RR: Many Warringah MTB Singlespeed Open - possibly rambling

After a couple of endurance events back to back in
Sydney the last couple of weeks a chance to take it a
bit easy this weekend before the Penrose 8 hour.
The Manly Warringah Club were having a club round out
at their Arcadia track and were running a single speed
class so I went out to have a go.

Arriving at the track early I was set to work with a
rake clearing some leaves of the under-10s track
before registering. So far no other SSers around, at
registration there was some discussion on what colour
plates the SS class was to get - White, there you go
Rob you get the number 1 plate. I protest this this a
bit but since I'm still the only SS around and would
be racing on the 'novice' track it should be too hard
to live up to the plate.

A couple of others I know turned up and entered the Novice
class (cough Sandbaggers). Then Liam & Poncho show
both being significantly quicker than me
- Oh well still 3rd place. One more SSer (Richard?)
so then we were 4.

Being angry, rebellious, non conformist single
speeders, there was a revolt on the line with the two
Richards very determined not to ride no pussy, girly,
wimpy nancy boy novice track. Poncho had driven a
long way for some hurt and he wanted it to last longer
than the drive. Liam & I gave in with out too much
coercion so 4 laps of the full course it was.

The start was given & we were off with Richard leading
Liam, Poncho then me into the first singletrack. All
good so far. Out back onto the Motorbike track and
the logs blocking the next single track hadn't been
moved so Richard missed the turn in and we all
followed. Oh well down into the section that we
weren't supposed to ride a fast left hander then right
into a rock garden - not fun with a rigid fork! I was
about to offer Poncho a stupid amount of money for
something from Fox when over the bars I went. The
other ask if I'm OK (without actually looking )
before heading off. I chase hard to try & get back on
but was putting in a lot of effort and making a lot of
mistakes so wasn't getting anywhere. It looked like
Poncho was off in the lead now and Richard was
dropping back, but not quite as quickly as me. One
lap down Richard was still in sight but Poncho & Liam
were long gone. The next two laps I'm mostly passing
the back end of the C grade field and the novices,
hoping hard that I don't get lapped by the first two.
On either the 3rd lap or early on
the 4th I managed to get past Richard to take 3rd
place - absolutely spent.

I think Poncho may have taken the win from Liam (Cant
quite remember) despite Liam's attempt to demoralize
him by shouting out his heart rate throughout the
race.

I suggested that they should rename the 'novice' track
to the 'single speed' track next time that way we
could walk away with egos intact without the extra
effort.

After a bit of drink we wandered down to the techy bit
to watch how it should have been done as the A&B
grades went around. A few pics are here
http://www.users.bigpond.com/rob.parbery/MWXC/

Parbs

Parbs Wrote:

...despite Liam's attempt to demoralize him by shouting out his hear
rate throughout the race.

Parbs

bwahahahahahah. like the man's style
i fink my HR would be higher than my fixie-cadence in suc
circumstances :

--
flyingdutch