Hooked – YES. Dreaming of going back… almost daily.

Basically i have wanted to race track for a very long time but it just never came up until recently when Michael bought his KHS [aka Fuji by myself]. He started attending the Raw Track Series at Dunc Grey and I had decided to try at some point to make my way down and spectate. By the time I had a free friday Churchy had already brought a second bike, a second hand Felt which is bloody nice, which left his KHS as a spare.

So he offered me a ride. I at first didn’t take him up due on the offer but as the day drew closer that I could actually make it to the track, he mentioned again that I could borrow it. This time I agreed and decided to give it a go. We met up after work on the friday and thankfully I was there early enough to get my head around it a bit, without the usual rush before a weekday race.

After getting all kitted up we rolled out for a bit of a warm up. I had no issues at all until I hit the first bend and realised how fucken steep those bloody banks are. Rob Parbs was there as well and he explained you need to be traveling a min of 25km / hr to make it around the bank without sliding off it. After we hit the second bank at a faster speed I was still totally shitting myself and toyed with the idea of just rolling back into the center and sitting down for the night.

After the third or fourth warm up lap my confidence returned and I felt comfortable – but it was all only that way because of speed. The faster you go on the boards the more confident you become. We rolled back in and then waited around till my first race in novice.

Novice had 3 riders including myself. The two other riders were father and son. The son was about 15-16 I think so his father must have been a bit older than me. First race was 8 laps where we just rode the first 4 then it was a sprint to the finish for the the final 4. I found the race really easy as my form was way better than the other two.

Race 2 was a handicap with the three of us again but it was this race when I began to learn about track riding. It was pretty much the same except as the guy running it said to me – “your running last because your fucken fast” – lol. Having said that I was pwned this race. I just didn’t time anything right and as it turned out I ran out of gas with about 3/4 of a lap to go. I had gone out way to hard, and not paced myself properly so I basically died. Well I beat the son but the dad was about 4-5 bike lengths in front as he crossed the line.

For the final the son unfortunately had issues with his asthma so he couldn’t make the start line. Again it was a handicap start but we were both being paced this time by Div 1 riders [the fast dudes]. Told to ask the Div 1 rider to speed up as we felt fit, it again was a 4 x 4 race. 4 laps with our lead out guy then he would pull off and we had to sprint to the end. I was on the Div 1′s case the whole time to speed up. I don’t think he was expecting me to push him that much. I had sorted my pace and finish out and had taken the dad in the back straight before the final straight to the line.

Track bike racing is bloody amazing. With very little variants from wind, traffic, bush, trails etc it is an extremely pure form of racing where you have to know exactly what your body is capable of at all times. You have to set out with a plan and stick to it as much as possible. I really want to do some more but its just another discipline I can’t see happening mainly due to timings and budget. Track bikes are pretty cheap but another bike is just not going to happen. Not for a long time anyway. I’ve made a pact with myself. I am going to try my darnedest to make it to as many Summer Crit races I can this year.

As for Churchward. Well this video says it all. With silly working hours and no training he is still proving to be a great track rider. Having only moved up into Div 3 on the night he took a win and placed in most other races. As the MC says CHURCHWARD… and thanks for the bike, so good. oh so good.

Pic by Cameron

My second attempt I went up against Chris and he too smashed me. There were a few BMU guys there on the night and all of them rode really well. Chris did end up winning the entire round and made his way to the final. Unfortunately for him his first up opponent in the final went on to win the entire even and the bike. He did ride really well Chris and his times would have put him through on a couple of heats for sure. Both the winning guy and another older guy were pretty serious about it all. So serious they had bought their own rollers to warm up on. I took video of pretty much every heat but just haven’t had time to upload the yet.

Funnily enough at Raw Track this week [I will discuss that later] both these riders were competing… and the bike “lycra boy” won is for sale. lol

Chris vs Lycra from mwg on Vimeo.

I need to go to bed in readiness for tomorrows last ditch attempt at form improvements. It will be a serious gauge on next weeks performance.

Looks like we will be off to purchase a new iMac for the home next pay day – so render this as a heads up i will be offline for a little bit until the new purchase
Hoping my iPhone 4 will be at home soon as well.

Not knowing when the iPhone 4 will arrive is seriously doing my head in atm

This weekend WSMTB raced at Blue Gum Lodge. I remembered it being good, but not as good as it truly is. It is so unique this track. It almost never gets used but seems to hold up so well when the leaves are rolled of the top of it.
Its tight single track with a few grass/open sections that you can use to pass if necessary. The only issue with it is the fact it is a very short course so you need to have lower numbers on course.

I was feeling pretty good the morning of – after a 2 hour ride the day before hand where i didn’t really get my HR up very high at all. I lined up for B-Grade with pretty high expectations. I knew I hadn’t been that consistent with my training but still felt I would be carrying good form into the round.

Sadly that was about as good as it really got. I started really well, following Darren from WSMTB and I didn’t seem to be pushing to hard at all. I was in really close to him when we went over a left handed drop. Its a bit nasty the drop and I had forgotten about it. Basically being so close to Darren on such a winding single track meant I didn’t really see it coming up and sure enough I dropped the bike. I was supper pissed off with myself and at that point I dropped 2 spots. Without any real injury I got back up and continued on and felt i still had good pace.

By the third lap things weren’t as good as my start and I was starting to struggle a fair bit. I had taken back the two spots but I just didn’t have the legs and had to let them take me back, one of whom was Martin from Rockytrail. My target of a top 10 finish wasn’t going to happen today.

I was pretty devastated by then and felt shattered. I kept it upright till the finish and found I was still strong towards the end making it up all the technical sections reasonably easily.

Looking back at my times I am definitely in the right group. If I had been in C-Grade I would have come close to winning so I just need to put more time into my fitness [AGAIN! bahhhhh]. In the end I finished 14th which was 2nd last.
Insert blank silence here…

For Carbo the tubeless set up was bloody good and width stood all the battering Blue Gum dishes out. There was one incident where under power the chain jumped and I was so close to cracking my nuts on the top bar again [like the chain break last weekend].

CARBO
serious upgrades. now running conti race kings full tubeless thanks to churchward. the bike is just not the same. we were able to fit the tubless with just yellow rim tape and no tubes standard valves. the rear went up almost instantly but the front took about 10-15mins to get it to take. once up we dropped about 2 cups of latex in and i was off.

since then all i have ridden the bike twice. the first time was at yellomundee and it is amazing the difference. i was running 36psi in the rear, now i am at 28! and the front used to be 32 but now its 27. it feels like carbo is on rails and i am really loving the conti’s.

GROUP RIDE
A couple of weekends back – saturday morning – i did a short ride across the ridge to gross head south, dropped down bee nest and returned to the coffee shop at winmalee. there was about 10 of us mainly from WSMTB club but the main thing for me was riding with others – it was really enjoyable be be in a MTB bunch ride

CHAIN SNAP
I have had this happen before and it isn’t a pleasant experience at all but again at yellomundee when climbing on one of the fire trials i snapped a chain. I had fitted the tubeless the night beforehand and rather than a roadie ride in the morning i decided to meet up with terrace and churchward at yellomundee for some laps. churchward was late so the first efforts were with terrace and a few friends. Once churchward arrived i was informed [total idiot that i am] i had somehow forgotten to put my helmet on. i borrowed his car and drove back to pick it up.
Once i returned we did a few laps but best of all we attempted the technical section past max’s bridge about 5 times. i ended up making it up about 3 times. Was a good effort considering how difficult that section is.