Jet [Wet] Black 24hr

Well, like Andy said it was a quick trip to Sydney - race a two man team, get the best result possible and get back. So we set off on Thursday arvo and the plan was to rest a little on the way down, so we drove to Coffs and set up camp probably under the noisiest bridge ever but at least we got some zzzz in.

We then drove down to Taree, and with a little help from the local bike shop and Andy's built in GPS it wasn't long before we were spinning the legs on some nice groomed single track. The track had a little bit of north shore type stuff, and if we had a little more time up our sleeves I'm sure we would have been treated to more sweet single track. The weather was nice: a little humid and sunny but this wasn't to last.

We eventually made it to Wisemans Ferry, and the country side around there is stunning. We set up camp that arvo and had an awesome pub meal and then hit the sack. That was about where our luck ended & the good weather stopped.

Race day - Woke pretty early and went hunting for the coffee van. Had breakfast and then we headed out for a practice lap. The first impressions of the course was a little boring: a couple of kms of bitumen and a big fire road climb which then dropped into a fun little descent and into a part of the course which alot of people were weary of. There was a little rock garden that went along the edge of the creek which wasn't that bad in the DRY. The track then went back out onto grass and into transition. Think the course was around 6 or 7 km.

After a little chat with Andy it was decided that he would do the first stint and we decided to string 3 laps together between changes. There was all the usual hipe leading into the start of the race then the gun went, and like you would expect from Andy he was off like a shot. He led the field out and about 21min later Andy went through transition with nothing but air behind him, followed by the rest of the field about 3 or 4 mins later [machine].

Ok so I have a team mate who's setting land speed records, so no pressure on me LOL. Andy came through transition, my turn. I set out to hold, if not build on the lead Andy had made. I had 3 good laps and that was when it started pouring. Not that this was bothering me too much but I had nothing other then my Canis tires (which were great by the way). By 8pm the race got called off by the organizers which I think was a good idea the track was not holding up and everyone was just destroying there gear. This was great - the first 24hr I get a sleep.

Sunday: The organizers had spent the night (while we were all sleeping) re-routing the course so we could get some ridding in to finish the race. Me and Andy woke to the Tomac tent destroyed and sitting in a pile, and the bikes lying all over the palce. The decision was made to race for the last 4hrs and we went into this with a 10min lead on the field. With there being only 4hrs of riding left the pace was going to be on. The re-routed course was fire trail but still a pretty steep descent and this is were the crazy part of the race was. We were chewing through a new set of brake pads in under 12km of riding (crazy). After trashing the bikes we managed to finish with the overall win and 1 0r 2 laps up on our catagory. Wicked

Big thanks to: Tomac for my Carbide and Ay up for my lights - they never fail. As usual my Canis tyres got put through their paces and were great, I love these tyres [Canis]

Thanks Andy for a wicked race, and good luck for this weekend

Later