The 2010 World Solo Championships were held in Canberra on the 9th and 10th October. It was great to have the champs in Australia, being able to take all the desired equipment and not being stung with huge oversize baggage bills, on the downside it was in Canberra. Trying and compare Canmore to Canberra is like chalk and cheese, lets hope next year is somewhere cool and exciting to travel to!
So I loaded up the Ayup truck (Dennis the Landrover) and started driving down the coast on Monday, aiming to arrive around Wednesday, giving me enough time to scout the track and do some last minute shopping. The drive would have been easy, except they shut down one lane of the highway due to stupid amounts of water over the road, so I had to bypass Coffs and head up to Armidale! Down to Sydney the next day, and onto Canberra as planned on Wednesday lunch time.
Not long after arriving I hooked up with another Ayup Team Rider Sean Bekkers and we headed out to the famous Stromlo for a little looksee. The course was a basic figure 8 and saw riders climbing the mountain twice, once on the frontside and once on the backside, the front climb was mainly singletrack and it was easy to mantain a reasonable rythym and I enjoyed it, dropping down into a gnarly descent, known to the locals as Pork barrel, a sweet section of track, even had a couple of A and B lines. Once at the bottom, there was a steady fireroad climb up to the observatory. You then crossed the trail on a purpose build bridge and descended down into the skyline and luge trails. All in all about 18kms, fastest lap was 48mins and slowest 1hr18min. A lot of people thought the track was technical, especially in the descents, I love technical riding, so it didn't seem to bad, do remember struggling to hold onto my handle bars at one stage late in the race, so it sure was bumpy!
This year I had everthing I needed, in particular, all the people I needed. Mum and Dad had come up from Tasmania to support, my good mate, Richard Quinn had come over to throw the spanner around and hangout, and my fiance Jo had come down and had the title Pit Boss, which soon turned into Pit Bitch! I also had alot of support from friends and family throughout the country, thanks to you all!! So as we headed into Saturday morning the pit was running super smooth and the rest was up to me!
Almost instantly my stomach is upset, so I try to calm it down with some water and lemonade, it works after about 5hrs and start to come good. Not the start I wanted, never the less I start to make some progress reeling in the riders who went off to hard at the start, mind you Mr English is way up the road by now! I think its around midnight and I make it up to Scott who is in 3rd, we ride together for a while and Cory the Canadian has some bad luck (flat tyre, I believe) so we move into 2nd and 3rd respectably. Things stay like this for a while and we just start discussing the idea of working togther to stay away from Cory, to extend our lead. Funny, only minutes later he catches up. "Hi buddy" "Ay man" "how you travelling?" "good, except I nearly hit a fricken Kangaroo" and that was it, he attacked, Scott tried to go with him, so I watched them go up the road. 
The next few hours into day break were probably the hardest, struggling to say awake and motivated! It wasn't until English caught me that I woke up, I rode with him for the next lap and eventually we caught Scott. Not long after I dropped Scott and Jason and rode off in search of Cory, I was feeling good and ready to takedown the 2nd position. I passed him in the pits on the very next lap and kept the pressure on, putting 4 minutes between us in the lap. Heading out on my second last lap I still felt good and hoped to put some more time in, I reached the pits for the final lap and was told I had around 4mins to Cory, I can do this I thought as I powered up the first climb, but, near the top, Cory came blasting past and simply couldn't hold his wheel, he was to fast! He ended up taking 2nd and there was about 2mins back to me in 3rd.
The last 5hrs of the races were crazy, I have never experienced that intensity at the end of a 24hr race.
Third again, while I didn't have the race I wanted, I do feel happy with the result.
-My Pit Crew- Mum and Dad, Rich, Jo (who I can't wait to marry in 4 weeks!) without my pit crew none of this would have been possible, thanks again.
-Supporters all over, in particular, Greg and Mark from Noosa, who actually got kicked of the mountain for sceaming to loud!! You guys were great!
- Cognition Bikeshop, the whole team for servicing and taking car of my bikes and me!
-Tomac Bikes, the Carbide's didn't miss a beat, very slick bikes
-Onza Tyres, I run the popular Canis UST version, awesome, handled the rock/rough terrain well.
-Osprey Hydralics- keeping my fluids up the easy way!
-InfinitNutrition- Create and dominate!
-Aussie Butt Cream- this stuff is gold to any enduro rider! get some!
Thanks to everyone!
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