.

Coming across the line I was in the top group of 4 and finished 2 seconds behind Andy Blair giving me a 1.08 lead into day 2.

Mountains To Beach Stage 1 - Thredbo

2010-03-01T17:42:00.002+11:00

Stage 1 - Stage 1 started with a chairlift ride to the start of the mountain and a apparent temperature of -2.6. This race was a pure time trial. Each rider started off in 20 second intervals with a reverse seeding from last year. I started off last and I was keen to try and catch up to some of the fast boys in front. Andy Blair was 20 seconds in front and I couldn't see he after he launched out of the start gate. I started off a little nervous on the new bike particularly after not riding a hardtail for a few months but after a few corner my confidence was building. The track started out on firetrail and was really fast. It then ducked into a section of grass switchbacks that were super slippery before hitting some of the downhill track before heading out on the national xc track. This year had more climbing that last year and I was pretty keen to ride these sections hard. When I got to the National xc track I ran into a bit of traffic but got past these riders and could see Dennis and Andy just up the road. Dennis got a flat as I went past him and I caught Andy on the last big climb. I rode past him and I didn't real think about saving anything for the afternoon race. I was looking forward to the last section around the golf course and I had a pretty clean run where the bike felt pretty fast.

When the results were printed I found out I won this stage 1.09 faster than second place and third place was another 30-40 seconds later...

Now just to see if my legs can back up!

Otway Odyssey

2010-02-21T18:30:00.003+11:00

What an awesome race! I had been looking forward to this race for a long time. In January I went down to pre-ride some of the course with locals Norm and Jess Douglass and ever since I've been watching the days tick over as the race approached. Leading up to the event I was phoning JetBlack almost daily to see if my hard tail was going to turn up in time. Oh well, it should arrive next week.

This race was only possible with the help of the guys from Rapid Ascent who made the race more affordable for me, Noel and Darryl from Shotz Nutrition for arranging my transport to and from the airport and Norm and Jess for the putting me up in 'The Loft'.

Race day began with a 4:30am wake up call from Norm so we would get to Apollo Bay in time for Jess' 6:45am race start. Arriving in Apollo bay at 5:30am, it was blowy and already quite warm.

When I was getting setup I was offered the chance to ride with a camera on my helmet. Thinking I wouldn't be riding with the top boys on my 24hr bikes I agreed as I was just planning on having a "fun" ride. When the race started I was really happy with the pace. I think my heart rate was sitting around mid 130's but I knew this would only last to the first climb. As we hit the first climb I must have been sitting in 40th place. I was maintaining a significant 180+ bmp and I was happy to not go any harder! I kept trying to stay on the back of a group so I would have people to ride with later on in the race. Looking at the timing I just managed to sneak into the top 30 after the first climb.

The second climb was much tougher and I ended up walking a significant component due to the xx and lack of low gear but I possibly would have done the same regardless of gears! It wasn't until about 40mins into the race that I caught the top single speed rider!

Once I finished the second big climb about 15km into the race it was time to try and pedal along the tar. I was struggling. I was thinking I needed to move my seat back and get a traditional set back seat post just as three Drapac team riders and James Williamson flew past. I jumped on the back and tried to do my best to film all the boys swapping off and smashing it up the tar road. As we heading off into the next series of tracks we caught Shaun Lewis. Down one of the next descents we went past Sid Taberlay fixing a flat tyre and I was thinking I would have been getting close to 20th overall.

I was really keen to be first onto the Red Carpet as this was a timed run. When I had the chance move to the front of the group at the top of what I thought would be the start of the red carpet I took it. It turned out not to be it so I had to keep the pace on a little to make sure I would get a clean run. I initially started to go fast down this section, as soon as I hit the little climb I hit the lock out stood up to drive it up the hill and quickly sat back down and knocked it down a few gears. My legs were fried! I pedaled easy up this section then let gravity do its thing for the rest of the run. I had to wait for a few of the girls down this section but they were quite happy to give me the track and could see I was on a mission! I ended up with the 3rd fasted downhill which I was happy with considering traffic and how easy I had to take it up the climb... and how sweet is this trail!

At the bottom of the Red Carpet I was planning on waiting for the boys to catch up and so pedaled at 90% of race pace but I couldn't see them. At the 50km mark I was apparently only 2-3min behind the leaders but I found this hard to believe considering I felt like I was just having a fun race. Riding through the 4,5,6 trails I was taking it easier on the hills to see if the boys were going to catch up but I was still ahead so I though I might have a bit of a go and started to wind it up a little. Heading into the 67km transition I grabbed my bottle and ducked into the 20km of single track that was used for the Kona. I thought I must have been catching up to one of the Torque Nutrition girls during this stage as I thought all the blokes would be miles up the road but it turned out to be Luke Fetch that I followed for the rest of this section. We also went past a pretty wiped out Matt Flemming who had been smashing the race super hard.

Heading through the final transition I missed my feed and I chose to head onto the last stage with 200ml in my camelbak for the last 18km. I sucked down a caffeine gel but didn't have the water to flush it down! The helmet-cam started to come loose at this stage and was smashing me in the side of the head! I was riding carefully up the hills in my dehydrated state and wasn't prepared to push it too hard at this stage. I watched Luke ride off as I struggled to untangle the camera from my helmet up the last hill. I was stoked with a 5th place considering my fun approach to the race. What an awesome weekend!

Otway Odyssey Article

2010-02-21T18:26:00.001+11:00

Otway Odyssey Artcile. Why about me when there are so many talented riders?

JetBlack Sydney 24hr

2010-02-16T19:22:00.006+11:00

This was always going to be an important race for my sponsors and I. My major sponsor had the naming rights of this event! JetBlack really had the pressure on as I only committed to their sponsorship proposal about a week before the event. They had to source wheels from one importer, Fox forks from another importer, and the Pivot frames and other components from the USA!

The bikes arrived at our cabin at 9am on the day of the race! I had three hours to get use to the new bikes. My first thoughts were "wow, these things are amazingly specced out, and mmm..... downhill bars." I thought surely I could get some flat bars before the race but it didn't quite happen. I lowered the bars as low as they would go and after playing with the seat position it was time to start racing!

On the start line I was introduced as the world champion and all of a sudden the pressure was on. The pressure to perform well for the new sponsor and the pressure to win as that's what would be expected of a world champion....

I hid in my tent for as long as I could near the start line as the rain was still sprinkling down. I wasn't too optimistic about the weather considering the forecast and I was prepared to ride through the 24hr in heavy rain.

My plan was to start out carefully during the day and try and get used to the bikes before winding up the tempo during the night. The race plan changed a little when I found out how much road was in the course. It took a few laps to work out who the players were. John Blankenstein, Shane Taylor and I were lapping around in similar times.

I tried to change bikes every few laps as I had two awesome Pivot Mach 4's at my disposal and had them modified before each bike change to try to get them set up comfortably. This mostly involved tweaking shock pressures and seat positions. I was hoping to get some flat bars put on during the race but after a few hours they were just part of the bike.

About three hours into the race I was lapping around with John and we worked out I was a little quicker down the hills so each lap I would try to get into the downhill first. This gave me the chance to make some time up so I could ride the rest of the track at an easier pace before he caught back up again!

For the next few hours as the rain started to come down I changed to clear glasses and made sure I was swapping out bikes regularly. The guys from JetBlack were cleaning the bikes and it was as if I was getting on a new bike every 2 laps!

I continued the same race strategy with John, each lap I would head out a little bit earlier due to faster transitions and downhill times and each lap he would effortlessly catch me on the climbs. I enjoyed having a chat to John each lap and it certainly made the time pass far more quickly despite the conditions. As the night started to approach the rain was getting harder and the track was starting to have huge puddles form across it. It was often luck if you could ride a whole lap without unclipping or without sliding out especially with light weight fast tyres!

At 8pm the race was put on hold and I really wasn't surprised. The rain was falling so hard it was becoming difficult to see but the track conditions weren't really getting much worse. I was lucky to be running NiteRider 1200 lights that are amazing and I felt sorry for those with less because of the track conditions. I was getting so much mud in my eyes despite awesome glasses and I was glad to be able to give them a rest.

I woke at 5am (ready for the announcement of whether the race would restart) to find that one of my eyes was swollen and unable to open properly due to the amount of mud that had snuck in. The eye wasn't focusing well and I thought I could be in a bit of trouble. In the end I hung out with the first aid guys for a while and soaked and washed out my eye. With the race not restarting until 8:30am for me, my eye had a chance to recover.

Heading out at 8:30am I had a three minute head start on John. I know he is a fitter rider so I was considering just riding easy for a lap and letting him catch me so I could ride with him for two hours before racing him in the last few laps. I was talked into having a go and so I started off pretty hard trying to maintain the gap. We were very close for the first 1.5hrs before John had a few bike issues and the time gap grew.

By the time midday came, I was pretty keen to come across the line and shower up! A big thanks need to go out to JetBlack Products and Pivot bikes for getting me the bikes sorted in time. I think they are going to be awesome 24hr bikes! Already they seem to be a lot more plush and I can't wait to get them set up properly. The guys working on my bikes during the race were fantastic. Jen always likes a hand with the bikes as it allows her to focus purely on the food stuff.

I need to also thank Gordon Street Cycles for getting the mud off the bikes post race, Adidas glasses for keeping most of the mud out, Jen for playing in the rain and sorting my nutrition (and washing my muddy clothes) and Shotz nutrition.

JetBlack Sydney 24hr

2010-02-11T11:32:00.001+11:00

This is the local news papers story

Ill get a race report up at some stage!

Kona 24hr

2009-12-06T16:01:00.005+11:00

There was much thought and discussion before I planned on attempting the Kona this year. Forrest is not an easy place to get to when you live in Port Macquarie and with plane tickets close to $500 each I almost attemped this race without support from Jen. In the end we decided it would be good practice and I was keen to try out the new lights and new strategies for 24hr racing. In the end, Rich from Dirt Works was our chauffeur and drove us the 2hrs to Forrest from Melbourne Airport and back again early on the Monday morning, what a champion! Norm and Jess Douglas put us up at their place on the Friday night (and cooked us a feast) and we were grateful to not be in a tent as an incredible light show and storm hit Forrest. I was not looking forward to other muddy 24hr!

In the morning we awoke to a fantastic looking day and apparently most of the track had dried out during the early morning before the race started. Lap 1 was a little wet but as time ticked on the track dried out and became really fun. That is, until it started raining. It only poured down for a relatively short period of time however the constant sprinkle during the late afternoon saw the track deteriorate quickly. There was one particular section I was really enjoying skating along that finally got removed as it was getting dangerous.

At the start I initially just rode to heart rate and let the fast riders take off. About 4hrs in I finally caught up to the lead guys which included Dirt Works rider Troy Bailey. I took a more consistent pace and maintained this as I rode away from them. When the rain really started to come down I was questioning my motivation but I thought this would be great training just in case it rains at the World Championships! A spare bike and Norm in pits kept my transitions fairly quick and my bikes rolling nicely. I kept Norm working hard by covering my bikes in mud each lap.

The Kona has three separate loops, a first day loop, a night loop and a second day loop. I was starting to enjoy the first day loop when the night one started. This loop was significantly shorter than the first. I managed to do my 10th lap on the first loop whilst the rest of the solo field did their 10th lap on the shorter night loop which meant the lead I was developing was reduced significantly. I was looking forward to trying out my new lights so with a few quick transitions my lead continued to open up. The new lights are fully programmable via the computer. I set the twin lights so that the flood beam was on 600 lumens and the spot was on 50 lumens. This was perfect to get 5hrs of life per battery and, combined with a 200 lumen headlight, it was an awesome setup. Thank you NiteRider for the new 1200 system!

I'm keen to see how the NiteRider 600 would go on my head as well as the 1200 on the bars. I guess I will find out at the JetBlack Sydney 24hr!

Ben Culton was a lifesaver in this race organising a pizza run. What a legend, it worked a treat and gave me something to look forward to each lap. By about 2am I had caught up to Brad Davies who was in second place and rode with him for a while until I could see Andrew Bell up ahead. I planned on riding with Andy for a while but he got caught in traffic and I just kept on keeping on!

When the sun came up it was time to look forward to a new loop. I was, until we hit the first hill and my legs were starting to feel the toll of pushing through the mud for the last 18hrs. I think I ended up using granny gear to get up this hill the last couple of laps. This last loop had a few little technical logs but featured some really cool flowy single track that unfortunately ended with a final climb back to the last downhill. I started doing the maths around 8am and was trying to work out how many laps I needed to complete. I ended up passing a very sore Andrew Bell on my last lap. I felt sorry for him as his knee was giving him grief. Hopefully with a bit of training leading up to the worlds this guy will be back to kick some butt!

I was quite happy to call it a day at around 11:15am and get a quick nap before (and during) presentation!

The race had a more professional feel to it this year and I think FGP did a great job of managing a wet race.

I need to thank Jen and Norm (my terrific pit crew), Jess and Norm for their hospitality, Rich for transporting us (and Alicia for putting us up on the Sunday night) and my sponosors Dirt Works, JetBlack Products, NiteRider, Adidas eyewear, Shotz Nutrition and Gordon Street Cycles.

Sydney Fat Tyre Festival

2009-12-05T17:31:00.004+11:00

I was looking forward to this race in a strange kind of way. The chance to race Gordo and ride around some awesome sweet trails. When we arrived at the track on the Saturday I lost a fair bit of enthusiasm as the temperature was ridiculous. I made a huge effort to drink heaps of fluid but wasn't too confident on how well I would be able to tent it up in the heat.

The race started with a dash for cash and I wasn't really too interested in busting myself for this. I started on the hard tail at a more sustainable pace and was happy with my comfortable first lap. In the second lap Nick Both charged off and set the fastest lap of the day. I increased the pace slightly during lap three and we caught back up to Nick. During the next lap my over-hydrating was taking its toll and I had to stop for a quick nature break. Gordo saw the opportunity and away he went. I wound the pace up a little and was pulling him back at times but a few uncoordinated transitions (on my behalf) and the increasing temperature gave me good reason to take it easier, jump on the dually, look after myself and most importantly have some fun.

This is a fantastic track on the dually, there are sections where you just hold on and trust the bike to soak up all the bumps with a grin from ear to ear. I started to take 2 drink bottles each lap, one of ice water to pour over my head and one to drink down at the start of the lap before it could heat up. I was quite happy the race was shortened to 6hrs as the temp hit 43deg. My legs enjoyed the extra rest required for the Kona 24hr the week after...

The Highland Fling

2009-11-12T21:17:00.004+11:00

I was really looking forward to the Highland Fling. With the quality of top level riders it was going to be very interesting to see how the race would unfold. As I lined up to the start I was kitted out in a Ritchey Costume which felt a little different. Normally I'd be racing in the BMC red kit but as BMC has left DirtWorks I was happy to wear the Ritchey gear. I do actually use their seat, seatpost, handle bars, stem and tyres!

As the race started I seemed to drop back to midfield and was questioning my high end fitness. I tried to sit in as efficiently as I could but most of the first section of the track is incredibly bumpy as we headed across freshly ploughed land and paddocks.

It appeared as though we had a massive group of elite riders and I was wondering how the race would end up if we are still all together at the finish. About 2km from the transition heading up one of the last hill in the first stage Perren Delacour rode off the front of the group. He wasn't moving along really quickly but no one wanted to do the work to chase across. I quickly punched across the gap and had a quick rest on his back wheel before offering to do some turns before the transition.

Coming into the first untimed section I was about 20 seconds ahead of the rest of the field. It turns out Pez was actually racing the 50km event. The untimed section is a 400-600m section of road for which you are given 5mins to ride. If it takes you more than 5mins to get along this section your time starts again. When the other boys caught up, those who knew how the timing worked wanted me to go out first. In the end another Elite ride who had caught up rode over the timing mat and everyone else followed him. This meant I started the second section with the rest of the Elite riders however, I was actually 20secs in front.

The second section is the toughest part of the race. There are some fairly big climbs and the last time I raced in Elite I got dropped at "The Wall". This time, I was determined to hang on longer than this part of the track. Heading up one of the earlier climbs Matt Flemming charged off. I started to go with him but knew I wouldn't be able to hold the intensity he was pushing. He rode off before Hamish Elliot bridged the gap to join him. The two of them worked together and had developed a significant lead around the half way mark in this stage. I managed to lose a drink bottle in this stage and had to stop to fill up as we worked on chasing down Matt and Hamish. When we did catch up Craig Gordon, who had been sitting comfortably in the pack, attacked off the front in what looked like his toughest gear! This is where the race really split up and Shaun and I worked to try and minimise our losses.

In the last transition we were told we were 2 mins 20 sec behind Gordon. We though this was achievable to chase down and we started swapping off like crazy. My legs were feeling the toll from the hills earlier however we were pretty keen to give it 100%. About half way through this last stage we were told Gordon was 5mins up the road. I was thinking surely we were gaining time on him at out pace. Half an hour later we get told that Gordo was 10mins up the road. At this stage the race focus moved from chasing down Gordo to fighting for second place. I had around 20secs on Shaun so all I had to do was stay with him. This proved not to be a simple task! At the end of the race he produced some crazy strong attacks. Each one I was able to catch back up and in the end rolled across the line behind Shuan, but really 12secs in front!

Another big thanks to Dirt Works, my mate Scottie and Jen.

Scott 24hr Australian Championships

2009-10-13T09:46:00.007+11:00

Looking ahead to the world championships to be held at Mt Stromlo, Canberra next year I have a lot of training to do! Right now my legs are pretty sore even after riding to heart rate and trying to take it easy on all the climbs. I guess when you are doing over 9500m of vertical climbing it doesn't matter how hard you go it is still going to hurt.

I love how the CORC club run their 24hr events in the middle weekend of the NSW school holidays as it gives me a chance to get down to the event and allows time for a sleep in on the Monday morning.

We rego'd on the Friday afternoon and enjoyed the hospitality of Jason and Kylie McAvoy. We were treated to a tasty high carb dinner and a comfy bed. What a luxurious way to prepare for the big race!

After sleeping as long as possible on the Saturday morning, we arrived at Stromlo around 10am with heaps of time to get sorted. I think Craig (aka Spoon Boy) and I have come up with an optimal tyre pressure for the z-mins and I relied on Craig's digital pressure gauge to ensure I had the perfect tyre setup. Jen pulled out my gloves and found some significant wear so it was time to chat to Jetblack about some new race gloves. While I was there I managed to get my hands on the new NiteRider 200 which did a perfect job of providing a bright spot to shine through the NiteRider Trinewt.

On the start line there were around 200 solo riders. Being able to start on our bikes gave us a head start on the team riders who had to run to their bikes. I decided to start on my hardtail as I have been enjoying this bike recently. On the gun Shane Taylor worked his way off the front and had established a significant gap before having to stop and ask for directions around the midified first lap. Once he had his bearings, he was off again. I was determined to ride to heart rate and let him go trying to keep my HR under well under 165bpm.

The team riders just started to catch us at the top of the first climb and I enjoyed trying to race them down the awesome downhills. Once the first climb was out of the way most of the track was downhill. There were some sections that I really looked forward to each lap.

At the end of the first lap I had caught back up to Shane and we rode around for a couple of laps together. During the 3rd lap I was rudely cut off by an ADFA rider who was lucky not to cause a serious crash. We must have been doing around 35km/hr heading down to a single file bridge when this rider made solid contact with my handle bar as he barged through. It might have saved him two seconds! I later decided to overtake this speedstar just to gently show him that he may not be as fast as he likes to think. I don't think anyone should be so serious they have to ride dangerously.

Once I settled the pace down again I did a few more laps on the hardtail and made an attempt to make the longest wheelie mark mine. I held it for a couple of laps and I take my hat off to the rider who constantly beat my mark, very impressive!

I made the swap to the dually just after the 4hr mark to have a little more fun. It felt like cheating riding the Fourstroke 01. It is just as fast as the hardtail just with the super comfort of four inches of travel. I did one more lap on the hardtail while the lights were getting put on the dually then I stayed on it to the end of the race.

Heading out on the first night lap I was really interested to see how it would differ to the day lap. It was definitely smoother and faster and it was nice to have a change during the race. I was sure I had sufficient sleep on the Friday night but I really found it hard to stay awake during the night. I kept questioning if it was a lack of energy rather than sleep but it was sleep deprivation that made me back the pace off. The lights were fantastic and I got to use the new NiteRider 200 lights on my helmet during this race. They seem to have a more obvious bright spot which is perfect for a helmet light.

When the sun came up in the morning I forgot about being tired and once again started to enjoy the day laps. Just like last year Ed Hood kept me company as we rode out the last few laps. During those laps, most people had accepted their race position and the atmosphere on the track seemed a whole lot more relaxed. It kept me entertained racing people down the awesome downhills over the back section. On the last lap I approached the beginner downhill and sped up to try and get past two riders who appeared to be socially riding around the track. They, like me, were after a clean run down this section and were deliberately stalling. When I called track they yelled back at me "no chance!" and took off prompting a chase down the hill. How fun was this track and the opportunity to race anyone and everyone down it!

Coming across the line I was tempted to pull a wheelie however there were no requests so I just rolled over the line. A couple of post race interviews later and I was happy to take a seat and chat to the other competitors, especially the school group that came down from my school. I had totally neglected fluid replacement after the event and almost fainted at one stage when talking to some of the kids, oops!

I need to thank Jen for supporting again and giving up another weekend. I guess I do owe you a few now! It was also great to have some of my family at the event and everyone else who helped get me on the line.

A big thanks goes out to my sponsors BMC, Dirtworks, NiteRider, JetBlack, Gordon Street Cycles, Shotz Nutrition, Phoenix Gym and Adidas Eyewear.

Check out the sprint at around 50 seconds

2009-09-23T20:23:00.000+10:00

Australian Marathon Championships

2009-09-22T14:43:00.004+10:00

I really didn't have this race on my calender at the start of the year. I don't fancy myself as a fantastic 100km rider however with some encouraging results this year I could almost justify a crazy weekend flying to Melbourne and back in time for work on Monday.

Arriving in Melbourne I was met by Beth, a friend's friend who got me up to the race. Jess Douglas and the crew from Forrest worked out accommodation and managed to get me on the start line (carbo loaded on all you can eat pizza) on time.

Looking at the starting list Sunday morning I knew we were in for a tough race. I was picking Ben Mather to win after an impressive King Of the Mountain and Sprint King result at the Grafton to Inverell the weekend before. I finished a fair way off the top guys in that race!

I'm not sure how I manged to get a position on the front row but being in front was a short lived experience. When the gun fired the pace was on. The first part of the track was through some undulating fire roads that sorted out who would be racing. There was a clear change in scenery as we came out into farmlands and hit some steeper climbs and slippery wet sections. It was here the top group got away and I wasn't part of it. I got left off the back with James Williamson and I worked pretty hard to catch up to Shaun Lewis who was just off the back. After a quick rest behind Shaun I managed to catch back up to the main group. There were a few attacks at this stage of the race however the pace backed off significantly which allowed me to work on recovery.

From about the 30km to 90km mark the pace was quite reasonable there were a few climbs that kept testing the legs however I was enjoying how comfortable this race pace felt. With about 12km to go the group started to split slightly. Coming into the last drink station the group of about 10 started to spread out. Going into the last checkpoint at 10km to go the leaders were around 200-300m away. I needed to stop and grab a bottle. There would have been 200 bottles on this table and it seemed like ages before I found mine. Throwing the bottle into the cage I knew I had some work to do to catch anyone. A couple of minutes down the road I caught up to Hamish Elliot and passed him testing my legs as I put on xc race pace. Another 2-3 mins and I caught up to Matt Flemming and snuck in front of him before a single track climb with 6km to go. At the top of the single track climb I caught and passed Shaun Lewis and Nick Menager. I caught Ben Mather and Murray Spink at the 4km sign and slowed down to their pace as there was no where to overtake. I rode with them into the last piece of single track (which I wasn't aware of at the time!) and watched as Murray slowly make a gap on us. I was trying to get past to stay with Murray but Ben, being such a strong rider, had all of my overtaking lines covered. Neil Vander Ploeg managed to catch up to me and I was annoyed the he managed to get past both me and Ben! I finally manged to get past Ben and caught up to Neil. He was smashing the pace but it was too late, Murray had developed a significant gap and finished 3 seconds ahead! Maybe next year....

2009-09-22T10:03:00.001+10:00

Photo credit ©Akuna Digital

This is a great photo that summarised the finish and result. It is from the cyling new webiste. I'll fill the details in later today.

Pre race news

2009-09-21T10:08:00.002+10:00

Cycling News, before the Australian Marathon Championships

Coff Harbour Pleasure and Pain Marathon

2009-08-11T18:20:00.007+10:00

It was a tough decision weather to race the Pleasure and Pain in Coffs Harbour or travel down to the Sydney 12hr. The local club made the decision easy with the offer of accomodation for a media shoot! Free accomodation, I had planned on staying in the back of the wagon. The pleasure and pain had already began, the pleasure of getting a good night sleep rather than the pain of trying to sleep in the car!

Turning up to registration I still hadn't seen an entry list but if they were giving me the no.1 race plate I begain to think there may not be any superstars, I was wrong! The Rockstar boys had decided to drive up from Sydney, Mark Fenner brought with him a select group, Mark Fendo and local Geoff Gilchrist where amoung other fast riders on the elite start list.

Saturday afternoon I managed to get a quick sneak around the track and it looked great. I was pretty keen to be riding four laps of this course. I was suprised with how many other people were out from all over the state and QLD to check out the course. There was one section of the track that Evan Jeffery took us on. We followed him with complete trust, at one stage we didn't realise he was takingn us on the A line along a log ride until we had committed. I recall complete silence along this section of the ride as we all held our breath. It was very funny, I found I always managed to ride the far easier B line during the race!

The race started with everyine taking off at the same time. I wasn't too keen to be eating dust down the first couple of hills and recall sprinting off the line despite my plan for a conservative first couple of laps. I somehow also managed to end up on the front of the group for most of the first lap, which I thought was pretty quick. The second lap was even faster as Hamish Elliott moved to the front. He attacked us about half way through this lap however, managed to lose a spring from his derailer and was unable to finish.

I think I moved up the front again to keep the pace going until Troy Glennan put the power down. This guy is a machine, every fireroad he was smashing me. There were several times where I was keen to let him ride away. At about the 70km mark Troy went straight into some bunting as he was possibly going a little too hard. I snuck through in front of him and tried to maintain the rediculous pace he was setting. I looked behind me as I went through transition and I had about a 40 second lead. I decided to give it everything to see how long I could stay away from the chasing riders. At the top of each hill I was glancing behind to see how I was fairing. With 12km to go I was only 20 seconds in front. My legs were starting to fatigue and I was starting to question my muscular strength. I was still trying to hit each hill in hard gears however I could only spin over the top of each hill in a lowish gear as the effects of a solid pace from the start were being felt. The last 5km of each lap are mostly downhill and I new it would be hard to make up time here. I just needed to pick safe lines and not fall off! I rode as slowly as I could up the final hill to the finish as my legs were pretty smashed and finished around 1o seconds ahead of Mark Frendo. Troy Glennan came in third. The final time was just under 3hr 59min. That's a pretty fast 100km race!

I need to throw a massive thanks to the Coffs Harbour club for their work on the track and running the event. It was a massive improvement on the previous years where they have had event promoters try and organise the race. They looked after me really well and provided very generous prizes to riders in all categories.

My BMC was awesome, it was a little strange to ride a hardtail again but it felt great. Check out the superlight wheels sometime if you get the chance.

I think my nutritional strategy for the 100km event is almost perfect. I ran a bottle of water on the bike that I barely touched, Shotz electrolyte in the camelbak and Shotz bars and Gels for carbohydrate. I really did feel like I had heaps of energy all race. I just need to work on the strength!

Gordon Street Cycles are also an important part of my race. Once Darcy has checked over my bike before a race, I know it will run perfectly!

WORLD MOUNTAIN BIKE CHAMP AT PINE CREEK

2009-08-09T18:27:00.000+10:00

WORLD MOUNTAIN BIKE CHAMP AT PINE CREEK

JASON ENGLISH WINS THE PLEASURE AND PAIN

2009-08-09T18:24:00.000+10:00

JASON ENGLISH WINS THE PLEASURE AND PAIN

Solo 24hr World Championships!

2009-08-02T19:52:00.002+10:00

This year I was a little more prepared for this race. 15 months ago I was lying in a hospital bed with a neck brace and not being able to move I was wondering if I was able to ride again or race. Obviously God had other plans which I am thankful for!

Last year I suffered in the run and never got to race with the top riders. My plan this year was to try and stay with the fast guys for at least the first lap and then back off if the pace was too fast. There was a part of me that wanted to get into the single track first to try and see if I could put some time into the other riders.

We were called onto the start line 10 minutes before the race and the temperature was 36 degrees.

At the end of the run I was almost first on the bike. When I rolled out of pit lane I ended up right on the back wheel of Tony who was charging. He was smashing it, I kept telling myself to take it easy however at the top of the first climb when the chance came I snuck first into the single track. This single track must have been about 8km with no chance of passing so I really didn’t want to get stuck behind a slower rider.

During the first couple of laps I managed to make up little bits of time on the rough down hill sections so I could take it a little easier on the up hills. By doing this I knew Tony would be working a little harder as he wasn’t keen to be racing behind. In fact after a couple of laps I had to let him go as he was going way too hard for me. Cary, who was sitting in third place, caught up to me fairly quickly after a couple of laps and he too wasn’t keen to be chasing. By about four hours in I had decided I need to get a coach as I clearly was missing some fitness that these two riders had.

In the first eight hours I think we all had a chance to take the lead. The only way I went past these guys was during their pit transitions. I kept rolling through with a super organised and experienced team while the other riders seemed to be taking small breaks each lap. Around the eight hour mark the temperature also dropped significantly and I started to feel really good and put in some faster lap times and got ahead of the other riders. Cary then caught me back again and the race continued. Tony didn’t stay behind for long and quickly began putting time into us. By 1am I was down over 6 minutes. Tony must have retired shortly after this time and I once again managed to get ahead of Cary during pit transitions and developed a slight lead around 3 am.

By the early morning it was still a very close race, and I started to feel good again after possibly not hydrating sufficiently to combat the 36 degree heat during the first part of the race.

I was getting the lap splits so I knew how far behind second place was and I was looking for an opportunity to stop earlier than the 24hrs if I had a sufficient buffer. This was not because I was out of energy or didn’t feel good. It was more about not wanting to get bounced around on another lap of the quickly deteriorating track. At the start of the race the whole course was rideable. It severely lacked flow and smoothness but by the end of the race it developed quite amazing drops, bumps and lumps as any dirt between the pine roots was eroded. In the 24hrs I think I managed 360-370km which is significantly less than what is achievable on Australian tracks. I am really looking forward to next year’s world champs where we will quite likely see no granny gear climbs and some super sweet flowing trails.

I came through transition at 10.50am at the end of lap 21 meaning I had one more lap to complete in order to finish the race as a rider had to pass over the line after 11am in order to prevent a DNF. Coming across the line I couldn’t believe the media attention. It was crazy. I didn’t know where to look, where to go, what to say!

It was great that my support crew of Jen and Craig were clearly recognised as these guys worked so hard during the race to ensure I didn’t need to stop and the bikes were going fantastic.

This year I relied on some essential financial sponsors.

The CORC Club.

Dirt Works / BMC

JetBlack Products

Phoenix Gyms in Canberra

This year I also need to thank:

Lloyd and the boys from Gordon Street Cycles for organising my very cool race jerseys and keeping the bikes going when in AUS.

BMC bikes, the two Fourstroke 01 bikes meant I could swap bikes at any time and not be disadvantaged with a inferior back up bike as they are both awesome. The guys at DirtWorks have built them up with some really nice parts from Ritchey, DT Swiss, Stans, Race Face and Manitou.

Shotz nutrition have been very generous in their provision of product to meet my massive training and race needs.

JetBlack products also had me kitted out with enough gloves to suit the crazy weather in the mountains and amazing NiteRider products to scare away the grizzley’s.

Adidas eyewear this year had me covered for all conditions.

World Championships Tomorrow!

2009-07-25T13:30:00.002+10:00

Today was spent carbohydrate loading, getting rego packs, jumping in front of cameras and bludging in the hot tub!

The bikes are sorted and look great thanks Craig. We have bike stuff all over our little place in preparation for the move out to the race track early tomorrow morning.

If you are interested in following the race, it starts 4am Sunday Australian time.
The links worth checking out are:
http://twitter.com/WSC24
http://24wsc.com/
http://24wsc.com/athletes-tweets/

Fuellin' up

2009-07-24T14:47:00.002+10:00

I went for my last couple of laps around the course today with the heart rate monitor on to fine tune race intensity. I think the lap times are going to be fairly quick this year. The track is looking good. They have excluded the solo riders from the fast flowy fun wall ride section....

Thursday night was also a time for the Aussie dinner. I think we had over 40 riders and support crew. I'm feeling sick just looking at the photo of the pizza I ate after a large pasta!

Reconnaissance Mission

2009-07-23T11:23:00.003+10:00

With only 3 days to go before the race the solo track was finally being marked out. So instead of exploring other tracks around the Canmore area I spent some serious time in the hot tub before checking out the track with some Aussies. The track has changed now to take out the coal chute, which isn't really surprising as it was getting rutted up very quickly. I'm starting to get a little bit excited about the track. It has quite a few fun sections and the climbs are quite reasonable. We spent today deciding the best gear to climb each hill. I think the lightweight BMC's are going to be awesome!

2 ride Tuesday

2009-07-22T16:21:00.002+10:00

Another 2 rides today. Ride 1 was a cruisy ride up behind the Silvertip Golf Course. A fun little track with some challenging creek crossings and technical downhills with some rewarding flowy sections.

The second ride was a night ride around the race track. We had 2 cans of bear spray with us as apparently the things like to eat after the sun goes down. There is a challenging section in the track called the coal chute that we were pretty keen to see in the dark. Its condition has already deteriorated with people practicing it. I think it will be pretty messed up during the race. The picture here is at the end of the ride featuring Chris Smith, Craig Armour and 2 silly riders who left their helmet lights on for the timed photo....

2009-07-21T14:58:00.002+10:00

Today was the first ride in the "race kit" it is covered in Gordon Street Cycles, BMC, JetBlack, Niterider and green and gold of course!

Today was another 2 rides. Ride 1 was some random exploration with Chris Smith. This pic was taken on that ride just out of Canmore.

Ride 2 was a lap around the solo only course which has now been marked out. The course so far looks great. I really hope they don't change anything and I really hope it doesn't rain!

Bear no Banff

2009-07-20T13:43:00.002+10:00

Waking up today with slightly sore legs I convinced Craig a ride to Lake Louise would possibly be a little to far. I know you are thinking 'soft' but I was really keen to head over to Banff and ride to the top of the Gondola. Apparently it is a massive climb but worth it for the views. Chris Smith joined us for the trip and we headed up to the Nordic Centre where the trail heads beside the river and on to Banff. We must have rode to the far end of the Nordic Centre where we were stopped by rangers who were ensuring no one took this path due to the bear activity in that area. We ended up staying at the Nordic Centre and managed to ride just over a lap of the teams riders track for the world champs. Apparently they have a slightly longer track and as a solo rider I get to enjoy more single track and less climbing. Just under 4hrs today with a harder ride likely tomorrow!

Big K Country

2009-07-19T15:05:00.001+10:00

Today was a visit to the “Big K Country” and it didn’t disappoint. A 2 hour ride with 2 massive uphills and 2 massive downhills. The first downhill reminded me of something like Stromlo, mostly smooth and heaps of rocks to dodge except it was 10 times longer than anything there! The second downhill was quite rooty and we convinced both the other riders with us that they should be installing a Stan’s tubeless conversion kit after they both got pinch flats even when running over 40psi! The picture here shows off the view at the top of the second climb. I’m impressed by the amount of people out riding, even out in areas out of town.

In the afternoon Jen came out for a bear hunt around Canmore, all we found were white tail deer and elk. She was a little too scared to get a pic!

Rest day

2009-07-18T14:23:00.003+10:00

Well today was a day off the bike. Just a sleep in, and exploration of Canmore which resulted in a sample of local produce.

Tomoorow Darren is taking Craig and I off to the "Big K Country" for an epic ride. After that we may show Jen a fun trail to Banff depending what the weather brings, it is supposed to be 31deg tomorrow!

Having Fun!

2009-07-17T14:13:00.004+10:00

2 good rides today, I think Craig and I did around 4hrs with about 30mins of getting lost / hiking! We rode from Canmore towards Banff and took every back trail we could find on our way to Banff via the goat trail. We then rode past the golf course and headed back along the Bow River through the Nordic Centre on the way back to town. It was great to get a big ride in.

In the afternoon I had planned to meet up with a road group but ended up getting a little lost.... and missed the group. It wasn't all bad as I got to cruise around the outskirts of Canmore. I keep finding new trails each time I ride, this place is great!

The Nordic Centre

2009-07-16T14:24:00.003+10:00

The 24hr World Championships are being held at the Nordic Centre here in Canmore and today both my tour guides took me riding around this venue. It does have some cool trails. I am hoping this year they avoid the ridiculously rooty trails and give us some smooth fast flowy stuff!

Ride 1 was with Darren Freeman(pictured) who has been a local in Canmore for over 10 years after moving from Port Macquarie. He took me on some awesome trails both in and around the Nordic Centre. I'm keen to head back again tomorrow. Bring on the sunshine!

Ride 2 was a shop ride with Rebound Cycles. These guys took us straight up to the Nordic Centre and took us around another sweet loop. I think I was enjoying it a little too much and have been applying ice all night as a result. Hopefully the leg will be fine for a big day tomorrow. I might even try and sneak into a roadie training session on the mtb...

Another raining day

2009-07-15T15:44:00.005+10:00

Waking up today to more rain, I had planned another road ride. That's right, a road ride in an area with some of the best mountain biking in the world!

Craig and I headed out around midday as the road started to dry out and I was optimistic the rain would stay away. After 30 minutes it was pouring but we were already wet so we continued. On arriving in Banff the rain started to ease and I was keen to find a hill to warm up again. We headed up to the Banff hot springs (pictured) and then decided to take an off road route home rather than riding back along the highway.

There were some cool little trails we found dropping down from the springs that joined up to the goat track trail that took us back to Canmore. We were filthy but it was good to get another 3-4 hours in today.

Monday

2009-07-14T15:39:00.002+10:00

Well the weather was a little too good yesterday, constant light rain kept me off the trails. I think the rain finally stopped at about 5pm so Craig and I went out for a light roadies for a couple of hours. I got a little distracted at about our turn around point and we ended up riding along a pretty cool creek in a tiny little town called exshaw. This is a picture of the tiny bridge that runs through the town. If it rains tomorrow I think we are riding to Lake Louise and back. A nice 170ish kms!

In Canada

2009-07-13T14:46:00.005+10:00

Well there is only 2 weeks now to the 24hr Solo World Championships, my goal between now and then is to post a pic and a few words each day about where I am riding.

Today was awsome, we arrived in Canmore and with limited sleep I hit up some of the sweetest trails this little town has to offer. I think we got about 3hr in, which is pretty good for a rest day. It's all about riding for fun now!

Check out this cool log ride. I'll try and find some north shore stuff in the next few days. There are some really dedicated trails builders around this area and they do a great job!

Forrest 6hr

2009-07-07T18:23:00.003+10:00

What an action packed weekend.

It all started with a drive to Newcastle to fly to Melbourne. On reaching Melbourne sat morning BMC rider Troy Bailey pick me up and drove me the 2hrs south to Forrest where we arrived at about 2.55pm. The cyclocross race started at 3.00pm so with some crazy bike assembly ( as my bike was still boxed from the flight) I was ready to try out this strange sport.

I think this is the first crosser race that the Forrest club has hosted and the first lap was a little slow as people worked out where the course went. The second lap the speed increase and I somehow managed to make a little lead. I know my running isn't great and this race just showed that. The race involved getting off your bike and jumping over barriers or logs, running through sand and mud before jumping back on the bike and sprinting to the next section. Possible one of the toughest 45min races I have ever done, but I scored a cool fox tail for the fastest lap!

I spent Saturday nigh with Norm and Jess Douglas who did an awesome job of looking after me. They are involved heavily in the Forrest club and it was obvious how passionate they are about their mountain biking.

I wasn't sure how the weather would hold up during the race but Sunday morning looked promising. When we were marshaled to the line I knew I was aiming to see how long I could ride with Beijing Olympic rider Dan McConnell. I think I managed to hang in for about 4 hours and I had a couple of goes where I got away from him briefly. I was never going to stay away for long especially with his support riders!

The track was great fun. It took a few laps to build the confidence to hit the berms hard and I looked forward to heading out each lap. The weather changed constantly during the race from being stinking hot to freezing cold and rainy!

It was really good to have a tough race and I'm stoked with how hard we were racing. A big thanks goes out to Gavin who I recruited Sunday morning to feed me and Dave who got me to the airport early Monday morning. Norm and Jess for looking after everything and Troy for getting me from the airport.

STATE MOUNTAIN BIKE CHAMPS

2009-06-30T19:54:00.001+10:00

STATE MOUNTAIN BIKE CHAMPS

Looks like my school team is doing alright!

Training

2009-06-28T17:04:00.003+10:00

I'm now thinking I should be winding up the training a little. I got about 140km into my legs before the saturday club road race which turned into one of my hardest days yet on the bike. I wish I had of been doing this all year as it busted me! I didn't even make it to my usual sunday morning bunch ride! Hopefully the legs will come good for some easy riding during this week before the Forest 6hr Championships!

ENGLISH SET TO TAKE ON THE WORLD

2009-06-23T17:53:00.000+10:00

ENGLISH SET TO TAKE ON THE WORLD

Too Wet

2009-06-20T15:00:00.003+10:00

After a few heavy days raining and more predicted I'm going to give the Appin 8hr event a miss. I was really looking forward to a good training ride this weekend as the worlds are only 5 weeks away!

I'll put the money saved towards flights to get to Forrest for the 6hr championships. I think the 6hr will be a harder race and actually has some money on!

I managed to sneak in 4hrs this morning around the rain but I think thats all I'll do today, another 4-5 tomorrow and I'll be happy!

Weather permitting?

2009-06-19T09:41:00.002+10:00

I'm keen to try and get a few races in before I leave for Canada in 3 weeks. My plan is to race the 8hr this weekend and also the 6hr Forest Championships in 2 weeks time.

It has just been pouring in Port Macquarie and I'm not too keen to drive 6hrs each way for a ridiculously muddy race!

I guess I'll make that descision tomorrow pending a the weather forecast for Sunday...

The website

2009-06-16T10:44:00.002+10:00

Well the new website is making progress. I've been playing with a rough layout and flash. Check out the sponsors page, there is room for more! Now I just have to train more to justify having such great sponsors!

www.jasonenglish.info

testing times

2009-06-14T20:05:00.001+10:00

Hi all, just testing to see how well blogspot will meet all my blogging needs. Hopefully I'll have time to play with it around riding!