After having such a great time yesterday, Mike and I had a pretty average recovery and a revival of dodgy sick symptoms (me especially) and decided (excruciatingly) that it would be wise to sit the second day of Reef to Reef out. This nearly broke our hearts, especially when people started returning from the stage with stories of the amazing, old school trails and Davies Creek, the atmosphere out on course, the weather, and so on.
Still, it was nice to hear how everyone got on, and even nicer to hear about how the other pairs racers were finding the format. The feedback is pretty ecstatic and I hope that organisers take note and pairs racing grows. It’s the best way to race.
With any luck we’ll be back at it tomorrow. In the meantime, today went like this:
The teams all started together, but really given there was about 1100m of climbing in the 50km (a fair bit more than stated) it all split up, with leading men Jon Odams and Brendan Johnston at the front of the race. While OCS were chasing, so were the pair of Rohin Adams who rode with birthday strength and leader’s jersey pride with Masters team mate Brad Clarke.
Anthony Shippard and Mike Cameron, resplendent in their white jerseys, took it upon themselves to eat away at their losses from yesterday, and rode to 3rd on the stage, although they didn’t catch the Masters leaders.
Otherwise, there were few surprises. Kyle Ward and Samara Sheppard gave another master class in Mixed racing, with Giant Wollongong and Cycling Foodies tailing behind. Anna Beck and Briony Mattocks almost came unstuck with a mechanical at 5km to go but cool heads got them to the line still in the lead in womens. Johnston and Odams were, as expected, untouchable.
Grand masters saw the Shimano team win again… just! This race might see Matt Bazzano and Kevin Nichols still elbow to elbow with their competitors to Port Douglas.
In the solo race, the leads remain the same, but tomorrow is the longest stage and one of the most varied. I hope to be on the trails and part of the fun!