Sunday, December 14, 2008

Summer racing

December again, how quick did that happen?
No more road races for a few months, but there are many criteriums to choose from. A little bit of pain and a lot of fun, all over in less than an hour.
Yesterday (Saturday) was the last race at Murrarie for the year.

It was a great way to spend the morning.
Di, Michelle, Corissa, Jane and myself had a vague 'plan' to ride as a team for this particular race.
This is hardly ever possible in many other races since we are usually with the guys.

So the race involved chasing down plenty of breakaways, which kept the pace reasonably high, while trying to rest at least one of us for the final sprint.
It wasn't anything spectacular, and it certainly didn't contain the caliber of riders in the Australian Criterium champs, but it was a super race nonetheless. Each of us had an excellent time working together, and all five of us were very pleased to come up with second and fifth place at the end!

PS. C o n g r a t u l a t i o n s to local Qld rider Kirsty Broun for winning today at the Cronulla criterium, and succesfully defending her Australian title against some other top Australian female cyclists. How cool is that!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Lighter than air


This post has to start with a huge THANKS to Fusion Cycles (Matt Easton and Adrian Booth) for helping me get hold of one of these bikes.
Owning a light, fast, carbon hardtail MTB has been a goal for a while now, but I just didn't think I was 'good enough' to get such a sleek racing bike. After a lot of internal dialogue, I finally bought one with the help of Fusion Cycles.
I took it for its first ride at Gap Creek on Wednesday (in between an early morning road ride and racing a criterium in the afternoon!)...
Lucky I had the day off to spend so much time on the bikes!

The Scale 30 is amazing. (I had the 30 model upgraded with XT brake levers and shifters, so it is more similar to the Scale 20 now.)
I have never felt the need to write a bike review, but I just have to put it in writing, that this bike makes you really feel like you are floating across the ground.
Singletrack riding and any sort of climbing are almost effortless with this bike! Maybe this is partly because I was used to my heavier dual-suspension MTB, but this new bike makes mountain biking a real pleasure. I always enjoyed riding trails before, but the Scale has now made it just awesome.