My last lead up mountain bike event to the Scott and a new race for both of us on the suburbia fringe of Devonport. There was a bit of rain overnight with around 9mm falling in Devonport so there were a few puddles and some mud expected. We arrived quite early and got setup and did a bit of an explore looking at track conditions, a warm up and plenty of the chatter with people you tend to only see at events like these.

I was looking for a good hit out as the race was only 3 hours so I could push it along on the hilly course. I got a very slow start and felt quite uncomfortable on the first lap missing lines and clipping my pedal on a berm causing me stop, unclip and stop. Not sure what was going on so I just settled into a reasonable pace trying to get switched on. About half way through the lap I started to come good and passed Mike Wilson to take the Super Masters lead. The second lap started well till at the top of the big climb off my seat powering over some rocks a stick flicked into the rear derailleur and snapped it clean off! Race over and a 20 minute walk back to the start finish to retire. Lucky for me the hanger broke and not the expensive derailleur so the repair cost was $50 instead of $500.

Sharon had a much better run pumping out 3 laps of the hilly and technical course. Being at least 10 years older than any other female out there she came in only a few minutes behind the younger 3rd place vet. Sharon had a small off at one stage and managed some how to break her Garmin bike computer off. She rode on before realising and spent 10 minutes looking for it but another rider found it and after a while caught her up and gave it back. She was really please to ride all the technical sections so well. She did smash a few Strava segments getting several top ten results – “not bad for an old chook” (using her words not mine). Sharon had a bunch of new bits on her bike that worked well but even though I had fitted a smaller 30 tooth front chain ring she could still not ride the 30% grade big hill. This hill was killer steep and there were plenty of people walking it as it was faster to walk it than ride it.

Sharon ended up winning a bottle of Velo wine being the winner of the Master Female, you have to be in it to win it! I ate sausages, helped with timing and took photo’s after retiring. A great little event with very reasonable entry price compared to some other events. Jason and the crew were great on the day and everybody had some fun and a good day out on the trails.