National Report

It all started for me last Thursday when Slingshot & I started the long drive down to Canberra. By 7am Friday morning we had arrived in Canberra, & while setting up we noticed fully sick Mick had rocked up. I managed to get out and do some practice laps with Slingshot, Sick Mick, Duck and Graham. The track was great and went down as the best 24hr track i have ridden. It was mostly single track, with a couple of small fire road sections. The single track itself had heaps of tree roots and pine needles which in the dry made the track a little slippery. Anyway, on race day i woke up and to be honest, after all the driving, i wasn't really fussed about doing the race. By the time 12pm came around i was in the mood and ready to go!

The start line had all the big names there: English, Fenner, Fellows, Claxton, Sick Mick and Crummy. As usual, the start of the race was flat out with all the big names gone. I took off with a bit of pace and then tried to get into a rhythm which worked out well. By the 4 hr mark i had taken third place in my category and was in the mix for a top 10 finish, but with 20hrs to go anything could happen. I pulled into pits at about 5pm to put lights on and some warm clothes...... little did i know that the rain was about to unleash. On the next lap I picked up my jacket and got on with the job. By this stage my lap times started to suffer but i was still on my XTC and the harness of the hardtail was setting in, the course was pretty wet but it was not raining anymore. By 12am my XTC had no brake pad left on it and it was time to get on the Anthem for some relief.

By morning and after having a couple of small issues [ falling asleep ] i was pretty stoked to hear that i was two laps clear of 4th place but my lap times left a little to be desired. Slingshot and Duck said the guy in 4th was hammering some laps and if i didn't pick up my game my 2 lap lead would pretty much be gone. With this in mind i managed to go out and pull my lap times back down by about 10mins which was a good feeling after sitting on a bike for 18hrs. Pretty much the rest of the race i had my crew cheering me on where they could, and i just kept myself going until 12. By the end of the race I was told I had finished 3rd in my category to Andy Fellow and English, and with an outright finish of 8th I had achieved my goals for the National race. Fully sick Mick won his category and finished 11th overall with crummy finishing 6th in his category and 21st overall after suffering bike troubles. Standing on the podium with some of the machines around you is a great feeling.

I want to thank Duck and Sling shot for helping me, i couldn't have done it without you guys!

& my wonderful wife Kiri for all the telepathic support she sent me.

Check out crummys blog for his race report

http://www.mcrummy.blogspot.com/

Smash it

National Solo

Here is some photos from the National solo last weekend, slingshot, duck crummy, Go sick Mick and myself. Duck and Slingshot crewed for me and did a great job i might add. on the results seen English 1st outright and Fellows 3rd outright, Sick Mick got 1st in the 40-44 age category and finished 11th outright my mate Crummy finished a impressive 21st outright after some some troubles with his bike and i finished 8th outright with a 3rd in my age group 25-29 i was happy coming 3rd considering English and Fellows were the ones that beat me.

Full report to follow

Smash it

Bozza

The Face,the Forehead and the Window licker

This was the name of our three man team that enter the geocentric 6hr held on at a property at Kurwongbah. Our team was made up of myself Chris[ The Forehead] and Pearso[ The Face] and you can work out who the window licker was. Chris manage to put us in first place right from the first lap with a 19:09 min lap so for the rest of the race all we needed to do was maintain the lead, i headed out for my lap and put in a solid time, pearso was then out for our third lap and literally smashed himself [27:48] he came in pretty smoked but recovered well to continue putting in solid time for the remainder of the race. The course itself had a bit of everthing in it hills, single track and fire road, but the challendging part was the mud. With the amount of recent rain the track was soaked with two sections pretty much unriderable, dispite this we all had a ball and the 1st place was the first time any of us have got a 1st in MTB racing. I will say thanks to everyone involved in the race it was great and to our support team[ wombat inc.] thanks alot.

Bozza

Hammer Nutrition

Well i think its about time i did a review on the Hammer nutrition product i have been using since the beginning of the year. Before i picked up my sponsorship with Hammer i was using Endura optimizer and the Endura electrolytes for my races and they worked pretty good with no major problems. When i started on the Hammer products i started using Hammers equivilent [ perpetuem]to endura optimizer, it took about a week to get used to the taste but apart from that worked great. I got about a month of training with Hammer Perpetuem, and the Gels before the Dusk til Dawn in Feb. The Dusk til Dawn was going to be the first major test to see if Hammer was going to be as good as Endura. The first two hrs of my race i felt very average and it basically came down to me putting to much food in my head. So at the three hr mark i cut most of my food and just lived off perpetuem, it went down very easily and didn't feel heavy in my gut.

As it turned out i didn't eat for about five hrs and was still putting in great lap times, and perpetuem was the only thing fueling me apart from the odd lolly or two. To sum up the dusk til dawn has probably been my best race to date and i managed to put in great times in against a quality feild. Since the Dusk til Dawn i have been using Heed [ which is Hammers electrolytes sports drink ] is very easy to get down and dosn't have the really artificial taste like some other drinks. In the past when i have used other sports drink and i would always give myself a half dose of what was recommended because the recommended amount would just make me feel sick. Heed is the first sports drink i have used that i can have the recommended amount and dosn't make me feel sick.

I have also started using the recovery drink by hammer nutrition [Recoverite]as well because i have not used recovery drinks in the past i cant give you a comparison to other drinks. I can tell you that i am not a huge fan of the taste but it has worked very well for me i have been recovering in between my ride alot quicker in turn letting me train harder.

To sum up you would expect someone sponsored by a company to say good things about that product. I really do believe that Hammer products are very very good and if you want a quality product to race and train with then give it a go. Hammer nutrition go into alot of detail on there website about there product.

Some photos from last week

Here is a couple of photos from last weeks ride up Mt Cootha and across to gap creek. as you can see chris is a very happy Lefty owner. Three weekend til National 24.


Keep the wheels turning


Bozza

Touching Base

Sorry I haven't been putting any posts together lately. Kiri & I got married two weekends ago and i have not stopped since. I just want to say thanks to all our family and friends who were there for our day, we are both very grateful.

Ok, back to the bike stuff . Over the past couple of weeks i have stepped up my training, and it seems to be paying off. National 24 Solo is next month and i am sure crummy is going to give me a run for my money, as well as the likes of English, Ha i wish, i am sure i will be left in his wake. Also Australian Aerospace, the company i work for, are going to sponsor me for my flight to the World 24 in Canada. I have booked my slot in the 25-29 age group and we will see how i go. Lots more training to be done between now and then.

Today i decided that i put a solid training ride in From Brisbane back up the coast to Eumundi where Kiri and my girls were going to meet me. I left at 4am. My Ay Ups lit the way, My Xtc Alliance performed perfectly and my Hammer Nutrition gels and drinks kept me fuelled for the whole trip. The Maxxis Overdrive tyres i have on my bike were great in the wet conditions also. I ended up doing 144km in a touch over 5hrs and the stretch from Landsborough to Nambour through the back roads gave me alot of climbing practice.

Keep the wheels turning

Bozza