Great start, and before long was smashing it down the long fire road. I had no idea of the course, didn't look at the course profile, just really went down to have fun. Get my body/bike/clothing sorted for the Highland Fling. That was the plan, and then a race number went on and it all changed.
The race was great. The start loop got down to 8 guys, and then the next lap down to 6 and on the last lap it was a group of 3 chasing 2 guys up the road. So many race tactics going on within teams, it was 4 Specialized guys against myself and a TORQ rider. They played it smart, but we did our best.
I ran my new 1 x 9 system, with a single 37 tooth chainring up the front matched to a 11 - 32 rear cassette. The low gear was spot on, but due to the large amount of flat trail I could have gone with a bigger gear. The only problem, is when you drop a chain, you have to stop and put the chain back on by hand. This happened around 5 times during the race, and when I finished around a minute of second place....this is stupid time to be lost. No matter, a device is coming that will solve this issue.
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In the end I rolled across for 4th, with 2nd/3rd just up the road. Lots of things went wrong, but so many went right. I dropped my bidon on the second lap, and did the mid 25 kms without fluid, but rode smart and didn't dig too deep to keep rolling fast. I got unlucky on both feedzones, having to stop as I dropped the bidon on the first feed, and needed to get more food on the second, but was lucky enough to put the hammer back down to get onto the bunch.
Climbing wise the 1 x 9 suited me fine, just the dropped chains were annoying and lost time. I also need to look into new grips that suit my hands (OzRiders have some new ones), new gloves and slightly bigger shoes. All these things to make racing the hundred mile highland fling a little easier...
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More photos/race report coming......
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