Off the couch and on to the podium

October is home to one of my favourite mountain bike races, the ‘Surf coast 6h’!

Winter and early spring have not been kind on my training, in fact they have been brutal, as 1 or 2 short rides a week is no way to stay fit, let alone get fit!

Survival was my aim, while enjoying the beautiful Anglesea single track, and clocking up a long ride.

There is just one problem, as some of you may already know, I’m just a little competitive, and you see there was a number on my bike, a start line to stand on, and a finish line to aim for!

A couple of laps in (40mins per lap) and my expert handler/ pit crew chief (aka: bottle thrower) Charles ‘chuck’ Swanton (the name says it all), let me know I was running 3rd in solo, so it was on!

Any endurance event requires you to judge you effort, manage your nutrition, concentrate on being efficient, but maximising your speed. A 6 hour race is perfect for this, as you can almost go flat out the entire time!

4 hours done, still in 3rd, 2mins behind 2nd, 6mins behind 1st. I was quite happy with 3rd, but it’s a race, 2 hours to go, time to push, 3 laps to be raced.

The next lap I rode every climb as hard as I could, I halved the gap to 2nd, and on the following lap, moved into 2nd, taking 4mins back off the leader. My mate Tim, now in 3rd, I felt for, as when you ‘crack’ and someone is chasing you, you feel somewhat helpless, and by trying harder you just make things worse.

The final lap I wasn’t able to make any more gains on the leader, the gap held at 2mins and that’s where we finished.
What a fantastic race, only minutes separating the pointy end for the entire 6 hours.

Very sore, very happy, 2nd was as good as a win for me. It’s amazing what we are capable of when we don’t put too many expectations on ourselves, but head out for a good time!

Thanks to ‘Chuck’ and everyone who gave a cheer or words of encouragement.

Keep you posted,

Ryan

(Pics to come)