2015 Wagga 6hr Evocities Rd 7

I had planned on dropping the last round of the Evocities Series. As only the best 5 races counted out of 7 I though it would be silly to make the 10+ hour trip from Port Macquarie, that is until I got to experience the Wagga trails. The trails had some really unique sections and as a whole, I had a great time. It was a good hard race and I got some serious training benefits from it. What made the race particularly hard was my attendance at briefing. I didn't take my bike as I though I would have time to grab it before the race started. Starting behind 200 riders made me feel fast as I did some serious overtaking, but I wasn't fast enough to get past enough riders before the single track started. I wasn't in the top 20 and as the leaders got a clear run through the course I was trying to play catchup with what seemed like limited places to overtake.

We had our pit setup on a downhill slope like 80% of the novices however, the repeat customers knew where to setup beyond the feed zone where the speed was much slower. This meant that I needed to slow down significantly to grab a new bottle on the fly each lap.

With 6 hours of racing to do I tried not to waste much time as I looked for chances to work through the field. After several hours I managed to catch Andrew Lloyd who was sitting in 3rd a few minutes back from Ed and Stefan who were smashing it off the front. Ed almost calls Wagga his home track and his experience meant he could ride quite efficiently at a very fast pace. Just before the 5 hour mark I caught within 30 seconds of him but, I had worked so hard from the start that my legs were completely done. I could barely pedal so I just turned my legs over for the last 2 laps and got to really enjoy a well thought out and fun track.

I really need to thank the Wagga MTB for putting on such a great event, being the last round of the Evocities Series it was great to see so many people who made the effort to attend most of the events. A big thanks to Jamie and Jason for driving me down to the event and my awesome sponsors who have me using some really fun products.