Lasseters Easter in the Alice is in its third year, but this time around organisers have departed from their usual format to introduce a hill-climb stage for the first race of day two, which is traditionally split into two stages, with a night race in the evening. Locals have long been familiar with Mt Gillen, […]
Blair and Smith win MTBA XCM Round 2
Related Event: Easter in the Alice
The second round of the Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA) XCM Series ran today as stage one of the Lasseters Easter in the Alice Mountain Bike Muster. The ‘Bunny Buster’ is a 90km trek through the rough, rocky, and often flowy singletrack of Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory. 2015 XCM Series champion Andrew Blair was triumphant […]
Chasing XCM World Championship qualification
It’s nearly April, but for XCM racing, the year is just beginning. Overseas, a lot of the top pros (plus a couple of thousand amateurs) have started their season with the ABSA Cape Epic, the world’s biggest, toughest, most helicoptered mountain bike stage race. Here at home, our XCO national season is over, and those […]
On patience
I turned 35 last week. This unwanted birthday coincided with a periodontal abscess, a round of tortuous self-interrogation about my lack of (ahem) job or even employment prospects, and inevitably pressing questions about when I was going to start a family. From my mother. Mostly for me, my birthday brought home a pretty unfortunate biological […]
National XCM Series goes out with a Blast
Related Event: XCM Series: Bayview Blast
Waking up in your own bed on race day is a pretty rare thing, and this weekend’s Bayview Blast, held just 45 minutes from my Brisbane home, was the first national-level race this year that’s afforded me the privilege. On the other hand, being pretty spoiled for good singletrack really close to home (about a […]
Cape to Cape 2015 stage 4 – Ward and Mullens victorious
Related Event: Cape to Cape
At last the weather was kind to Cape to Cape racers, with a mild, sunny start to the final stage of the 2015 race at the Colonial Brewery. It was a quick start through a long road stretch, which soon turned to gravel, then rougher double track as riders headed towards the first superb singletrack […]
Cape to Cape 2015 Stage 2 – Mullens and Tupalski retain leaders’ jerseys
Related Event: Cape to Cape
What a difference a day makes. Today’s start for stage 2 of the 2015 Cape to Cape started under rainy, grey skies as showers swept in over Hamelin Bay, providing a welcome change from yesterday’s searing heat. The stage started with a long road and gravel climb, which quickly turned to singletrack, before taking in […]
Cape to Cape 2015 Stage 1 – Mullens and Tupalski take the lead
Related Event: Cape to Cape
The Cape to Cape’s eighth edition got underway today under perfect blue skies in WA’s Margaret River region. Over 1,000 competitors from across Australia formed a massive, multi-coloured snake stretching for hundreds of metres beneath Cape Leeuwin’s historic lighthouse. Today’s stage, while the shortest at just 42 kilometres, was also widely touted as the race’s hardest, with […]
Perskindol Swiss Epic – on pulling out
Related Event: Perskindol Swiss Epic
So, right when Mike and I got comfortable with winning, here we are out of the race. Pulling out of a stage and the race was interesting in itself, and really brought home to us what’s great about the Perskindol Swiss Epic, and our partnership. I want to tell the story of what went on, […]
Perskindol Swiss Epic – Stage Two, Tour of Leukerbad
Related Event: Perskindol Swiss Epic
Whenever we get in a group of fast riders, challenging us, I always tell Mike that we have to ‘ride the wave, as long as we can’. We were feeling a little battle-worn when we finally turned out the lights last night. We’d had a very tough day: things had gone wrong, we’d both dipped […]