I has been riding a Scott Scale 50 (2011) but like all teens we rapidly seem to out-grow our bikes and I have to say, the Scott was definitely getting too small for me. But when we had to go into R&R to get a spare chain, there was no way I thought I'd be coming out with a whole new bike. The gods were smiling.
For months I had been waiting to see what the new Giant XTC 29er composite for 2013 would be like. When Doug Wester ran through the improvements with Mum and Dad over previous years it, combined with R&R's sponsorship support (plus trading and selling everything I owned) - I struck a deal with Mum and Dad. Its not the most highly spec'd machine, but the overall package was great.
But... my size wasn't in store. Want to know the definition of pain for a mountain biker? waiting a week for your new bike to arrive and be assembled.
However 1 week before Slater Road, and with Gunnar building it with me in the shop on his day off. I had my babyand life was looking good.
With only 1 week until Slater Road I knew there wasn't much time to get used to it. With a decent Wednesday night ride with Jafakids plus my own training in the local reserves every other night, I started to feel more relaxed about the race.
But one thing didn't cross my mind - even though I had a new bike and had worked out its strengths and weaknesses, I still had to plan out my race. In my enthusiasm, all I had planned was kill it for the whole race, not for a moment acknowledging that Slater Road was all about hills - and lots of them. I was unprepared.
As the family and I get out of the car to unpack the JAFAKIDs BBQ gear all I could think about was what the race was going to be like on a brand new bike. After about and hour of warming up it was time to get to race briefing then slowly everyone started to make there way off to the start line. A short 1 minute call then suddenly it was GO!!!!!
I had a great start and was able to sprint away from the bunch. After seconds we entered the forest and all I could tell was that I was in the top bunch. My plan was to "stick with Robin (fellow sponsored rider for R&R)" but not even half way through the first lap I could feel myself starting to push way past my limit, which can be good until you burn out, which sadly happened to me.
Whats even more painful is watching riders race you - one by one, slowly. Aaaagh!!!!
Into the last lap and I had recovered some of my energy and had picked up the pace again. Even though there was no chance of me catching the top guys up, I still knew that every placing I regained, counted. So setting my own race pace I started to embrace the numerous many gnarly hills and slowly I started to pass burnt-out people who now started to litter the track.
When I had reached the finish I discovered I'd made about 4 placings in my category, with placed me into 6th - and I was pleased with this, especially with having just moving up a group, from being in under 14's to under 17.
At prize giving 3 jafakids had claimed top 3 for under 17 overall which had fellow R&R rider Robin page claiming 2nd overall.
So bike 10/10 - rider 7/10.
Lessons for next time? Set my own race pace (like I did with my old bike) and let others take the early knocks. I'll still go hard and you never know, even in this group, with my new bike, I could soon win.
