mwg

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].

Its been weird of late. for some reason my motivations has fallen off and i don’t understand why. I need to pull it all back together otherwise things are going to go the wrong way for me which will be really disappointing after the build up of effort before a few weeks back.

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.

this BMC video is good enough to suck it in and just post it.
want = true
impec – black world

I still have a massive addiction to fixed gear.
This is a perfect example of why

very inspirational