Having never been to the town of Orange before, I was looking forward to getting up there and seeing what sort of mountain biking they had. Having driven up directly from the finish line of the Capital Punishment, the first order of business was Team Radical Lights Factory Racing's pre race tradition of Thai food. A couple of main meals later I headed over the road for some ice cream and pondered that back to back racing and stage racing, and the required caloric intake, is my favourite thing in the whole wide world!

Although I had entered the Capital Punishment race in 2010, centimetres of rain the night before the race had me wisely pull out of the event on the start line.
Instead I watched hundreds of braver souls race... to the bike shop after the event for four figure repair bills. That kind of put me off ever doing this event, but fast forward two years and it's part of the awesome Real Insurance XCM series and had to be done this year.

I had a bad year last year; between getting sick and sicker and slow and slower, I lost my racing mojo. In fact I started to hate racing all together. The wheels were really starting to fall off. So this year, for the first time in 5 years, I chose not to race CORC's Easter 24 Solo Nationals, but being an event I have long been linked to, I couldn't just walk away entirely. Luckily they offer a nice and easy 6+6 category, where you race from midday to dinner time, head home, shower, eat your self silly, grab a solid nights sleep in a comfy bed, then come back and race from dawn to midday again. It was like a solo 24, but with all the nasty bits removed; I'd get to race around with the boys, but never have to dig deep. It sounded like fun...

It's been a long time since I sat down, dusted off Google Earth and plotted out a new epic, but this last weekend I was lucky enough to plan out and ride two, and I've put full write ups about them up on Wicked Rides.

The first was an easy to ride, but quite hilly loop from Nelligen and around Mogood, and the other was a truly epic, with a lot of hike a bike and on the fly re-routes, big hills and adventure, good times :)

It was so refreshing to get back out there and explore some new places I hadn't been before, it's left me itching to plot out the next one!

There is nothing as good as stage racing. A week away with like minded cyclists, spending your time doing nothing other than riding, eating or sleeping. It is cyclist heaven :)

This years Mountains to Beach was preceded by a week of some of the biggest rainfall the area had seen in decades, something like 400mm in a few days, it caused widespread flooding in the region and the evacuation of one of the towns the race goes through. All the other mountain bike races scheduled around this week were postponed or cancelled, but the crew from Wild Horizons doesn't give up that easily. They were up until the wee hours every night, driving, walking and wading through crossings, finding us a course that could be raced every day. Where others had quit, these guys persisted and ensured we had a great course to race on every day.

Day 1 - Thredbo and Crackenback

After months of hard work, Andrew Hall, Garry James and I have put together a new mountain bike endurance racing team under the banner of one of my long term sponsors; Radical Factory Racing.

The team website has all the details, as well as feeds from twitter, facebook and garmin connect, so you can see where we are training and racing and what we are up to.

We've been lucky to be backed by some amazing sponsors, including Cannondale, so you'll be seeing us rolling around at the next endurance race on the awesome Cannondale Flash 29ers and Scapels, which are proving to be awesome bikes on our training rides; we cannot wait to get them to the first race!

Over the years I have had my share of punctures, and plenty of experience dealing with pumps and C02 systems in training and at races. When you get a flat the most annoying (and time consuming) thing about it is pumping the tyre back up.

These days with everyone on 29ers, the humble C02 just doesn't cut it when it comes to getting a tyre back up to pressure, you need two of them to get a 29er tyre pumped up.

So this last year I have be using the Big Air, which packs around 3 times as much inflation as a standard C02 refill (ie: these are good to pump up two tyres from one canister). Over the last year I have had to use these in anger in both training and racing several times.

Did the Bakery ride today, a 100 strong bunch ride that cruises at around 35km/hr through Canberra before turning into "the gallop"; a 30min road crit at over 40km/hr with sprints and other craziness. It's a great ride and good way to get in 100kms in under 3hrs on a Saturday morning.

I usually ride mid pack, and it's a pleasant cruise. When it comes time for the gallop, I play along and have my fun, then ride home. Today was a little different though...

The first traffic light stayed red for a little too long for my track standing ability, then I could not clip back in, this meant that I was quickly relegated to the back. I hadn't ridden at the back for at least a year, and it's a nightmare!

Normally : 62min 232W 35.6km/hr 61TSS 0.779IF
At the back: 62min 256W 34.9km/hr 79TSS 0.882IF

Having never been to a triathlon before my head was full of misconceptions about prima donnas and $4 million dollar carbon fibre race bikes being ridden by guys that spent more time man scaping than training, so I was relieved to roll up to find a crowd of super laid back and relaxed people having a laugh before the start.

Being a triple triathlon, there are 3 swims, 3 rides and 3 runs to do as a solo, a team of 3 or a team of 9. Given that I only run if something larger than me is chasing me, and when I swim I go around and around in circles, I thought it would be best if I went on a team and just stuck to what I can do, ride the bike ;)

I had originally entered the 100 mile race, a race I have done every year for the last 5 years, but I still haven't got the form back that I needed to be competitive, so I made the call to drop the 107km Full Fling and have some fun with Garry James, a race within the race just for fun. It's the end of the season now and I figured it would be wise to end it with a smile, instead of a pain grimace :)