Sharon and I did a quick trip to Derby for the first day of the next section of the trails to open. Dambusters is an 11km extension to the existing trail network at Derby and will be part of the XCM Marathon Championships in May hence my keenness to ride it as soon as we could. I am still undecided if I will do the XCM in May at this stage. After the recovery from the 24HR and a couple of injuries in the following weeks I am quite a bit under done and there is not much time left to get back on track.

Dambusters was an  a bit slippery today after the recent rains. Some really soft spots in places but hard and fast in others. There is a nice steep climb up the Cascade RD that gets your attention and a great switchback climb on the Eastern side of the dam. The last descent from Blacksmith Creek back to the Cascade River is just fantastic with large and fast berms at every turn. This section will be so fast in the dry but even today was a very easy FUN ride at moderate speed first time around. We spent the afternoon taking in the sights and checking out the track.

There was way less people than we expected and apart from a couple of people on the first sections we didn’t see anybody for ages.

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