World Champs Mega race report!

A number of weeks have passed since the World championships were run and won but for me the whole experience is just as vivid and exciting as if I have been re-living it ever since. Little parts sneak into my every day thoughts and I can’t help but smile at what was the most successful world championships for many of our athletes.

My story is only one of many that would have been created during the first week of September but it has been put in my hands to write a brief report for our Australian development UCI team discovertasmainia.com. The version of the World mountain bike and trials is written from my point of view and is heavily focused on the under 23 men championships race that I was apart of.

Race Day (the only day that counts): It is on this day when all riders/athletes hope that they can put it all together

and produce a perfect race. This is also one of the hardest things to achieve.

I woke up at 8am to the sound of my phone ringing. It was Lachlan wanting to know if we were on for a pre roll. I quickly kitted up and we span the legs out along the lake. While out on the ride I got a call from ‘Freewheel’ magazine and they wanted to take a few shots of myself and the boys for a story. They met us on the ride and followed Lach and I back to the apartments.

I continued to get ready and the nerves began to seep in. The key for me is to follow the routine of the normal race and to treat the world champs as just that. One more race in a career full of races. Preparing the bottles, tweaking up every screw and bolt that could come loose on the race bike, pinning the number on the skin suit are all routine things that I do to take my mind out of the race.

We all kitted up and rode out to the course at 12noon for a 2pm start. It was a surreal experience heading out to a race with a camera crew taking shots of us with the parliament house flag on the horizon. Then when we got to the site we chilled in the team tent before starting the official warm up. I opted for a regular roll around warm up like I would do at any other race while the other four guys locked into the trainers.

25min before race start I went to the trainers for the final spin of the legs and a swarm of people including my four older brothers were watching the Aussie boys intimidate the competition with freshly oiled legs. 15min before race start we were called into the starting boxes. Time flew as we all waited for the start So many thoughts and scenarios were going through my mind. The race plan was to stay up right in the start section due to the tight fire road and an anxious field of under 23 men all wanting to get to the front.

Everyone was called up and the cheers were 100 times as loud for the Australian riders. I stripped off the top layer and stood at my starting line about four rows from the front. 1min…30sec…15sec…Bang! The start was quick, super quick, I took the inside line on the first corner to

give myself room.

It worked and I came out rubber side still on the ground. Crashes were happening all around me like a blur but I found myself in a good position. Everyone sprinted for the first section of single track and I put the power down to try and not loose too many places. My three day old Felt SIX carbon race bike kit out with the prototype SRAM XX was running like nothing I had ever ridden before. It was ridiculously light in weight and the shifting was buttery smooth.

As soon as we hit the single track though I knew there was going to be a running section due to a bottle neck. Most people were running up ‘cardiac climb’ but I managed to keep balance and preserve the calves for later in the race. Keeping calm was the only option as the leaders rode away from the pack. Hitting the descent the crowd was deafening and I had time to take it all in and recover due to my knowledge of the track.

Coming into the second lap I was feeling good and looked up to see I was in 35^th and packs of riders were only seconds away. I started to move up and latch onto the next pack along the bottom fire road. ‘Cardiac climb’ again and this time it was a smooth run. When I came into the ‘hammer head’ again, the noise from the crowd was just indescribable. That lap was taking it semi-cautiously so I didn’t loose control and crash. On the short pinch going under the Canberra overpass bridge I managed to take four spots which gave me a clear run on the bermed descent. The race plan was actually working out for once and I later found out that my second lap was 9^th fastest out of everyone.

The next few laps I settled into a rhythm and tried to keep moving up. Unlike all other world level races I could not hide at any point on the cause and I could always see the next rider that I needed to hunt down. The crowd were cheering ‘GO Paul…Get the next rider!’ This meant no recovery at all. I could see Lachlan in the distance and hear the crowd cheering for Cal behind me for most of the race so that also inspired me to keep pounding the pedals, with knowledge of the other guys having a good race I pushed that extra bit to make sure I did my part.

On the fourth lap I looked at the lap board again to see I was sitting in 12^th one spot behind Lachlan. I also started to feel a little tired at this point so I drifted to the back of our pack of four to conserve some energy.

By the fifth lap my right leg started to cramp up in the quads when I got out of the saddle…this was not a good sign. I let the pack go a little so I could conserve more energy. I smashed down some more torq energy drink and popped a gel to help prevent further time loss. With my knowledge of the course I managed to bridge onto the pack and not loose any time.

The last lap was a struggle as a few of the riders rode harder on the fire road I dug into the deepest parts of my body to get that extra energy to stay with a Dutch rider who was riding strong. I let him go on the climb but go back to him on the decent and on the fire road after the first feed I got out of the saddle to find both leg’s locking up in a massive cramp. By this time all I had to do was stay smooth in the single track and hope to get the Dutch rider in the last section.

I came to the final straight and sprinted to only just come short of catching him. I rolled across the line with no strength left in my body and sucking in very deep breaths to try and get the oxygen back to areas of need. Emotions were at an all time high when I saw Lachlan, I collapsed with my arms around him in congratulations.

In the results side of things Lachlan finished 11^th which was a great ride. I finished 16^th with a fantastic race all round for my fitness. Cal rolled in soon after in 19^th also a personal best ride. Charlton finished mid 30’s and for his first year in under 23 he has a lot more left to give at the world level races. Nathan had an average race finishing one lap down but enjoyed the experience of his home town crowd. We later found out that with the results we had, it meant that we were ranked 2^nd in the under 23 men category. For the first time in the four world championships I have raced with nothing went wrong and almost everyone had a personal best ride on the day.

This success of our team would never have been possible without an incredibly hard working staff behind the scenes. A big thankyou also has to go out to our main sponsors of the discovertasmainia.com UCI pro cycling team for all of their support. In particular I have to thank Nic Eagle from Felt Australia for getting me a new SIX carbon frame for the race and Rob Eva for providing the amazing SRAM XX which gave me wings up the climbs and unparalleled control on the descents. All of the sponsors this year have been amazing with the support that they have shown. I look forward to the up coming national series over summer and racing overseas in the world cup series next year.

Thanks for reading....I'll see you out on the trails.

Worlds race report is on the go....

So worlds was raced and won by various people. I will attempt to write a race report from my perspective as soon as possible. I just have to get back in the groove of uni life before I can punch out the worlds experience.

Keep your eyes on the prize.

Moving out of the Cell!

So my time at the AIS has come to a close. The food hall will be missed and my small room has actual grown on me over time.

The last week has been pretty chilled out with easy rides and a few good sessions on the world champs course. It was a taper week and I really made time to chill out and kick back so I could be properly prepared for this coming week (worlds week).

My Blog posting has been limited because of my poor time management. The internet is at the dining hall and we always have a meeting direclty after dinner. It is all good though.

The last week has had a few up's and down's as usual. We tried a weird low fiber wonder diet that mad me feel horrible. I got the worlds course pretty much dialed in which is good from my head. The technical sections are becoming more like second nature and less intimidating. So we more into appartments today and have to start cooking and cleaning again, which is back to normal so not really a big deal.

The Biggest news for the week was the older bro (Neil) won the tour de Timor!!!! So he is now $18.500 AUS richer than when he left the country only one week ago. Not bad for 5 days work. But seriously he is the most deserving winner, I know some of what he has put in to be at the form he is and Neil has never been able to fully put it all together. Good work Neil, you earned that victory and all of the Aussie team were backing you for the win.

Team dinner is tonight for the whole Australian team and the new Green and Gold kit should be getting handed out soon! Look forward to watching the team relay on tuesday, unfortunatly Lach has been more consistant in the week i wasn't here, and was selected for the U23 spot. But I did smash him on the D yesterday to record a faster lap time in the interval (we both flet pretty shitty in the wet conditions after the stupid low fibre diet). So I hope the form is where it should be for next Friday and I can put on a good show for the home crowd.

Take it easy and I hope we have internet at the new accom....

This has to be posted....GO NEIL YOU MAD MAN!

This is off cycling news from the other day and its sick news....

Click on post title to view Link.

Peace out all.

Living the AIS dream...

O.K just a quick one,

I intended to re-start the blog as soon as i arrived and have been un-succesful with the internet. Last night i found this computer room next to the dining hall and it is happy days.


I have been in a small room that resembals a prison cell at the old AIS residance. The rest of the team are living in an alttitude house with a artifical height of 3000m above sea level.

It is on....and I'm talking about the world champs in Australia. Just over a week out and we are trying to tune our bodies to be ready to smash the worlds best on our home soil.

I have to go ride on the course now and the spelling has not been checked but keep online and I will try to get a few photos and a proper report up in the next 24hrs!

Enjoy the sun and keep it rubber side down and Helmets up high in the sky!

Bromont World Cup.....Full Details.

The Canadian adventure has drawn slowly and painfully to a close, in the form of a three day epic trip (due to int date line). I'm now back to the wonderland that is Australia. So I had an abundance of time to think back and reflect on the turbo charged past two weeks. As you can easily see I have used some of the time productively to give way too much information about the Bromont WC. Hope that some is interesting but I had nothing better to do during the flights so here it is.

Obviously the freshest memory of the trip is of yesterday’s world cup in Bromont and it turned out to be the most memorable part of the adventure. I managed to ride my way into 54th position by the end of my race without crashing or destroying my bike along the way which I would think was an impressive achievement. When I attempt to explain the situation some readers may start to understand the extremity of the weather conditions.

The weather in the back half of the week turned a little ugly and the swimming sessions were changed with chilling in bed getting some movies ticked off the check list. I was sort of happy because my knee was getting worse and worse each day. My training had to be backed right off to a recovery ride on Thursday and Friday. This was scary because this WC was the last chance for me to qualify for the world cup in Canberra in September. The pressure was building from the coach and fellow athletes because if I don’t qualify then one of the team will miss out. (I will leave the % to the coaches and selection crew but lets say its close). So pre race prep was hurting me, literally every time I swang a leg over the bike the knee was telling me to get straight off. A few hours on the massage table in the hands of team masseur Di Dickson and a three day intense dose of anti-inflammatory (Ibuprofen), the knee became less of an issue and the weather came to the front of the things to get scared about.

The reports changed from clear and 28 degrees to an 80 % chance of a big storm hitting, unfortunately we did not have luck on our side and we fell into the majority percentage and at 12noon the skies opened up and rain fell from the sky, each drop would make the rooty, rocky forest sections all that more technical. We rolled out in the rain and got soaked to the bone in 15min. The whole team sat in the car dreading looking outside as the rain became heavier. Luckily for me I packed the ultimate weapon in the last second rush out the door. It is in the form of un-tested Geax TNT Barrow MUD 1.7 inch (very narrow) tractor tire! This was a tough decision but with the conditions it was worth a try and I will tell you now it saved my whole race.

After seeding this small but aggressive tire I headed out for a short warm up. The Barrow was so spaced out I could feel each line of tread as it hit the road. With 42.5 psi it felt fast but a big question was if it would track in the roots and rocks having such a small bag.

The warm up was almost pointless because I came out feeling colder as the rain relentlessly smashed into the ground and made the road into two streams with an island in the middle. Their was a slim chance of me making the 10% in the dry and it appeared to be almost impossible not the weather gods decided to play a ‘Joker’ in ‘Arsehole’ card terms and trump all previous plays.

Soom after getting soaked again I asked Captain Canada (Neil Ross) if the Barro mud was a good choice and I saw the sceptical look he gave me but he said ‘It is worth a try in these conditions’. I could read between the lines that he thought it was a foolish move. Too late to have second thoughts so I went off to the starting box for call up. I had managed to fluke my way into top 10 under 23 men so I had luck 69 as my plate which was a number reverse from last week of 96. Happy days.

Glasses were discarded and I prepped my eyes to be assaulted by 60 dudes muddy roost. Soon the rain jacket came off and my arms and legs were exposed, luckily there was only 2 cold mins to think before I was able to click both feet in and stomp the pedals….The gun went and people were all over the grid trying to clip in , I fluked a good clip and picked my my through the madness straight into the killer climb. After getting blinded by waves of mud several times I was regretting leaving the Oakley’s back at the start line. The barrow mud instantly showed me why ‘MUD’ was written on the side walls. As all riders dismounted due to lack of traction I stayed clipped in in a swarm of slipp-running riders and I couldn’t help but smile. Haas called out “Yeah dogg, smack that hill” because he witnessed the superior traction I was getting. The real test came soon after on the small shoots on the climb and after riders rag dolling it into the bushes I was happy to be keeping it rubber side down.

At the top of the climb I had settled into a good position and dropped into the jump section which was loose but fun and I got some cheers for hitting the big kicker into the top feed zone. The decent was looser than I could have ever imagined but the ‘New’ Geax Gato was biting though the slop and finding hope where I had none. I was pleased to be keeping on the wheels of the crazy Canadian’s who live and breath these conditions. So at the bottom of the course I lapped through in high 50’s only 2.5mins off the pace and that meant that I was close to the world’s qualification time required. Di passed me a fresh bidden and Captain Canada said with surprise ‘It looks like those tires are working’….

The laps turned into blurs and the poor Felt six team was getting punished in the conditions, but the SRAM components were preforming splendidly considering the amount of broken chains and tubes that were lying on the track. I planned not to blow in the race and try to ride everything and this was going to plan. As long as I kept consistent I should have been able to roll through in around mid 50’s. I managed to dial the D and PINN the forest section a few laps and drop the euro climbers just enough that they would catch me at the top again ready for me to serve them up another lesson on how to descend. I couldn’t understand how I could do what I was doing but I didn’t dare question the situation and attempted to keep it as smooth as a baby’s bottom (John van de Fleet 96’) in the forest and super rock section. I counted 7 rim hit’s on the rear tire but they were luckily NEVER followed by…PISSS….sssss….PISSS (tire going down). I thought it happened a few times but it was just the incredibly small bag of the tire.

At the top of the jump line on the 5th lap I pulled the breaks on and it was suddenly evident that my NEW break pads were down to the metal backing plates! This would have been ‘negative goodness’. I hit the steep sections and applied the point and shoot technique, when I found both levers pulled straight into the bars it was all I could do. I opened my eyes at the bottom still on track, thanked my lucky stars and kept going. Unknown to me I had slipped behind the cut off time during the lap and got pulled of course. This was probably for the best due to the distinct lack of brake pads and gear changing ability. After the race and on closer inspection I found that both front and rear pads were down to metal and half of the metal plates were gone on the rear! The separation springs were twisted and stopping the rotor spinning freely and I could no longer change gears back up with one hand!
The legs were also trashed to the power of 12 so I was not sure if I would have made it up the burg (climb) again. The end result was 54th which was as good as I could of hoped for considering the weather and my lack of riding in such demanding conditions. Captain Canada said that the locals ride in that sort of area all of the time and the advantage showed with Geoff Kabush (Canadian) winning his first world cup ever in the many years he has been racing the pro circuit.

Big thankyous have to go out to Di and Neil Ross for all of their support over the past two weeks, their organisation of everything has made the trip stress free for the majority of the time spent in Canada. All of the discovertasmainia.com team sponsors, especially Felt bikes and SRAM components which make up the sweet machine that took me around the course with near perfect performance, the amount of people walking bikes with mechanical including multiple world champion Absalon was crazy and I was very happy not to be joining them. It’s awesome to be able to trust that the rig you are riding is going to step up in any conditions.

Most of the above epic story was written in the 6hr flight to LA airport and I’m now sitting at my Melbourne home absolutely trashed from a mega journey. I left Canada on Monday morning 5am and it is now 3pm Wednesday and with the time zone I’m currently confused at how long the trip took. I’m pretty sure it was like 40hrs with a 12hr stop over in LA. So there may be a few more stories to be told and I hope I can get some photos off the women who were out on course.

Thanks for reading and putting up with my terrible grammar and spelling.
Take it easy and fingers crossed I get a spot for worlds, I should know after this week because the selection is decided some time this week.

This is Bromont

**Note to readers** Look over world cup post first then move onto this post.**

So the Bromont world cup is approaching fast and a lot has happened during the week some worth mentioning and other things I will mention anyway just to pad out the post.

Monday was the day after the WC and turned out to be an unnecessarily big travel day with multiple detours and random stops. The 3 hr drive took 6.5hrs and we were well and truly over it by the end. Lachie and I managed to get out for a ride pre travel which made the whole day a lot more bearable. We did a sweet loop in the flatter xc trails and it was awesome, all other teammates took the soft option of packing up the accom because of the rain but we had some of the best trail I have ridden to rip up. After the race I realized that I need to work on my rooty slippery skills and that is exactly what we did. If you know Sassafras creek trail in the D-nongs then think of that and add in twenty times the roots and you will get an idea of the trail. Naturally Rob Eva claims the trails to be the best in the world. After that ride we were in a good frame of mind but still exhausted at the end of the day. Then we found out that two thirds of the accom wasn't booked for the first night.

Lachlan and I lucked in and got to stay at the Chateau Bromont which has a pool (indoor and out) hot tubs (indoor and out) and a sweet deck area which we chilled out on in the hot summers night. The only bad thing was that we had to share a queen bed and we both had a rubbish sleep.

Tuesday was a big of a LSD (long slow distance) ride on the road which turned out to be awesome because we stumbled onto a lake loop and in the mid to high 20 degree day the tans were cumming along nicely. At the end we climbed to the top of the downhill runs and bombed down a black diamond trail which was awesome fun. I was very tired after 3hrs and needed a good nights sleep. I managed to score a sweet as room again because the coach (captain Canada) needs me to qualify for worlds in this weekends race. So the sleep was premium once again.

Wednesday was our first look at the course and I was feeling rubbish in the legs. ON the first climb I realized that my knee had suffered some bruising and I had to back the load right off on the hills to rest the knee as much as possible. The course is one big loop this weekend and will be really hard like last week. The decent suits me a bit more I hope but we will have to see what 100's of riders on course does to the lines. Apparently they had a Canadian national round a while ago in the mud and the course was destroyed so the race builders have ran a bob cat through the whole loop which had opened it all up but it is still a pretty good track. The course doesn't allow much recovery at all because it is a hell steep climb followed by a traversing decent. Should be interesting to see what is like today because last night it bucketed rain which will change the flow of the whole track.

Apart from last night the weather has been premium and it is sunny and humid as all hell again today (Thursday). We argoing on track at 1ish to check it all out so it should be a mud bath.

Rest day tomorrow with a 1hr spin and then pre race prep on Saturday. Its moving quite fast....

Hope everyone is going well back home with uni, work and everything. Sorry it has taken me so long to update the blog. Thanks for all the emails and wall posts from everyone, it really makes me feel like keeping the blog up to date so everyone who cares can be informed.

Take care and hope to be blogging it up soon.