Scott 24hr

It have been over a week since the Scott 24hr and i am still feeling a little tired. 24hr races are always tough, but for us chasing the entire time, it was particularly strenuous. It became clear quite early on that it was between us and the Gu team, but unfortunately we let them go on Saturday evening when Willo double flatted on one lap and came in 9 minutes later than he was expected. I was waiting in transition and it is an aweful feeling, just watching the seconds and minutes tick by while the Gu team was riding away from us. By the time i got out on my lap, we were over 15 minutes down and the pressure was on us to chase. Through the night we gradually clawed back a little bit of time and got the gap back down under 10minutes, but we couldnt decrease it anymore as we started to tire. In the end we came in 9minutes down in second place, which isn't such a long time over 24 hours. It was a really good effort by our team, and quite pleasing to know that we pushed Gu all the way to the end, its been a while since any team has been able to do that. Despite Willo's little mishap, our "Swell" team was well oiled machine. Our lap strategy worked really well, no mechanicals, no crashes and thanks to Laura (our manager) we never missed a transition and our legs were always freshly rubbed with goanna oil through the night. It was also a really good team atmosphere, Lewi, Matty, Willo and I had a good morale the entire time and we had a good laugh, which is the best thing about this format of racing.

Special thanks to Swell Design Group for sponsoring our team, and of course to Laura, the world greatest 24hr manager. She had the least sleep out of the entire team, she was tough with us when she had to be, but nice to us when she could be. Hopefully next year we will go one better.

Off-season

I have had a bit of a break from the blog and the bike since the Angry Doctor 100km at Mogo. That race was a bit disappointing for me, I had some really good form and was exactly where I wanted to be after 65km (at the front with Lewi and Hamish), but I completely feel apart and ended up suffering to hang on the 6th place. Not sure what to put that one down to, everything seemed to be going well, never mind, at least it was good to see Lewi get the win to make up for last year debacle.

My 2 weeks off the bike went by in a flash, work happily stepped up to fill the void! So I’ve been back on the bike for a couple of weeks now and looking forward to the Scott 24hr this weekend. I will be part of the Swell Designs Pro Team of 4 along side James Williamson, Shaun Lewis and Matt Fleming. What a team, hey? I would like to think that we are a chance at the win, but with no less than 5 awesome teams the only thing for sure is that the racing will be tight.