The drive up to Mt Perry is always a little long and nasty with slow traffic and few passing lanes, fortunately for me, Andy insists on driving. We arrived Saturday evening using the last of the daylight to set up camp, privileged to be next to the glaringly yellow AY-UP crew (Andy and Jo). The night crit was winding up as we arrived and the pit fires were starting to emerge. Within minutes it seems the temperature dropped to FREEZING by Queensland standards... elsewhere it would be considered nippy or a little brisk but by sunny Queensland standards it was frost bite territory....bedtime ensued and no rising until AFTER the sun does...
Race morning was cold (aka FREEZING), fortunately the race location is country Queensland and the race start is a similarly relaxed 0930. This allowed enough time for the sun to rise and melt the permafrost. The female line up was scary with the Willett and Anna Beck both on the start...doh!
My race plan was pretty much go hard trying to avoid the smacked into the invisible wall .. it seems I smacked around the 4h mark....it was then maintenance home...
The Mt Perry course is tough, it climbs for around 5.5km then descends for about 5.5km but there is no free time... the ups are hard and the downs require uber concentration, especially as the 6h approaches and both rider and course fatigue set in. The course becomes very very very treacherous (aka scary), for the likes of me anyway..... This year was particularly dry and the light dusting of gravel on hard pack made for some tricky cornering....
I was stoked for 3.5 hours as I lead the elite female category, somewhat shocked to have held off the Willett for so long...then around lap 6 to lap 7, I smacked headlong into the wall, or in my case fell in a chasm..:)... the Willett stomped past me and maintained her lap times in awesome form as I dropped 2 minutes and started creeping... my last 3 laps were not great but I held onto 2nd, stoked to have finished the hardest Mt Perry I had ever ridden.....Fortunately the hooligans were on the hill till the grand finale with a beer on the last lap... made all the difference as my final lap was a minute faster than my previous....
The course was longer and tougher than previous year and I managed more laps (10 in total) which was more that acceptable. This little hit out bodes well for our assault on Cape Epic 2011....the Willett and I are racing on a female team
Aly and Andy also placed 2nd in the mixed pairs so we left Mt Perry once again with a car load of cash... thanks Mike at Grinding Gearz and ONZA for another sensational event.
Lap 10 39:58 9 41:30 8 40:17 7 40:44 6 38:35 5 37:26 4 37:07 3 36:01 2 35:15 1 34:16
