Castlemaine 6 hour

2 weeks in a row... and I reckon I'd make it 3 if it wasn't... well... um... Ok, no reason not to i guess. Think i probably should get over my cold first though.

This weekend Russell and I were teaming up in male pairs. Fired up with a new bike and the memories of an awesome race last year I was ready for a great day. Unfortunately the old lingering headcold decided to knock on the door again and I spent most of friday and saturday alternately shivering and sweating buckets. So I missed out on saturdays entertainment and "tapered" for Sunday.

The morning started great. 7am Russell arrives to pick me up. Start loading the car. Hmmm that rear car tyre looks a bit low.
It'll be ok, we'll pump it up at a servo. Continue loading car.
Is that tyre lower than before? Yep. Oh well, change time.
Hurdle #1, the hubcap. Downhill tyre lever got that off.
Hurdle #2, wheel nuts. Ok, the car has one of them undoing things, easy. Neg. Wrong size... Lucky the Hilux has the right size socket. Wheel changed and we are on the way.


About 10 mins down the road i get a txt from Mel, You Left Your Food Bag At Home. Damn! Turn around, back to the 'hoe and collect. Right. Ready.


An uneventful trip after that, arrived with plenty of time and ready to race, sort of.

Russell started the race and brought us in at the pointy end. Time to see if I was ok to race. Out to chase the front runners i managed to catch and pass Jack(Felt Racing) who was doing a double lap due to some logistial errors(turns out he was also on the flu train). So my legs were fine, head seemed ok and the lungs were as ok as you'd expect. Onto the new section of trail and I came up on the "dropoff". Not expecting it i might have come in a bit fast.

Back to transition and the first of our PRO changes, no Russell, look around, whoops there he is only a couple of seconds late. I can't talk. I did it on my next lap and the lap after that. I even did a lap sans gloves cause i wasn't ready, helmet on and go. Laps were too fast, 25-26 minutes.

I think by the 3rd or 4th lap we were in first and holding a 30second lead. The young guns of Torq were right there and it was on. Russ and I were hammering. The trail was magic. The bike, a rocket. I was crankin around having a ball. Launching over rock gardens, railing berms and flying up the hills.

Unfortunately we couldn't hold them off.

Funnily enough i think both Russ and I were happy to be back in second. With a healthy buffer to 3rd it was just a matter of railing around to finish.

Nice. Great trail, great race.

Big thanks to the whole Castlemaine crew for a great race and a great trail.

Think i may have coughed up a lung on the way home...

Flat tyre Jase?