Race day saw blue skies with mild temps and an atmosphere of excitement, with the best in the business present, including single speed extraordinaire Bret Bellchambers and the current 24hr world champion Jason English, the racing was always going first class. Solo riders were sent on their way at approximately 11:55am and the teams commenced 5 minutes later with LeMond’s run, which is always good value as a spectator.
The sound of the start gun brought about feelings on relief, as the pre race nerves dissipated and the 150 plus bunch of solo riders gradually made there way up Mount Stromlo. The opening climb was undertaken at a casual pace until the lead team riders came flying past and the world champ upped the pace dramatically.
My race strategy was to lap consistently and minimise the deficit to English, as I was aware he would be lapping quickly for the first 6 hours. The heavy traffic on the track involved and fair bit of overtaking and resulted in me having a collision with another rider and being thrown a couple meters onto rocks and receiving a number of cuts. Regardless of the crash I remained within 15 minutes of the leader and just behind second place.
As the race developed during the night I discovered that I was having trouble seeing out of my left eye, the vision out of the eye was rapidly deteriorating and at times I found myself riding with the left eye closed, so that I could focus during the descents.
Despite my lack of vision I was feeling strong and during the night managed to lap consistently and moved into second. The Merida Ninety Six was working a treat and helped significantly reduced the toll that the rough descents have on the body. By morning I was feeling strong and the day light had given me extra motivation, as the end was in sight.
I commence my last night lap around 6am and was determined to reduce the 20 minute deficit to English and place some valuable time between me and third place which who was approximately 12 minutes behind. Maybe I was too eager, as I reach the top of Stromlo in an excellent time and carried a little too much gusto into the descent.
To my disbelief I punctured the front tire and in a mild panic and having trouble seeing, the C02 went off in my hands and not into the tyre. My luck went from bad to worse, with the night lap closing just behind me and I was left with one option run my bike to the mid check point, which was about 5km’s away and coax a fellow rider to give me a hand to pump up my tyre.
This mechanical resulted in me loosing in excess of 25 minutes and relegated back to third. On my arrival back through transition, I looked to transfer bikes and was quickly stopped by the pit crew with the words “look at me, what’s wrong with your eye”. To their disbelief, the complaints I had raised during the night about my eye, were very clear in the day light. My entire left eye had gone cloudy and the eye was moving erratically. The pit crew insisted that a visit to the St Johns tent was essential, the St Johns crew advised that I would need to go to the hospitable immediately, the race was over.
I spent approximately 3-4 hours in emergency waiting room and was advised that the surface of my eye had been scratch all over. I was issue a course of antibiotics and advised that my eye would heal in the coming days.
It was frustrating to not have finished what I had started, considering I was feeling strong and the end was in sight, but the right decision was made to pull out and I will live to see another race out of my left eye.
A special thanks to my pit crew, North Sydney Bike Bug store for their continued support and Merida for an amazing bike that helped me race with the world’s best ultra endurance athletes.
