The morning started off on a very worrying note. Minter and I were in the tent which we are sharing and we were getting dressed and ready for the day ahead when Minter broke out into song....the song by the Divinyls.....for those of you who may not know it, the lyrics go "......when I think about you I touch myself". Not what I wanted to hear!!
Despite Minters assurances that we were no longer racing we ended up bolting out at the start and flying along at a killer pace. About 14 km we entered some single track and this time there was a left and right path. The left looked much smoother and the right more rocky and bumpy and everyone in front of us took the easy option, but not Minter who started flying down over the rough route. It was steep and fast and we were flying along bunny hopping over ruts and dodging rocks but managed to get ahead of most of the group we were in. We hit the dirt road at the bottom and powered along with a group of about 5 of us. The guys were strong on the hills and I was struggling to stay with them on the climbs (Minter was not afflicted with the same problem), but then on the descents we were flying past them (admittedly we may not have been 100% in control). We started to catch small groups that had splintered away and kept overtaking them until about 3 km before the end we saw a group of about 6 riders and started chasing to catch them Minter managed but it was a hill and my heart rate was up at 169 beats per minute and I just couldn't give any more so we came in just behind them.
Overall it was an excellent result for the day, with us placing 8th overall and second in our age category (30 to 39 year olds....they use the age of the youngest team member). We were very chuffed and how fantastic to actually see the results of our efforts, rather than to be standing on the side of the trails changing tyres after killing ourselves for half the race.
The 7th, 6th and 5th positions were all within 20 seconds of our time of 3:08:51 ahead of us, and according to Minter (who was screaming like a psycho...."hurry up boet.....come boet...come" ......repeated about 100 times over 2 minutes.....as if I was sitting on a friggin sun-lounger and sipping a piña-colada), if I had just dug a bit deeper we could have taken them. According to me, I would have died on the spot if I tried to accelerate.
The Magellan unit has performed as one would expect. It is difficult to say too much about it as it does what it should do. Compared to the Garmin Edge 500, the Magellan battery life is better, the look is nicer and the screen is bigger. The mount is also more robust. At the moment, the time of day is not an optional field on the screens, but is a separate screen (you just click "enter" to flip the screen), and I would prefer it as a field option. The good news is that (I believe) they are looking at fixing this in the next firmware upgrade....which is my only moan about an otherwise great unit.
One thing I can say at this point is that the Syntace Hi-Flex seat post was a great purchase. It definitely allows me to stay seated quite a lot when Minter is up off the saddle. If you are riding a hard tail (or a road bike) then I think this would be a very valuable addition from a comfort perspective. Given the quality of the Sydney road, and the fact that my current roadie seat post is aluminium, I will be buying one for the road bike.
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