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Three Little Letters (n-duro Race 3 Report -now With Update)

Posted by: Geoff Acethorp
Tuesday 17th July 07
1,933 reads

Well, my last report was on how much numbers mean, this one is all about letters. Three little letters actually, and how they hurt.

DNF

My first ever time (that I can recall) that those three letters appeared after my name. Now this being vorb, and me being me, Iâ€™d like to make the following excuses.

I had the wrong tyres

The wrong tyres I had were at the wrong pressure

The wrong tyres I had that were at the wrong pressure were attached to suspension that was inadequate.

The wrong tyres I had that were at the wrong pressure were attached to suspension that was inadequate which was attached to a bike that had bad geometry for the course.

The wrong tyres I had that were at the wrong pressure were attached to suspension that was inadequate which was attached to a bike that had bad geometry for the course and only had one gear.

The wrong tyres I had that were at the wrong pressure were attached to suspension that was inadequate which was attached to a bike that had bad geometry for the course and only had one gear, and that gear was the wrong ratio.

Get the idea? Well the truth is more like this â€“ I stuffed it all up. Yep, it was me, no excuses. You know they say that races are won by the top two inches? Well those same two inches can lose a race as well.

So I started slowly, thinking that I would save my energy for the long distance to come. Sadly this left me wallowing and frustrated at the beginning of the single track, where I followed a guy down who dragged and skidded his rear brake the whole way through Gunna Gotta and refused to let me past. With all this frustration I attacked the next section, only to be stuck behind an equally slow moving group on Katore jumps. By the time I was at Billy-T I was ready to fly. And fly I did, over the handle bars twice. Nothing serious, but it really killed the confidence.

Then I came to bush track, I had caught the Marin DH team (hi Ekmanrider {Smile}

(sp?)) and proceeded to follow him down the hill. Now here is where I made my mistake â€“ with confidence low, and the track really cut up, I decided to let lose. Itâ€™s been a long time since I have ridden conditions like that (think 10 years +), and on that particular bike I should have taken care. But no â€“ I wanted to make up time. I had a big off, it was an over the bars ragdoll of epic proportions. Thankfully no-one was behind me to run me down, as I took a while to gather myself up and crawl to the track edge to rest. No bike damage and I â€˜feltâ€™ ok, just a little shaken. Back on again and kept riding.

Then came Buchanans (sp?) â€“ and I managed to repeat the same mistake. By the time I reached the end and turned up the road, I realised my right leg had taken a larger hit than I first thought; I could no longer put pressure on it. I thought about going on, but knowing I had 6 hours of driving ahead of me after the race, and work that week, I decided to end my race there. Having just booked a doctors appointment due to my neck not coming right, I think I made the right decision.

So what went wrong? I didnâ€™t ride to within my limits â€“ plain and simple. There is nothing on that track that I couldnâ€™t ride, and there is nothing on that track that my bike couldnâ€™t cope with. But on that day, in those conditions, I chose to ride faster than I was capable of. So to blame anything else other than my decision making would be a cop out.

The experience has left me pondering the next two races. I want to have fun, and a SS over that distance (70km) I donâ€™t think would be fun for me â€“ I just donâ€™t have the fitness. So I am left with 2 choices.

Do the long distance â€“ but with gears
Do the short distance â€“ but christen the new SS

As I havenâ€™t even made the choice yet myself â€“ you guys will have to wait till the next report to find out.

Sorry if you were expecting an upbeat report â€“ it just wasnâ€™t that sort of race for me. I have bruises in places I donâ€™t remember falling on, and my neck and lower back are suffering. On review of my helmet it appears I also hit my head on the ground at least twice, though I donâ€™t remember which crashes . . . The next race shall be better, I learn from my mistakes. Well most times I do â€“ some mistakes are worth repeating. {Blush}

*UPDATE*
the pain in my lower back was not spinal, I've suffered some internal damage Out of Hospital now, but off the bike for a few weeks (or so they think ). Seems i must have hit something solid with my kidneys on my tumble. I still plan on riding the next N-Duro though

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