Blood, Sweat and Lack of Gears. SS Nats

Being a bit lazy (and my computer crashing losing my prev post) I'll keep it short and sweet.

The race started with a run of a few hundred metres and the pandemonium of shifted bikes. Luckily Mrs K had located my bike so I got out on to the course in the top 5. The race started with a few km’s of gravel road to spread the field out. With this not being my strong point I lost a few places including one to fireroad specialist Mono on his big wheels. Some great singletrack followed getting me in the mood for what would be a great race. Coming down old chevy I came across Mono looking a little worse for wear. It turns out he had an epic spill due the highly technical nature of the trail and subluxed his shoulder. Knowing how much I charge he turned down my expert medical advice so I continued on with my race. Full respect to the big man for showed his hardness and pushing on to a bloody good result. 

Despite the drizzle it was surprising hot so looked forward to the first beer stop. Last year had made the mistake of not taking all the shortcuts, a move I wouldn’t repeat this year. The first can of summit went down well and I even got most of it in my mouth. Heading out onto the second lap I let Cabin pass although unfortunately saw him again a few hundred meters up the road with a snapped chain effectively ending his race.  I then fell into a bit of a funk on my second lap after not being able keep up with the big guns. Towards the end of this lap I got caught by Vaughn Phillipson which turned into a good thing as we had a great back and forth race till the finish when I managed to get the better of him by a few seconds. As always the titus rode like a dream and a had a bloody good time.

So I ended up in 6^th place which I was pretty stoked with. Was a big improvement on my 15^th last year and only 1.21 down on defending champ and ss legend Garth Weinberg. The class of the field really stepped it up this year with number of top xc jeybois, triathletes and filthy roadies entered. While its great seeing ss being taken a bit more seriously the unnecessary appeals and controversy weren’t especially for a race which is all about the lol’s.

A big thanks to the organizers for putting on a cracking race. They picked a great course that although no where as challenging as last year (so probably not suiting experienced single speeders as much) was one I think everyone could enjoy. Lots of competitors got into the spirit of the event with costumes and it looks like everyone had a great time. I will defiantly be back next year.