Thursday, May 13, 2010

Stage 4 Red Centre MTB Enduro

Stage 4 was the big race. 98km of mostly fireroad with little climbing. I went into the stage with the yellow jeresey and a comfortable 3 minute lead. All I had to do is stay with the top boys which shouldn't have been to hard as it was mostly fireroad.

At about the 15km mark I noticed my tyre was slowly going down. I had borrow a wheel and I didn't want to try putting my tyre on there without a compressor so I used what was on it. There was heaps of stans sealant in the tyre so I just put some more air in it and caught back up to the boys again. About 1km later it was flat again so I put the rest of my CO2 in it. It lasted for about another 500m and so I stopped to put a tube in. I couldn't work out where the hole in the tyre was located. There was no stans spewing out and when I opened the tyre there was still heaps of stans in there. I put the tube in and relied on Chris Herron for another CO2 to get me going. I was surprised how many people had got past me and I tried to put the hammer down to catch up to the faster riders ahead.

About 50km into the race I caught up to Ben Henderson and rode with him to the end of the race to finish 4 minutes behind the winners which dropped me back to 1 min down on GC. 3 stages to go and Im pretty happy with a second overall!

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