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By the time I reached the rego queue for Sunday’s WSMTB club round, I was literally bursting with energy to race. I’ve been spending long days in the computer room at uni recently followed by night rides on the wind trainer and it’s added up to make me feel like I haven’t raced in years. I’ve even been finding myself wondering if I’ll still know how to ride singletrack next time I see it!Continue reading “Western Sydney XC Series – Rd 3”
Waking up in St Albans on Sunday morning, before the start of the Dirt Works 100km race, I was blown away by the amazing scenery, but wondered if I should be a little concerned that all I could see, in any direction, were large, green, misty hills. Fortunately I’d had a good, long look at the altitude map for the event and knew there were only two super steep ascents. The view of the hills around me now promised spectacular views this event would allow us as we traversed the terrain above.Continue reading “Dirt Works 100km Race”
Every year I enter the daylight accompaniment to the Solo Nats thinking, “Maybe I’ll race the whole six and six hour, maybe I’ll just race the three plus two and have a great Easter weekend catching up with mates, while watching the solo 24 hour riders shred themselves to pieces.”Continue reading “Solo Nats 6 + 6 hr Race”
As most bike fans would know by now, the Mont was shortened by an hour this year. Instead of the usual hectic midday start, riders participated in an ‘honour roll’ remembering James Williamson. When the fire road loop came back down the original climb, there was still a huge queue of riders waiting to go up the hill. After a week of reading words about Jimi on different forums and facebook, etc, seeing the amount of people affected at the Mont began to show me the enormity of Jimi’s influence in the mountain bike community. Once the rest of the event got underway I only had to walk about 10 or 20 metres from our team campsite before I bumped into an old friend, or a new one, and was constantly touched at how open people were about how they were coping and how they were helping others cope. By the end of the weekend, sadness was still in the air, but it was great to also share smiles and laughter with everyone after two days of endless singletrack and dust.Continue reading “Mont 23 Hour Race”
At the National XC Round held at Thredbo last weekend I was pretty keen to cash in on all the climbing I’d been doing in New Zealand, have a ball on the track around the golf course, and generally aim to build on my experience from the last round to put together a better, stronger race. Unfortunately everywhere we traveled this weekend had more or less flooded, and the golf course track had been removed in favour of some trails through the grass on the other side of the hill that quickly turned into a boggy mudfest.Continue reading “Jayco Aussie National Round 3 – Thredbo”
Kath Bicknell