Sunday was the first round of the Working Week Series (www.workingweekseries.com). In a moment of madness and/or perhaps
acknowledging I don't have any friends, I'd entered solo and had decided to ride my Surly.
Made the drive over the Blue Mountains to Lidsdale on Saturday to have a pre-ride of the course and register. It was hot (33 C) and
dry with some sections of the track being quite hard and bumpy. During the night the rain came down (over 25mm in an hour at one
stage) changing the track to soft & muddy.
The race started with the traditional Le Mans start, a bit late but that's also traditional. The keen sprinted off for their bikes
while I ambled down with a fellow singlespeeder, find bikes and we're off - two short sections of fire trail before delving into the
single track. The hoard here looked like a cross between a lunch time bank cue and the footage of the wildebeests on their
migration waiting to cross the river filled with crocs.
The course was mostly tight twisty single track, with a few jumps & doubles thrown in for those keen. Did two laps of the 9km
course before having a short break to stretch have a bit to eat and refill my camelback.
The third lap was a disaster, through one particularly muddy dip I tried to keep a bit too much speed up and took a mudbath. Then
later on the same lap had another stack over a small jump between two trees. No damage other than to my pride. A short break at
the end of this and out for the 4th lap. Another two laps and time to have some lunch I finally drag myself to get ready and it
starts pouring down, so I decide to wait and see if it stops. After about 15minutes it doesn't look like stopping so I decide to
head out anyway, but get to the transition to find they've temporarily closed the course.
As the storm sets in and with reports of heavy hail in the district the race is called finished, with about 6 hours completed, so we
all got to pack up and go home early. Don't know who won or even how I went, but lots of fun was had.
The track held up very well in the wet a big credit to the guys as the Central Tablelands MtBike Club (http://www.ctmbc.net/)
Parbs