Sunday, May 15, 2011

Beechworth 6 Hour

Cruized upto Beechworth with Mel on friday for the S.H.I.T.S. A 6 hour i've missed every year for some reason or another. This year i can tick it off the list and can confirm its a ripper!

Friday night we stayed in a B&B with Rhino, Marnie, Rich, Aleisha, Jack, Will and Andrew. In whats becoming a tradition we got a bit loose....
not the best prep for a 6 hour but we had a great night.

Next morning i solved the Heineken puzzle. Although i needed some help with the correct spelling.... Heinekin is not correct apparently
So we headed to the race site. Bit cold but it was lookin to be a clear day. I was on first lap dutys and suspected i might still be a bit "under the weather" from friday night....

Carbon ASR ready to rock. New wheels from Yeti Australia with some new tyres were pimpin and made me look super pro. Dont normally run the saddlebag but with no pockets on the skinsuit i didn't want to be caught out. Its happened before...

The first bit of the race was up a fireroad climb. That slowly got steeper till we turned into the bike park. I wasn't ready for anything and suffered my way up the climb and into the bike park.
First lap was tough. Stuck in a conga line of riders and not moving forward i rolled along with a good group but was thinking we were way off the pace. Into transition and Rhino went out. Time to pull myself together, water, eat, check bike, focus... Think my hangover is going..
Rhino smashed out an awesome lap and launched us into a great position, we were back in the race!! Next lap i was back in the zone. We managed to sneak up into 2nd place. Duelling with Team Wombat.
Sadly Team Wombat got past us and gained a good gap that we couldn't get back, i was loving the track and the ASR was on fire, all traces of the hangover gone but tired legs were starting to show on the last climb back to the transition area.

Watching the laptimes i could see that Giant Bikes was catching us. Dig deep was the order of the day. I gave it all on my last lap, smashing the singletrack to maximise the time cause i knew the last climb would be where i'd need everything i could get.
I knew it would be close, i'd seen the flash of a giant jersey behind me in the weaving trails. With 200m to go the course does 2 switchbacks and he was right there, in a world of hurt i just had to dig deeper. Up the small ppinch to the finish i clicked from the 42/36 down to 42/32 and left it all on the track...... To cross 15 seconds up. We stayed in 3rd!!

Great day, great result. Mel and Aleisha raced in Female pairs and had a great battle going with Trailmix and Gemma and Alice swapping the lead around all day. Yeti Spaghetti ended up in second place! Another great result.

Think the skinsuit tradition may continue..... getting hammered the night before may not...

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