
Singlespeed podium, Sean, Me, Kent with Joe on the mic (fullsize)
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As part of our lead up to the Mawson mtb Marathon, Andrew and I headed down to
Nowra to compete in round 2 of Joe and Fi's
Chocolate
Foot Single Track Mind endurance mtb series. This time it was an 8 hour
race on the SCUM course at Nowra.
Many of the mtb-oz crew were there (Dave and Helen, Matt and Sim, Liam, Tyno,
Rob, sMarti, Spoonie, Ray, Dreggsy, etc) though none of them were racing solo,
oh well Andrew and I were. After my night ride of the course on Saturday I
thought it was a little bit boring, however my mind was soon changed once the
race began on Sunday morning, the course is a lot of fun once you up the pace
and have others around you.
As always I started off a bit harder than I probably should have, with a few
laps around 30 minutes (one sub 30 minute lap even), then after my first stop
for new drink bottles I slowed down to 33 minute laps for a while, by the end
of the day I was stopping most laps for a bottle or similar and was doing 35
to 36 minutes a lap. Andrew caught me around lap 5 and by the end of the race
had almost lapped me, he got 15 laps in, I got in 14 lap. On the 10.5km course
that was 145KM on the single speed in almost exactly 8 hours (I timed my
finish and effort fairly carefully as I was not keen on heading out on a 15th
lap (yes I am aware they did not have CORC style rules in place, I did not
have to be on track after 8 hours, however I would have felt I should head out
if I came in before 8 hours)).
Even though it was the single speed enduro champ round of the series there
were not many people there on SS bikes, early on I thought Liam was winning as
he passed me, however he was in a team so it turns out I won the category
(though only by 13 minutes) which was cool. Fun was had.
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