Wide open, no brakes at the Rock Hop 6 hour!

The Day dawned perfect, and stayed that way, albeit a little cool in the shade

Filling up the tent with all the stuff that keeps us going. No, wait, GV RaceTech does that...

What a race that was!! After 6 hours, it came down to 4 seconds!! Now that is what the crowds (!) come along for, as well as to see riders of the caliber of Aidan Lefman (Cannondale/Maxxis) and Johnny Claxton (Giant) lapping the same as the teams, whilst being solo!

Jason and Nat

The teams for today were Jack and Ash, and Jason was with a ring-in named Nat, and all were riding the new team bikes from Felt. Jack and Jason have taken delievery of the new, GV RaceTech-tuned Felt RXC Teams, whilst I am riding a similarly tuned Felt RXC PRO and Nat was on an EPO Pro. And I can say that all bikes passed with flying colors, and drew quote s"...millimetre perfect" and "... bike was super dialed when I got it, thanks!" from some of the riders. The time taken to set them up is well spent!!

But lets take it back to the start where all the riders, over 150 of them, were pointed uphill and primed to race. Always plenty of amusing commentary going on, not to mention the clowns that almost missed/got flattened by the start, but without any more smack talkin, the race was on! The clashing of elbows behind me, and very little warmup to speak of, I followed the calves of one P. Rowney (Yeti/Cyclinic)into the land he loves best, the land of Hurt! And hurt we did for the next 30 seconds of 10/10ths climbing with one of the best (retired) short trackers in the world, before the pace slackened off enough to breath, and the track rolled into some prime, groomed singletrack.


Where the track doubled over itself, I glanced over to see that there was a *little* bit of a queue to get into the singletrack, and most people were reduced to a slow walk/wobble which is an unfortunate byproduct of the popularity of these events.


But onwards we went with no regard for the rest of the race, pushing the pace the whole lap in an attempt to get position for the rest of the race. Suprising to see was Aidan up there, as we are all used to the solo riders taking it a little easier, but he did not let up at all, beating John Claxton by some 22 minutes, an amazing effort!

After a 2 lap stint, I handed off to Jack who continued the onslaught out there, and we moved into first outright and stayed there until the Specialized boys came out of the crowd to play. Rohin (Specialized) was in devestating form and smashed the field there and then, seeming to tease the rest of us into digging too deep. And some of us (me)were silly enough to play his game, and suffer the crippling cramps for the rest of the race bought on by dehydration. So the double lap strategy got shelved albeit as part of our plans, and we continued to keep a high pace in second position by swapping off each lap to keep our reserves for later when they are really needed.

And needed they were, on the last lap!! Jack left the transition with a only a few minutes headstart, and Joel Read (Specialized) proceeded to dial the course in and produce his fastest lap on the last lap, and with a drag race up the climbs from the creek to the finish, the final margin between 2nd and 3rd overall was a squeaking 4 seconds! Jack saw him coming whilst on the last lap, and opened the every tap he could find to sprint it in for the podium 2nd place (and to make my day!). And I think it nearly killed both of them, but that is what this racing is all about, a tight finish, after clean fair racing for many hours, and smiles and laughs with your mates!

And it must be mentioned that the course held up great, the weather held off, and the actual track was the most fun on my last lap, so it must have been improving from good to better all day. I'd go and ride that course outside of race times, its that much fun! Congratulations to the Dirt Riders on a great race.

Jack, feeling like he's ready to go home, but can't wipe the grin off his face. 2nd Place overall on the day!

Jason Jackson, on his last lap, in his first race for Felt Racing.

Jason and Nat also finished a sensational 5th, both with about 2 months of training in them, so thats a fine effort to bring home, and to get a feel for what the team is about! Congratualtions to them both and we look foward to combining the the two teams for the first 12 hour at Werribee

Recieving out bountiful prizes and thanking (hopefully) everyone...

So with Officer coming up in a few weeks, we look foward to some quality training and hope that the sunshine will continue!!


And naturally the nutter award must go to Kona's Andrew Bell- simply stated, he started riding at 3.30am the morning of the race, just so he could get in some K's... So that means he rode around a bit, rode to the event, raced hard all day and still mustered a smile come the end... Madness, but possibly what it takes for the 24 hour races...!

Johnny, rollin into a perfectly fine 2nd spot in the solo nutters, after a quick 6 hour spin.