LunarC 8hr

Well a lot has happened since the Pitch Black last year. The LunarC was ment to be my first solo race for the year and a bit of a feeler for my performance at the moment. As with most plans in racing they change. I rang Fitzy on the wednesday before the race and he told me that his team had pulled the pin, so we decided to have a crack at the two man catagory and hopefully pick up where we left off from last year.

The race was held at last year's Insomnia track, & being the first race of the year attracted 250+ riders. The course its self was not overly technical, but pretty fast with nice flowing single track & a few hills to keep us honest. This made it the ideal track to introduce Richard & John from Aus Aerospace to the mountain biking scene. The start time of the race was midnight Friday and there was a good atmosphere among the competitors as most people wound down from their working week.

Seeing as Fitzy did first lap honours at the Pitch Black last year, it was my turn to get out there first. The solo riders took off 2 minutes before the teams, which meant there were a large number of solo competitors to get thru once the teams got underway. By the first corner it was clear that the riders who could manoeuvre thru the field the quickest would get a good lead on the other teams. With this in mind, Timmy from FTR got away from me until about the 8km mark where I managed to catch him again. As it turns out, Team FTR was keeping within a minute of us for the first few hours which kept us looking over our shoulders.

Meanwhile, John & Richard were running their own race & getting a good feel for night racing. To their surprise they were lapping consistently and holding their own in the field. This was great considering neither had much experience night riding. When I asked them if they were enjoying the race i got the same response - "loving it".

In the early hours of the morning we were finally able to get a bit of breathing space between us & FTR which we held for the rest of the race. Fitzy provided some outstanding overtaking skills coming into transition, which kept things interesting.

Andy Fellows took out the solo category with a convincing Win over the rest of the field.

In the wash me and Fitzy [ Team Ay UP ] finished in 1st in the two man and by the looks of the results were 25 seconds off taking the outright win for the race. John and Richard finished 20th in the two man which is a great result.

Thanks to everyone for making it a fun race and to FTR for keeping Honest looking for ward to the next battle.

Big thanks to my sponsors Tomac for my xc weapon, Ay Up for blazing a way through the night and Onza tyres fro keeping me glued to the track.

Keep the legs burning and I will be putting a review together on the Carbide sl soon

Tomac

As you can see I have had a great opportunity to get on board with Tomac. I will get back to you with all the detail soon and a review on the Carbide sl after LunarC 8hr this weekend. Bring on 2010

Pitch Balck 12hr

Well this race is the last one for me for the year and also marks the start of my training for next year the plan for this race was to have fun and race with a good mate of mine Chris. The course is set out at old Hiddenvale were the Merida 24hr was held earlier in the year, the track was 11km long and had a bit of everything little rock gardens, fast flowing sections and afew climbs to keep you honest. Our plan was to do a lap each and then go to double laps for the rest of the race Fitzy[Chris] had been nominated for the first Lap honours,our crew consisted of the usual suspects Kiri, Pearso, Kel, Nat and Boo there was also the crew form actions cycles having a crack at the solo Mick and Grant and Cam and co. came out also for moral abuse, Andy Fellows was there to race the solo category also.





First lap saw Fellows leading the race out of the first corner and Fitzy about forth, 27 min later saw Andy lay down the fastest lap of the race and Fitzy came in 4 min later post a massive crash, I went out and although may lap time was around the 30 min I was all over the show over shooting corners and making lots of silly mistakes by the time I came back in Fitzy was ready to hit the double laps and it was time to settle in for the night, we kept the lap consistent and after 5hrs we finally caught up to Andy [ I think it was because he slowed down] by this stage we had hit the lead outright but there was a 3 man team Red back cycles that were not more then 3 mins behind us the whole race trying to grab the outright position. This went on for the rest of the race they caught us twice throughout the night but we managed to get back in front and by morning I was feeling a little secondhand and by the time Fitzy finished his last double there was only 34 min left on the clock before the 12hr mark so I quickly grabbed the transponder and went for it, I knew the redback team were only 1 min behind and I would have to pull out all stops to keep the win, my lap went really well I ended up back to the start finish with 40 sec left on the clock Fitzy went out to seal the deal with another lap.



Bozz and Fitz 1st pairs

Andy Fellows 1st solo

Mick 2ND solo

Mark Ay Up 3rd in cat on a SS

Rach 1st solo

Race was good and the 24hr out there next year is going to be fun

Keep the legs burning

Canis Tyre [Onza]

Well I didn't think I would be giving you a little review on this tyre so quick but I think these tyres are the best thing since Ay UP and Sram pwr links hit the market. So this is how it went last night me and my good mate Chris wacked a set of Canis tyres on our bikes Chris rides a Cannondale F1 and I put the set on my XTC we drove to the top of Mt Cootha and our plan was to drop into Gap creek from near channel 9 news HQ. The tyres claim to be a loose over hard, hard packed and medium soil tyre so what better place to give them a test ride then out at Gap Creek, being on new tread that we have never ridden on we were alittle reserved on our approach to the first fire road descent as it was all loose over hard but this reserved feeling was quickly put to bed as the tryes lived up to more then they promised, we found ourselves trying to get the trye to loose there grip [bearing in mind we were on a loose fire trail descent] within 400m of track we were stoked with both of us saying at the same time we had found the best tyre we have ever ridden on.

So how did they perform in the single track well lets just say that I don't think me and Chris could smile any harder then when finished our first peace of single infact Chris kinda look like Lenny off the Simpsons. We found the tyres were just point and shoot they went exactly were you wanted them to go and we had no problem cornering, rolling efficiency was outstand the tighter tread design in the centre of the trye doing exactly what it was ment to, roll and fast I myself had never used small block 8's but Chris told me they are faster then them and he probably won't be using small block 8's again.

Now to finish off our ride we decided to go back up the same fire road we came down to start with, we got treated to the same with the tyre just sticking we had no wheel spin and thats even being out of the saddle and putting the big ones in.

To sum up the best tyre both of us have ever ridden on. Get some on your bike

ONZA TYRES [LNYX] Review

Well if your have read the latest Mountain bike Australia Mag you might have come across a review about some new tyres called Onza. There is afew guys getting around on them but KWT hooked me up with a couple to get out on the track and see how they go. The day before the Titus 24hr I ripped off my trusty maxxis Rancheros and Larssen TT and threw on a set of Onza LYNX 1.95, most people [Hubcap] would say you should not even change your tooth paste before a race. My plan because of the grass was to run a slightly narrower tyre so I wouldn't have to push anymore rubber around the course then I needed to, and I chose the LYNX because it was a little more aggressive to give me the traction when I needed it in the soft stuff.



As you can see from the tread pattern it's got pretty aggressive side lugs on it, this worked out great form me on the Canugra course and I had no difficulty biting into off camber corner whether it was on the grass sections or in the washed out sand bunkers. To the rolling efficiency well I didn't notice any difference between these tyres and my trusty tyres I was using previously. I don't use UST tyres so I used the foldable version and wait for it it, it weighs in at a super heavy 400grams [excuse my poor sense of humour] considering one of the fly weight tyres I won at an event once weighed 330 grams and had no tread on it this is pretty impressive. All up I am stoked with the performance of these tyres and I think if you want something different give these ago.

Another great thing about the tyres is they all are 120 Tpi so they are equivalent to your Maxxis exception series tyre. In the XC range they keep it nice and simple there is 3 models LYNX, CANIIS, IBEX but there is a couple of different sizes of each model though.







Maxxis has a strangle hold as fare as the MTB tyre market goes but if any other brand of trye is going to compete I would like to think Onza might be the one.

Review to come on the Canis once i hit the trails again.

Later