Well last Sunday saw the MTB crew head south to Pile Road near Dardanup for round 4 of the PMBC XC series. AS with the time trial on saturday we did not have a big turnout for SPR, maybe its the distance that turns people off.
As always Lorraine’s son Nick and myself were flying the SPR colours along with Bernie who also made an appearance after a bit of peer pressure from a mate of his who was in town (and happened to take 2nd in their field). Arriving later in the day was Chris Browne & Peter Gill, hopefully they get some kit in the next order 😉
The turnout for the day was 115 riders who had made the trip down and even a few who had raced the time trial on the saturday. With the weather coming to the party we were set for a good day of racing.
The 1st wave would see most of us setting off in short succesion. Nick was the 1st to head out with the under 17s and soon followed by Bernie in Vets. Myself in Sport was soon after this. Each group started fairly steadily due to the deep gravel and nice long uphill start to spread the field out, although Sport was a bit more competative after Tony Tucknott thru down a challenge for me to make the 1st corner ahead of the field. A few others heard this and had a go as well. Needless to say I hooked in off the mark an blitz the corner and halfway up the hill before almost crumpling in a heap. Last time I do that again as it killed me for the rest of the race. It did win me a monster KitKat & bragging rights though.
After that it was back into the riding rhythm to punch out 3 laps of the ~7km course. About halfway thru my 1st lap I past young Nick going hard. Thanks to rain earlier in the week followed by 2 dry days the trail was in fine form. Nice and firm with not too much slip in the WA pea gravel. The Majority of the course was single track with a few connecting sections of fire trail. The 1st half was in a generally upwards direction, which meant a nice downhill ride for the finish. Apart from being downhill the 2nd half of the course had some really nice flowing single track with plenty of fast berms, a few jumps and the odd hairpin to keep you on your toes.
After all was said and done the 3 of us finished near the back of our fields with both Bernie & Nick not up to race fitness, and me never really ever race fit, but a fun day was had and thats the main thing. Both Chris & Pete finished about a second apart in there category, trading places as the laps past.
Once racing was out of the way it was pack up the tent and head up the road to the Wild Bull Brewery for a feed and a pint. before the long drive home. Being a sunday the the place was pretty busy and we had a bit of a wait for the food. This gave us time to enjoy our pints (Cider, Stout and Ale) before the burgers arrived and discuss how we went.
Also thanks must go to Lorraine and Gaby as support crew, photographers, mum, wife and any other task they had to do. Next race will be Rnd 5 at Boddington on July 4th. Closely followed by the 4hr to be held at Pile road as well but with a different course (with over 50kms of trail available it should be interesting to see what htey come up with.) We hope to see a few more SPR riders there, to give Ryan & Johnny a run for their money.
