We arrived yesterday morning into the finish line after 6+ days of racing and a whirlwind tour of eastern Australia. We came across the line 3rd but will have an official finishing place of fourth based on a corse change at CP 35. Very many highlights and a well ran race have left quite an impression on us. We saw so much interesting geography and wildlife was abundant.
Early on we had some serious issues with thorns and got caught behind the eight ball. We had chosen to ride without a tubeless set up, we will never do this again, (michelle I needed your comment 1 week earlier :-) ) and the thorns wrecked us, something serious. We used all eight of the tubes and 14 patches that we carried, at some point we had Segger on the trail asking passing teams for spare patches or tubes...for some reason teams are more willing to give her goods than Cyril, Aaron or myself.As a side note the local teams were extremely pleasant and were filled with characters of all sorts. We made a lot of new friends and enjoyed the company along the entire course.
From this point on we were frustrated about our flats but we kept our cool and began picking off teams one by one. We also implemented a new strategy of getting more sleep than we usually would and this paid big dividends after mid-camp. At times it felt as if we were passing teams like they were not moving.
We worked our way back into the top 10, then into the top 5 and our momentum was gaining...More on the finish and ranking on tomorrows post.
3 comments:
you guys are awesome, sounds like sleep paid off, dad
Magic guys!
Did the PNW proud.
Ruaraidh
AAAAAAAAARGH! I'm so sorry you guys had to go through that. I know how frustrating it is :) We later learned that all the other teams had the "local knowledge" about the thorns and had prepared thier tires in advance. you kicked some booty none the less. Nice work.
M
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