10:26 Saturday:

The sound of a message arriving on the phone just as I am heading out to drop Thomas to a friends birthday party after the Saturday morning rides

It took me about 63 minutes to reply to that

I gingerly mentioned it to Geraldine and as always was met with absolute support for the planned and also unplanned last minute things I generally am able to get myself tied up in.

The weather was looking a little dicey so thoughts moved to preparation, grab the gazebo for shelter, deck chairs at Jay’s request. We will need the Weber for hot food dear, thoughts of bacon and egg burgers in between laps start rolling through my mind. Extra k’s means chocolate will be allowed hhhmmmm Marvellous Creations Jelly Popping Candy Beanies (if you haven’t tried it you haven’t lived).

A quick call at 18:30 to finalise preparations, supermarket run for supplies pack the trailer and we were set to go.

Geraldine the boys and I arrived at Langford Park at about 08:00 set up camp.

We weren’t expecting Jay until 08:30 then we would go down and register 08:30 comes and goes but no sign of the 2^nd team mate. A quick call confirms he is just a few minutes away. Once Jay arrived we headed down to the “late registration” side of the tent, Jay aptly named our team “Just Waiting on a mate”. The first aid crew had been held up which delayed the start by 30 minutes, giving us a chance to set up settle in and prepare. Jay was to take the first lap and we would go with one lap each for the duration.

Jay:  Lap one was slow slow slow. Never again will I start in the back half for a race. A true test of patience, but I got through composed and without any dummy spits or reckless behaviour.

Second lap I had more or less a free run and was totally hooking, till I endo’d over a log stack. Wasn’t too sure what was going on after that but I saw some guys with mountain bikes and numbers on the front so guessed I must be in a race, jumped on and kept going.

Laps 3, 4, 5: What an absolute blast. Torrential rain on a sweet fast flowing trail. I got my lap times down almost to 30 mins, and every part of me covered in mud.

Big props to Craig for the rest station set-up and turning up for punishment at short notice. Great to see a couple other SPR boys on the dirt as well.

Craig:  I waited anxiously at the transition area for Jay to come in from the first lap, my MTB career consisting of a total of five rides around the Dunsborough tracks during the school holidays in May. Jay appeared from within a bunch of other riders and I was up and rolling. Jay had some quick advice to “smoke as many as you can on the fire breaks” and off I went. The track was very friendly and not too technical which allowed me to warm up comfortably and settle in. Passing a few riders here and there and there was the first fire break and a left hander to a slight up hill where I got passed a few more riders surprisingly if you know me and hills. For the most part there was a group of three of us myself on the front closely followed by one of the female riders and another guy; I kept them entertained with my most spectacular manoeuvre of the day while launching over a log and getting all crossed up landing off the track, stalling the bike and realising I was still on two wheels rode through some scrub and back onto the track with much encouragement form the lady behind me.

Note to self when you want to have a drink while mountain biking just stop! During this episode of drinking many Evil Kinevel impersonations were attempted with the laying across the handle bars trick resulting in one lost garmin.

The rest of lap one and lap 2 finished without to many more interruptions.

At the completion of lap 2 I find myself glaring at the S-Works demo bikes and the next thing you know my pedals are off and being fitted to a S-Works Epic Carbon yahoo, As John from Wembley Cycles is doing this he looks down and notices my empty Garmin mount and casually asks have you lost a Garmin me: yep John: 510? Me: yep John: over there on top of the box has a spr hale road or something course? Me: awesome thanks.

So Lap three sees me out on a ten thousand dollar mountain bike it doesn’t get much better than this! I had to slow down very near the start and settle into the new bike as it flowed and loved the track more than I was prepared to let it at this stage. Somewhere about half way around the track there was one section I had not been able to navigate successfully on the 2 previous laps and this wasn’t going to change this lap either unfortunately. After my fist two laps were completed with the exact sale time of 32min 48secs I came in on the third lap at 31min 01 sec on the Epic.

Lap 4 saw things slow a lot with a torrential down poor which soon saw the track turning to a river a lot of the way, searching the memory banks for those slippery tree roots now hidden by water. The section I had struggled with on the 3 earlier laps was finally conquered with out stopping and going feet down. After tagging off with Jay the realisation sets in that due to the timing Jay should return with just a few minutes to spare to allow me time for one more lap.

Lap 5 Sure enough Jay comes in with about 36 minutes remaining on the clock just the right amount of time to complete one more uneventful but enjoyable lap.