04 Jul 2009

After three months away from racing I figured it was time to make a return to the race scene at the Rockhop 6hr.

I felt like my presence was missed as soon after arrival I was queried as to why I was there and whether I realized it was a mountain bike. I did realize and figured MTB race = beer and I had drank plenty of beer in the past few months so I should be set.

I had fond memories of the Beaconsfield course from when I raced in my debut solo race a couple of years ago. As with previous years, the course was super technical, a real mountain bikers trail with plenty of rock hopping and no shortage of climbing.

The first couple of laps served as an intensive mountain bike refresher course and I soon remembered how to ride over and thought things that I hadn’t tackled for a while. The field had settled down by this point and I had scored a couple of riding companions (James and Michael) to keep me company on the lonely solo journey.

Three hours had rolled over which marked the half way point of the race which also indicated that his was the longest time that I had been on a bike since the Otway Odyssey which was in February. Not too long after this my riding buddies had pulled the plug and I was once again left on my lonesome.

The bumpy descents and technical climbs were starting to take a toll by the four hour point, it was a rude reminder of how taxing riding off road is on the body. While the upper part of me was feeling pretty buggered, by some miracle my legs were still feeling good and still climbing well. I then realized that there was a really good chance I was actually going to finish this thing, provided I could hang onto the bike down the descents.

I struggled though the last couple of hours and rolled over the line in 4th place after completing 10 laps in 6 hours and 38 mintutes, clocking up over 100kms with close to 3500 metres climbing!

More photos here.

Posted by brett @ 10:12 pm

Leave a Reply

View older posts

Index: