More mud, the Jet Black 24 I did in a 3 man and it was all about a bit of fun really. We all wanted to push the limits of where we were at but the main goal was to enjoy ourselves. We headed out on Friday, all packed in Grantley’s monster car. As we got there we spotted Clayton (who was going solo) so we setup next to him. Then it was time for a couple of laps. It was a good little 9k track with a fire road climb and then a little techy creek run down to a flat, fast finish. Then it was sit back relax till race time.
Saturday morning I had the time to cruise around camp, have a chat, and get into the mood. I must admit checking out Jase’s Pivot bikes which were out of the box the night before were awesome. For an alloy bike they were very light, and just looked ready to go. Nice work guys.
Race time was looming and time to get ready and I was first off. It was, what seemed a casual start, with Andy Fellows just smashing it off the front. I put in a little effort to maintain some contact up the hill with Jase, and John till the downhill. I backed it off a little playing it safe making my way down and had a good hit out on the flat. The lap seemed over very quickly and Grantley was out, and the laps few by with showers light steady rain. We kept circling then rain kept coming heavier and heavier. While the mud got thicker the crowd at the far end of the course got drunker, yelling playing game’s they just seemed to have a new trick every lap.
Time just flew by it seemed as doing my share, washing Claytons bikes and they did have issues with brake pads failing, pedals failing, shock bushing’s worn out, broken spokes it was all on. Between our team we had a few brake pads go, and I was glad we had spare. Onya Bike Belco had a spares kit for us, and with my kit we just had enough to get us through. But by the end of the race all our pads were in need of replacement again. But back to racing.
By 6pm the single track was a river rolling through just trusting the bike not knowing what we were hitting. Some ways it was fun and others it was just dangerous. RTE made the right call at 8pm to cut it short for the night and get back into it in the morning. So we only had a 4 hour hit out with a slightly different downhill section which in some ways a little harder, with steep pinch’s, and lumpy down’s then back into the flats to smash it back into transition.
The rain kept coming, racing continued, Merryl came in after completing all her laps in great form and Grantley headed out to smash out a quick one to try to get back for one more lap. He did it, and came in just after Clayton, so I went out to do a lap with him to finish off the race. It was a good one, and Clayton came through and fended off 4th place 2mins behind him, so finished 3rd in the over 40’s.....again ;). We managed a win our category, and we all did our bit and finished strong. In the end despite the rain it was still a great event and I enjoyed it, it was an event where there was no agro on the track what so ever, all the riders were great. I’ll definitely bring some extra pads and spares next year.
Pictures to come.
