The course was shortish at around 7 or 8 ks, with the majority passing through a pine plantation. Now I wasn't that excited about racing through the pines in this area, as I wasn't impressed with the pine section of the BMC100 back in 2009. Memories of eating dirt hard came rushing back. But to my surprise, the track was a belter! There was no significant climbs, just lots of mounds, dips, drops, flowy corners and fun.
With such a short course, the lap times were quick, settling in at around 20-21mins. By the time you had a drink, some food and sat down, you had to put your gear on again to go out again. The rules said no double laps, one on, one off only, so the pace was frenetic.
There was hardly anytime to even check our position in the field during the day, but we were sitting 6th early, and moved up to 4th towards the end of the day. My third lap saw my front wheel become very grippy - too grippy in the corners. The front was deflating. I had to back off the pace into the corners and let some fellow competitors disappear up the trail. I got back OK without too much time lost but didn't have sealant and there was none to buy. The leak seemed slow, so I thought I'd try giving it air and headed out again. This worked, it was lucky the laps were only 20 mins long, but my tyre felt good for the whole lap, so I just pumped my front at the end of each lap, and ignored that fact I could hear air hissing out the sidewall.
So 4 oclock came around pretty quickly with this format of racing and we decided we would hang around for the prize draw at the end. There was a pair of forks up for grabs! We missed out on those, but were surprised to hear our names called out for 3rd place in our category.
 |
| The Duael podium! |
Results
