TERRA STAGE 1

TERRA STAGE 1 Falls Creek - Mt Beauty
96km, 2600m+vertical gain

The hits keep coming!

It was always going to be a tough, especially when I was woken up at 5.30 Saturday morning with my throat closed up struggling to breath, due to a severe throat infection & flu like symptoms, no doubt brought on by a stressful week, not enough sleep & not allowing the body to recover from last Sundays 6hr, with a bout of concussion thrown in for good measure.

Any how, on with the show, to sum it up, I certainly wasn’t feeling great, however had a reasonable start & was holding good position, then the wheels fell of so to speak, about 20km in I started to suffer from a severe lack of power, then copped a side wall slash to the rear tire on a fast rocky virgin trail decent which the Stans did seal for a while,

Getting to the bottom of the first descents in front, it was all down hill from there, so to speak!

Time for a tube, then another, then picked up a bit of debris off the track bending my rear dérailleur hanger, so a bit of bush mechanics was required,

All & all not the start we were hoping for, still managed a 4^th place, 5 & 8 minutes down 2 Torque teams consisting of James Mabis, Pairing up with the owner of Torque & Dan Mac With Luke Fetch also suffering a few mechanicals, With Mark Fenner & Sam Back taking the Stage win in just under 5hrs.

The one consolation to all this, it was certainly one of the most scenic rides I have done & the word is there is a whole lot more to come, did I mention the weather was absolutely magic.

Thanks must go out to Joel for his patients on what was a pretty trying day.

Live to ride, Ride to live,

Troy