Port to Port
Elite overall ~ 3rd
The trip start with a flight to New Castle where Chris Hamilton picked me up in his scmick Avanti team car.
With not much to do we started our pokies career at the pub we were staying at. I became 6 dollars up! Then went down to 5 at the bowls club. An old dude next to us won $300! Its quite the life, there is free salted nuts and coffee, so you can get addicted on all 3 at once.
The team settled into our house on the Hunter River. Lovely spot to come back after some hard days on the bike.
There was a lady who lived in a shed next to the house who believe entered the house while we we out everyday. She really didn't like it when we left a plate out side, cant imagine what she say if she found out about the curtain pole that I broke and hit Tasman and Lowndsey on the head while I was waking them up with a rave at 5.45am.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=886016384748185
I don't know why but the chocolate grabber machine was a big hit in this team camp. I swear we spent close to $50 trying to get the biggest ones. The alarm may have been set off. Long story short I got the big cherry ripe, it got taken hostage as I got threatening messages from Chris and Liam. Then on he last night Tasman casually ate it. We were all devastated.
The Torq crew loves a good challenge. 15 min into our 1 hour drive home after stage Billy had to urinate, as a Torq legend in the team good old Billy held it the whole way while I swished my bottle of water around with out exploding his bowl. Good on yu Billy.
Oh yeh the race...
Stage 1
The sand stage. Riding in sand is very unpredictable. Some sections you can cut straight through it and some your bike will get flicked sideways. Most of the time I was sideways. The only time the sand was an advantage was the wall of sand that we had to run up, I seemed to make up time.
It was Shaun Lewis, Brendan Johnston and my self for most of the race before Chris Aitken popped up out of nowhere replacing Brendan Johnston who had made a gap on us all. It came down to a the last kilometre so I made a punch pass Shaun Lewis in the last single track that was made of mulch which was fun and drifty but I had gone to early as Shaun was on my wheel. Shaun then did the final punch pass me but I was able to out sprint him to gain a solid useless 0.01 seconds on shaun haha.
Andy Blair 1st
Chris Hamilton 2nd
Brendan Johnston 3rd
Ben Forbes 4th
Stage 2 We all set of on the road. Billy Sewell and Tristan Ward tried putting the pain on very early just before the first big climb then Tasman made a launch and made a gap by himself for about 20 minuets.
I sat in the lead pack for most of the climb before Andy Blair and Chris Hamilton launched it and made a break away.
We then hit the muddy moto trails which were rad fun. Big rutted roosted berms with roots pointing in all the wrong directions. One section we had to run up a big slick rock. Brendan Johnston made the smart choice to go round it while I lunged up and slid back down slapping my face on the rock.
Then we got to the quick sand section that stopped our wheels in the tracks. My front wheel literally didn't turn and because of my skinny XC arms and xtra 3kg's of mud on my bike I couldn't carry my bike.
THE MORE MUD THE BETTER!
I was loving it. It takes the road style of racing out of the race because if u sit behind someone you get mud straight to the eyes. There will always be the roadie sections but it can split into fire roads with multiple lines when you least expect it. That's what I love about stage racing, they aren't ever completely organized but that adds to fun of the adventure.
It was me and Brendan (Treky) Johnston the whole race. Somewhere along the lines I broke a spoke and because of the mud the pulls in my freehub weren't springing back, there fore not engaging and just spinning. We also nearly missed the left corner after the feed zone causing me to front wheel drift into Brendan as he turned in-front of me. Fun times.
It all came down to a sprint finish to the line for 3rd.
Chris Hamilton 1st
Andy Blair 2nd
Ben Forbes 3rd
Brendan Johnston 4th
 |
| ZOMBIE |
Stage 3
This stage was cut short from 63k to 53k because they wanted to be nice which is very strange for stage race organizers to do. The pack didn't string out much, the 8 of us were pretty much all together till the last 10k. I decided I was feeling good at went on the front but I led the whole pack straight into the bush as one of the signs had been moved. We then found the way while the lead moto bike was behind us trying to get pass. Hectic. But all part of the racing fun. Unfortunately for Brendan Johnston he caught his wheel in the sand and got thrown into a creek leaving a massive gash in his knee. The course consisted of a lot of moto trails full of muddy holes that ''were hood height of a car'' said at the briefing. I believe I found one of these as my whole bike sunk down submerging my whole drive train and brakes. I then became the noisy one in the bunch as my bike crunched and grinded plus my voice telling everyone about it. Amazingly my XX1 survived this plus the Pacific Ocean the next day. I believe because of how light and clean the design is it allows alot of drainage.
As we passed the one kilometre to go sign Andy Blair had a mechanical which left Chris Hamilton, Tasman Nankirvis, Dylan Cooper and my self to a sprint.
TORQ FILLING THE PODIUM
Chris Hamilton 1st
Ben Forbes 2nd
Tasman Nankirvis 3rd
Dylan Cooper 4th
Stage 4
The beach stage.
Il be honest I actually enjoyed the Beach. Its not everyday you get to avoid waves and play cat and mouse with the wave line trying to get on the hard sand.
There were alot of fisherman on the beach that day some moved and some didn't but thankfully we didn't have Mark Fenner moments. In the wildside in Tasmania Mark Fenner caught a fish hook to the thumb and got pulled out of the bunch!
As soon as I got off the beach I was 4th by myself for about 5k trying to catch the top 3 on a bike path dodging pedestrians who had no idea what was going on.
I got onto the group and waked down a tasty Torq Banofee Gel
We then headed into the single track, Chris Aitken and 15 year old Liam Jeffries caught on to the group.
We all battled our way through more towns, we even had to run down some stairs to go under a road.
It came down to a final sprint.
Andy Blair 1st
Shaun Lewis 2nd
Chris Hamilton 3rd
Chris Aitken 4th
Ben Forbes 5th
OVERALL RESULTS
Andy Blair 1st
Chris Hamilton 2nd
Ben Forbes 3rd
Great Event - I Totally Recommend it!
Thanks to Flow Mountain Bike Magazine for the great coverage of the whole race - Flowmountainbike.com
Thank You to Dean and Gen Clark for that great opportunity not only to race the the port to port but to have such great times once again. I cant express enough how amazing it is have a team that is more like a family.
The sponsors that created our awesomeness...
Torq Australia
Motion Clothing
Complete Wealth
Monza Imports
Sram
Rockshox
Avid
Truvativ
Adidas Eyewear
Louis Garneau
Schwable
Lezyne
Just to clear things up. Billy is not bisexual but Tristan may have brought the cow boy out of Billy or he put the cow boy into him..one or the other..
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