the fourth round of the rollercoaster series was on this weekend in ourimbah. basically our back yard, except that of course the trails were a bit different than what i expected. i knew one of them, the downhill track, pretty well, one, the old downhill trail a bit, and the third not at all.

two of the three timed sections also had a few climbs in them, one of them a pretty gnarly pinch climb that sort of made me wish for a break half way through. it did go a bit better today than yesterday (when i actually really almost took a break).

and in very uncharacteristic fashion i started the day by taking a little soil sample (pretty dusty loam with a smattering of rocks). this little (hard to see) rocky drop / roll on the left in the photo above was more of a roll yesterday and definitely a drop today as use by all the people having a go formed a nice little dip. too bad i tried to roll it first … lucky it was a practice run and not the race.

not the best start for a race day. so i had to dust myself off, push the bike back up and try it again. i can’t tell nat that to not let herself get scared and then bail out myself …

must be nice weather, the mountain bikers are flying high.

the less used and therefore less tightly packed parts of trails were massively washed out compared to yesterday. i find that the race run often turns out a little different from the practice runs, for various reasons. a few times in the past it was higher speeds during the race compared to practice, today it was the churned up trails. that should not be an excuse, the trails are the same for everyone.

i think it’s all part of the learning experience.

ps: turns out this went better than i thought .. i came third! woohoo!

name#foxstansmilestotal
brad1950:03:020:03:260:04:56 0:11:24
grant1970:03:26 0:03:430:05:200:12:29
hg1980:03:18 0:03:460:05:310:12:35

looks like i should have stayed for the ceremony after all.