Found alice ... and the rest of the race.

Stage 4:
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The bikes were road trained, and we were shipped out at 5am by bus to the now deserted Ross river station. Out the bus, ouch its 1 degree and we're all dressed in lycra. Quick bike assembly and then we had an hour to wait for race start. Luckily I had covered my bike in an old Besotho blanket to protect it and I was the envy of everyone huddled in my dodgy blanket.

The stage billed as a 90-95km leg started off with some serious corregations where for the first time I was really wishing I had a duelly. From it was onto a sandy hint of a path that wound through some dry and even sandier creek beds.

At the 42km mark we broke out onto the sweet 22km section that had been tarred in the last year. We got a good roadie group going and caught some people. More corrugations and sand later we broke out into the "las 10km" of singletrack. With about 5km to go I put on a last final burst to catch some riders ahead of me. 5km came and went and now I was living on borrowed time. The stage ended up being over 103km long..stuffed..



Stage 5:
And I awoke to pain in both knees. I was dropped from the pack - and that was just riding to the start. 23km time trial with a 45 second gap between riders wasn't looking to appealing. Predictably I suffered..came in way down in 92nd and not a happy camper.

Found a massage therapist and 30 minutes on the table later I was feeling lots better.


Stage 6:
Night race - same course as the morning but with a mass start. My lights were hooked up to the new Li-ion battery pack and the ibuprofen was racing through my veins. A great race, only marred by my light continually flicking up to the sky on the rocky singletrack and leaving me blind. All good and I actually went about a minute quicker at night even with all the mass chaos.



Stage 7:
Last stage 50km of some sweet singletrack, corrugated roads and a "make your own path section". Here there were orange cones to mark the track every so often as we sped across an open hard pack plane. We were instructed to "head for the gap in the mountain range". I took a path a little far left and found myself a bit off the turning marker - but still the feeling of racing across a red dusty plane with no tracks ahead was pretty awesome. At the turning marker the hint was to let down your tyres for the next sandy section. I took the advice bled my tires and caught about 6 people on the single track road to the final climb and end of the race..


All up a great race, came 59th overall, stayed on my bike most of the time and covered 287km of offroad desert trails through some of the sweetest singletrack Australia has to offer.

Stage 8... in the pub.