SCUM 90km

1st place @ South Coast United Mountain Bike end of year 90km enduro.

1:38 / 1:36 / 1:38 ~ 4hrs:52mins

With the original date of this race canceled due to shiteful December weather, the new 2nd Jan date meant a great start to the new year.

It was nice to get out of Canberra - driving out the temperature was hitting 40C!

Pre-race dinner of Huskinson Fish & Chips on the beach may not be the usual pre-race activity, but sure tastes good.

In setting up camp, it was great to see Aaron (Tommo) and Ed were riding. Not only would they be good company, but Ed can navigate the dodey signed course ... and hopefully would not get us too lost.

The start saw pretty much everyone miss the first turn - and then a pera-bog claimed a local rider. Lucky Ed and I had riden this section the night before, and knew what to expect.

So, from that point on the three of us (Tommo, Ed and I) just stayed out in front and Ed & I took turns in setting the pace.

Ed dropped off first, and Tommo made it to the last 10 km before falling off.

The single track was pretty beaten up by the past few months of storms. A lot of leaf litter, twigs, logs - and a few too many derailleur killing moments. We were definitely blazing a new trail at some points.

The fireroads were pretty dry - with just a few boggy sections that had to be walked. Poor Ed did a big pan-cake flop into a smelly bog mid-way through the first lap :)

The course lay out flowed well,  with the only slower points being to navigate the overgrowth and work out where the trail has gone!

For this race I was using the new Spark 10 - and I still have a few things to be dialed in. I ran the whole race in the mid suspension lock out mode.

I was also using the new Ergon GX-3 grips. Although I felt a bit slower in the singletrack, the bar-ends were great on the fireroads and climbs. I realized how much I had been missing bar-ends!

I also ran this race on Racing Ralphs. These tires keep impressing me. Light weight, great grip and a super fast profile. Once the leaf litter was cleared, these tires really could hook in.

Food wise, this race was simply 3 x bottles of Torq Energy and a Torq Gel every 45 minutes.

Thanks to Robyn and Bailey for excellent race support - Bailey sure knew what to do with my left over and unused food!

Thanks to http://www.bikesuperstore.com.au for making it possible for me to run two of these awesome Scott Sparks.

Next weekend is a 450km road road out around the NSW alps!