Fine weather, fine times

I think if training is the only thing in the way of becoming a good rider, I just need to move to a good climate. As of the Scott, I was planning on just chilling for the rest of the year, training when I want, but not forcing myself out of bed at 6am (not that it ever actually happens). But this week has seen the most training Ive done in months. Why you ask? Its been hot, sunny and not too windy, so Ive been doing all the riding I can before it gets windy or cold or wet again.

Tuesday I did a ride out to Sutton before school, which ruined me for the rest of the day, but it was well worth it, had such a great time, then Wednesday night, I hit up the epic Mt Pleasant and Mt Ainslie, had ACTAS gym sesh yesterday, then I did a 70km ride out to Lake George after school this morning. Plus Ive been riding to school everyday, so me and the roadie have spent a lot of time together this week, were becoming good friends.

Tomorrow, I PLAN to do a road race out at Tharwa, its about 75km over 3 laps on a fast, picturesque undulating coarse. I'm going to have to ride out there, which as about 30km, so I hope I'm not too stuffed after that to have a good race, but I will have fun either way. After that, I will probably race the Club Championships at Uriara Homestead next weekend. Then there are two big races (for me at least), the IBM Classic which is doodles around the bottom of Corin dam for a bit before the 12km climb to the finish at Corin Forest, a climb I know pretty well, and can climb very well, followed by the ACT Hill Climb Champs, a TT up Corin Dam, another race I think I could do well in. There is also the return of Team Token Products to the Summer Crit Series and CORCs dirt crits once I fix my forks.

That's all for now, Ill let you know how the Tharwa race goes next week.

Scott 24 Punter

Had the Scott on the weekend. To sum it up, the coarse wasn't as good as last year, there were too many people and the first lap (which I did) was horrible. It missed the techy sections of the blue lap and the wicked DH of the red lap (there was a little though, and it was awsome). The race seemed to consist of riding on your own in the open boring sections and then meeting a train of punters at the start of any climb, descent or tech section. The race also proved ignorance is bliss, my dusk/night/dawn laps were so much fun, sliding around in the dust giving it everything. But the day laps were a bit sketchy. our team was pretty young (except me) but we had a pretty good race and got 2nd in the school category. A fun race as always, but I think they should go back to last years format, it worked really well.

Thank you CORC for supporting our team, catchya later dudes.

Crazy Yowies

I raced the You Yangs Yowie on the weekend, I got 9th place. I was a little worried as my forks were buggering up again and I only had about 40mm of travel, but as it turned out, it may not have been such a bad thing. It was a pretty small field and there was about 5km of fire road with a good climb at the end. I managed to ride with the lead bunch though this section and reached the top of the climb in about 5th place and stayed with them through the first small section of single track. However when we reached The Clam I didn't really know what was coming and had to walk and dropped my chain in the process. I caught a few others who had dropped off the back but lost them again when things got technical again. the last 15km of the track was super flat, super smooth and super easy. I was in the big ring half the time and just hammering away. At the end of the first lap I could see a guy off in the distance and made it my goal to beat him, I caught him on the big climb and we raced each other for the rest of the race until the final real climb of the lap before halfway when I got a good lead and opened up a good gap by the end of that lap. By the final lap I was feeling pretty smashed and decided to take it easy in the belief that I had an easy lead over this guy and everyone else was too far away, but the the descent at about halfway he caught me and the race was on again. He was way more skilled than me and had a good 30 second gap, but I managed to pull him in, and got away with out being chased. I ended up about 30 seconds in front at the finish in 9th place, 20 minutes off the lead.