Paul wins National Round #1

Direct from winner of the National Round #1, Paul Van Der Ploeg!

"we left Mt. beauty on the Friday at around 4:00 (because I needed to attend school!) The original plan was to crash half way in a motel, but at around 7:00 Dad said to me “what do you think about going the whole way...” pulling into the accommodation in Sydney at 11:45 I fell straight asleep.

On the Saturday we drove out to the race site and did a couple of laps of the course, It was super fast and tight which suited my style of riding, not very much climbing but a lot of single track, an awesome course all round. Dad and had to stop ourselves from doing more laps because we needed to be fresh for the race. Pretty much a fun flowing course.

Race day

My race was at 3:00 in the afternoon so I was just hanging round the race site in my Felt casual clothes, taking photos and watching the elite women and men races. Both races turned out to be really exciting with two sprint finishes to conclude both of the races. In the women Zoe King out sprinted Tory Thomas. In the elite men Aiden Lefmann out sprinted Dylan Cooper in a cracker of a race.

Finally it was our race, with a reasonably strong field including fellow Australian junior team member Daniel Hallam and reserve member Nathan Hass. I was sitting on the start line in my full Felt kit and an Rxc Pro racing hard tail under me, feeling quietly confident.

Then the gun went off and I got the hole shot into the first single track decent (this was my plan after seeing half of the elite men and women fields crashing in the struggle to get to the single track first, which was only 100m from the start). Anyway, at the end of the descent there was a fire road climb and Hass snuck in front of me. I followed his wheel down the rocky downhill section and then he pulled across to the side at the bottom with a flat tire. Bad luck mate.

We had put a small gap in the field and I was by myself trying to ride fast and smooth on the loose and sandy track. With Hutchinson Piranha tubeless light tires, I was sticking to the track like glue while they were rolling super fast on all of the surfaces that the track threw at me.

Four laps of racing and Yellowmundee was over. In the end I think my lead was around five minutes which I was pretty happy about. Presentations happened soon after and I actually received a prize! (Unlike at the Scott 24hr) my prize was a new carbon fiber seat post which says that it is super strong, but I think I could probable break it, like my last carbon post...

Also I was handed the series leader plate for the u19 men, which I will get to race with in the Tasmanian round on the 25-26 of November. After presentations we got the hell out of Sydney and started the trip back home. We didn’t leave the race site until 5:30 so we were planning to stay half way, then I asked dad if he was he planning on going all the way home. His response “Are you feeling awake enough to drive?” oh no not again…1:30 in the morning was our arrival time back in Mt beauty which rounded out a pretty successful weekend. I didn’t drive off the road on the way home and I won the First National round. Bring on the Gravity 12 hr."