National Hill Climb Champs
That’s kinda what it felt like. One second the start hooter went, the next I was gasping for air across the finish line! But what’s with the ‘anytime within 15 seconds’ call at the starts? Remember I said at Palmy he called 15 seconds and blew the whistle in 3? Today they explained it a bit better - we’d get a 1 minute call, a 30 second call and then a 15 second call, after which the start could be anytime in 15 seconds. Just to be sure, I asked for clarification that there would be 15 seconds between the 30 second call and the 15 second call… in the end the hooter went about half a second after the 15 second call - are they checking that we are awake???
Anyway, the start was pretty standard. I got a front row spot again but Bob quickly jumped ahead of me and Erin was right in front of her. Nina took her usual little bit of time to get past and we settled in to a bit of a train heading up the gut buster and I was happy to hold Nina’s wheel up there. From there we were in to the singletrack, riding the cross country course in reverse. Bob had taken the lead followed by Erin and Nina just ahead of me. I put a gap on the rider behind me through the singletrack and down over the roots but fudged a technical section when the course went back up. I was frustrated as I’d cleaned it yesterday in practice, and then while I was running to get back on I heard the crowd cheering the rider behind me so knew she had made it up cleanly.
From there we popped up next to Alexandra Rd where the XC course comes past itself and continued up the XC course in the normal direction. Going up the grass the rider behind me got past as my lungs were giving out (I thought it would be my legs). Karl was making a heap of noise up there encouraging me to get her back and I started to close on her then heard her take it up a gear. She stayed about 5m ahead of me through the next piece of singletrack, up a short climb and along to a short technical climb (back on the XC course in reverse). I think she may have fumbled slightly up the technical bit because I was able to close the gap a bit as we rode the final moderate gradient up to the final pitch to the line.
She was right ahead of me as it pitched up but next thing I new the heat took its toll and my glasses fogged up! It was all of 3 seconds until I couldn’t see to pick my line so I went for an aggressive approach and hoped I’d keep enough traction to get up, but my wheel skidded out and I couldn’t save it so was off the bike and too wasted to run to the top (trust this to be the only time the news guys stuck a camera in my face!). I crossed in 5th overall - not quite enough climb left to make the pass and get back in to 4th.
Bob took out the title with an awesome effort and sending a clear message for Saturday, with Erin in 2nd and Nina in 3rd. T-Rex on his new Santa Cruz Blur won the mens in less than 8 minutes, closely followed by Gav.
Yep, I said less than 8 minutes. My race was just under 11 minutes. It really was all over in a hurry. I know there were heaps of people out on the course making lots of noise but I couldn’t pick much out (except Anita with her favourite call of ‘pain is your friend’ right before the final pitch - at that moment I was starting to feel I had too many friends!).
Apart from that I rode a couple more laps of the XC course today. It’s riding really well - super dry and fast, and it has been WICKED hot out there the last couple of days. That could be a real factor if Saturday afternoon is more of the same. It’s one of the climbingest courses in the country and it’s all about the pain and the heat just gets intense. But I’m ok with that :o)
