Day 2 – Stage 2 Mavic Crossmax Enduro at Bike Buller MTB Festival 2014.

After yesterdays hassles on the bike, today was going to be good!
I still felt fresh, had a good nights sleep, feeling happy and bike was all good to go.
Todays format is a multi lap xc style enduro with a bit of a downhill twist using the best bits of Copperhead and the Chairlift back to top.
You can do 3 really awesome laps and thats all if you like and then start to fang it down to Mirimbah for the final “super D” style run.
In the end for the Premier category thats all that really matters, getting the lowest accumulative time from 3 laps and the final run down the river.

Jody Bush and I were off at 10:00am together. Louise Cook was 30 seconds behind us.
I have no idea where the other girls were situated on the time slots.
As Jody and I started off, she was heaps quicker at finding that race tempo than I was and I used it to my advantage, just pushing harder than I would normally. We started to pass others on the track already as we were part of wave 2, but other riders of course were still out there racing as well. Jody was smashing it on the ups, and I was able to catch her on singletrack downs even though she was still fast and quite daring really!

We got to the chairlift together with me only about 3 seconds behind her.
So I chatted and we were doing just fine having a good natter. I then suggested, “Jody, I am not going to catch you on the GC, I am like 20 mins behind. So you are ony 1 min behind April, why dont you and I work together, push each other to ride harder and keep each other accountable and I reckon that just might help you get that minute back on April.”
Jody agreed, so our pact was to do 3 laps together and then do the final run down Delatite together and push each other hard.
Of course I was going to benefit as well, but there was no way I would gain ground to upset Jody and April and maybe even Amity, as she also had 10 mins on me, but I had to try and have a crack.

And so we went onto lap no. 2 and I was finding my groove. Jody better on the first part of Copperhead and the climb up to ABOM, with me being somehow better at the Village trail descent and first part of Gang Gangs, letting Jody take over as we crossed the road to One Tree Hill, Jody then giving me the lead as we entered Gang Gangs again. As soon as we got to Corn Hill Rd, Jody would take the lead and I would sit on the road section, and as soon as the bitumen came up, it was my turn to take the wind right up to the double track again before lower Copperhead section. Here Jody would take it hard and lead us to another chairlift ride.

3 Laps like this and we were passing people smoothly, right up until some guy stopped for us and I t-boned him, with Jody nearly doing the same to me. Not soon after on Gang Gangs another guy stopped in the trail and I almost clipped him. Must be tough going I know...but more needs to be taught on being passed, might bring that into our MTBSkills.com.au lessons.

Finally we had our 3 laps up and we were ready to descend the final run.

Just before hand I caught up with Norm Brodie and Adam who were chin wagging with the boys from Flow so we got a quick pic. I wished them all good luck and Jody and I made our way through a bit of traffic and on our way to the bottom. Thanks Adza for the pic.

I must admit the first steep section as you drop into Box Corner from Picnic Trail really freaks me out, big boulders, steep trail and huge consequences. So I let Jody rip it up knowing that I was smooth and fast as soon as the steepness settled. Finally I did catch her just after the first bridge and we stuck together for the rest of the descent until I dropped a chain. I had to actually get off my bike to fix it and cost me maybe 20-30 seconds. However Jody apparently went via a river crossing and landed in the water and was expecting me to come zooming past.

So we both had our mishaps but Jody beat me to the line.
Great teamwork and thank you Jody for working with me and being a great sport despite our obvious competitiveness.

Once I got to the bottom, I quickly scooted off to the Mirimbah store and grabbed a choc cherry chilli brownie slice, a mineral water and a shuttle with Wally. I caught up with an MTBSkills client, Todd who was on the bus too and had a great social chit chat with the boys on the way up.

I really loved my riding today and as I downloaded it on Strava I am seeing that every year I have gotten faster on my final descent and this year nearly 1.5 mins quicker. Arrggghhh...what if I had not had to stop for the chain? I will never know.

Now to find out about results, we wont know those until much later today as start times were from 8:30am until around 12midday. So this means finish times wont be until around 5pm.
I will keep you posted, but a much better day for me!

http://www.rapidascent.com.au/BikeBuller/