The rest week after the Scott 24 hrs couldn’t had been much better as the Stinson’s house in Canberra provided good sleeps, good company and good feeds. Not much more a roasted mtb could ask for!
Heading up north to Cairns on Thursday was straightforward. For anyone coming to race in Australia, Jetstar is a great airplane company to fly with and no excess baggage fees for a bike. Once in Cairns it was de ja vu to 2010 with some steamy hot temperatures and a bunch of Euros cycling around getting prepped for 9 days of outback racing.
Today was the first stage, 30 km at the Smithfield XC tracks, home of the 1996 World MTB Championships. We started at high noon to insure the temperatures were hot enough to race in (+35 c). After racing the 24 last weekend, this race served as a catalyst in switching from diesel fuel over to gasoline for the higher revs of the Crocodile race to come. I got cooked, road alright and came in 7th, keeping the time gaps to the other contenders well within reach in the coming days. There are a lot of fast riders here with no real standouts. I predict this race is going to go down to the wire on the 9th stage. It feels great to have day one in the bag, fingers crossed the legs start to light up before tomorrows climbing stage as we will head 92 km, 2500 v metres of climbing, over the jungle wall into the outback. It is going to be so danm hot and so crazy hard I just hope the crocs stay out of our way as there are going to be some big battles out on course in the coming days!
The link below should lead y’all to the daily updates of us slowly getting beatdown by the outback and probably some solid sunburns to boot!