NSW State XC Champs - Nowra

With the unseasonably warm August weather melting all the snow, it was a perfect weekend to go down to the coast for a mountain bike race. The NSW State Champs was a fairly laid back affair just South of Nowra and the track that they put on was great fun. Heaps of cool single track and some fairly fast fireroad climbing made the race quite exciting. Ben Hendo and Mitch Codner broke away toward the end of the first lap and Andrew Arthur and I tried in vane to chase for a while. We could see on the odd occasion throughout the first couple of laps but after that it became a race for the last podium spot. Hendo (the burglar from the ACT) eventually unloaded Mitch for a 2 minute win and Andrew and I came in for a sprint finish another 2 minutes later, which I narrowly won. Andrew had waited for me on the last lap to take a stick out of my wheel, what a gentleman...should I have let him have the sprint?

A good fun day out in the forest and with the fitness slowly starting to return I've definitely got the stoke back for mountain biking. What's next? Tathra?

Back from the wilderness

Good times in Alice

Me and AJ on a dirty weekend in Melbourne for my first cross race

The Sentinel and Watsons Crags

The Sentinel

My birthday party

Cross

Strezleki Creek, Sentinal and Carruthers

Cross

Watsons Creek from Tenison Wood Knoll

Having been racing a riding pretty solidly for the past 3 years, I felt that in 2011 I deserved a rest from structured training and racing bikes. It turns out that it was also a break from blogging!

Finishing the season with a win in the Red Centre Enduro stage race at Alice Springs was the perfect way to transition into my break and I did so with contentment, satisfaction and relief. Since then I have been catching up on my life. I did a fair bit of skiing, including a few back country trips and a brief jaunt over the the NZ club field of Craigieburn for a life changing long weekend of skiing steep narrow gullies. I have also got into racing cyclocross, something that has been on my list of things to do since I first my first taste of frites & mayonnaise. The trouble is that cross is quite an intense sport, so trying to do it on the break means that it is rather punishing. Still fun though, and the crew at Dirtydeeds in Melbourne certainly put on a good show.

The past month or more I have started rolling around again and getting into Anytime Fitness to build a bit of leg strength. I have a new bike too....the new Felt Edict Limited. Getting back on a dually again is a bit crazy after 3 years a hardtails. The Edict is like my bad conscience whispering in my ear, it encourages reckless abandon on descents and says: "get off the brakes you pussy, I want to go faster". The result was some fun riding, culminating with a big crash and the subsequent removal of a large portion of the skin from my face. Lucky I am a bit of a goldfish.

So I am now super motivated to get back on the bike properly. With the Dwellingup 100 in Perth only a few weeks away I am anticipating a bit of a shock to the system. But with a race calendar that includes the Highland Fling, Scott 24hr, Cape to Cape, the new look National Series, Oceanias in Rotorvegas and Wildside I have plenty to look forward to and don't feel any rush to regain my form too quickly.

Happy riding (and enjoying whatever snow is left!)