the birm*

God is good!

So we needed an economic car to drive down to the race in Canberra… and he provided! I just said I needed one out loud in the staffroom and andi, the chem teacher, said I could have his! So it took 2 tanks instead of 5! (which is nice, considering fuel is out of price in this day and age!)

The track was FANTASTIC!! Mostly all windy smooth-ish pine forest single track with a few parts of fire road (mostly grueling greasy uphills). The laps were about 45 mins (14.6 kms) and very nice….unless you got stuck behind a group of tourists…

The drive down was good (4 and a half hours), we hang out in Canberra on sat night, slept on the floor of a classy hotel-apartment with another team (beats putting up the tent at night!).

I started with the pros at the first bike start of the series (as opposed to run start) and was going real well until a rough rutty section busted my back tire… I fixed it in a few minutes but I was then stuck behind a bunch of slow riders and lost about 10 minutes…

The rest of the day was excellent, I pulled some nice times (all between 45 and 50 minutes) and was feeling OK, but I cramped up pretty bad on laps 3 and 4. Freemo, who was replacing Adski, did real well, almost getting his best time in the top 10 fastest laps.

We came in 9^th just before the 8 hour cut off… but neither of us was up for another lap!

We waited in the darkening cold and wet for the prize “ceremony”. We finally got called up “for the 2 male team category series point score, in third place…Cranky Brothers”. So there you go! I was considering not doing the series again next year, but since we got HALF PRICE VOUCHERS as a prize, I think we’ll be back!

Drove home via Macca’s for a big mac and was in bed by 1am, feeling pretty good.

Bring on the next series!