Finished at last!

This year's Soda ready to roll... thanks to Cotic, Magura, Bontrager and KCNC / Clee Cycles ! :-)

Hello 2010!

Welcome to the first post on the AQR Team blog for 2010!

It still seems a bit strange that we're in 2010, but the evenings are already getting lighter and winter so far has at least been broken up by plenty of riding and playing about in the white stuff!

There's been a fair bit of road riding over the winter too and one of our new sponsors for 2010, Skins, have come up trumps with some ace base-layers and riding gear which has seen me and some of the other team members shrug off the winter cold, on- and off-road. Fantastic shorts and longs too which we hope you'll be seeing the team in throughout 2010.



But anyway, we're looking forward to the 2010 race season now and the diary's rapidly filling up with events, from British XC and Midlands XC races, through to team appearances at some 12hr races and the Kielder 100 enduro...

Before then though, I have the pleasure of building up a new race bike for 2010... :-)


See you on a race course soon!
James

Ian
Iain
Tracy
Warren
Kirsty
Katie

Paul & Claire (our Aussie contingent Down Under!)

Mountain Bikers Get Behind One of Their Own

Own a piece of Australian mountain biking history and support Trekky’s cancer treatment. Up for auction on ebay (item 150397647262) is an official Australian national team jersey signed by members of the Australian mountain bike team that raced the world championships at Mt Stromlo in September 2009.




The shirt is a brand new medium sized Santini jersey with MTBA logo as worn by our national team. Most of the team has signed the jersey including Beijing Olympian Dan McConnell, national champions Rowena Fry and Lachlan Norris and many more including AQR guest guide Andy Blair.

All proceeds from this auction will go to assist Brendan “Trekky” Johnston in his fight against cancer. Brendan was diagnosed with cancer just before the World Championships this year; he had urgent surgery to remove the cancer and amazingly was able to get back on the bike to race the championships and finish 50th. He is now at the start of a long road of chemotherapy. You can read more on Trekky’s website at http://www.keepingtrekkyontrack.com/.

So help us help Trekky, and score yourself some unique Aussie sporting memorabilia. Bid now at http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150397647262.

Crossing to the Dark-side

It's been a while but I think I have got the racing bug back. Why, I got up early on Sunday morning to do a road race.

The sensations weren't good rolling over to Stromolo, the legs felt rubbish it was really windy and I probably should have worn arm warmers. The ride over double as a warm up which is always good, signed on for C-grade and had a cruised round staying warm. A and B were combined and there were some big hitters in the field, including local MTB star Dylan Cooper.

C-grade had 6 riders in it which proved to be good as the racing was positive from the gun. The wind played a big part, the first quarter was a head wind, second half was cross wind and you guessed it, the last quarter a tail wind. Up to the halfway point I was feeling good, I cruised up the climb and was on the right wheel when my mate Les decided to put everyone in the gutter in true rouleur style. Just after the turn around Les and I had a brief chat at the back, he was going to light it up over one of the the small rises. I saw the move coming and made sure he got a clean jump, the idea being I would bridge to him on the climb. The remaining 4 riders had it strung out trying to chase Les down but his advantage was up to around 500m with 12km remaining. From here we had about 3km of climbing up the Three Sisters. I followed wheels and there were only two of us left over the first sister. I rolled to the front, pretended to chase but backed the pass off to let Les open up an advantage on the flat. Climbing up the second sister I tried to jump across solo as we were down to less than 100m, but had an unwelcome passenger who I couldn't unhitch. Alas I backed things off again. By the top of the third sister, Les's advantage was about 200m, I knew he was a time trailing machine so I pretended to swap off to maintain my podium position. In the last few kilometres a really strong guy caught us and Les's lead was looking in doubt. I got to the front twice to block but the little guy would attack me. The second time the elastic broke :-( Les hung on for the win and I came in 4th. The support in the chase group was appreciated. It turned out to be a nice Sunday morning hit out.

I wish Les all the best for next weekend Tour of Bright (especially the TT), which is one of the biggest road races on the Australian calendar, including the 20 plus kilometre climb up to Mount Hotham.

Thursday Night - Crit Night

Once daylight savings is in full swing here in Canberra, our club holds weekly dirt crits. The format is simple 10-15mins on a short lap with juniors up first, then all the way up to A-grade.

So after a crazy week at work, I left at 5 and made a B-line to Mals where I was reunited with my bike, now my forks work! I was back in the car bound for Hackett gate whilst trying to avoid the 6 O'clock rush around Dickson. With the time running out I was on my bike heading up the climb over to Majura Pines (Majura is probably a 20 minute ride from the centre of town and is covered with singletrack.), it was a humid afternoon and you could see the storms rolling in from the mountains.

I arrived just a D-grade was starting, Claire signed my on whilst I did a quick practice lap. As a results of the afternoons thunderstorms there were some muddy spots to keep things interesting. The course was broken into two section on singletrack with the later being into the headwind followed by the start/finish straight climb.

The key to a good race in C-grade is being near the front on the start line. Claire and I were sadly on the second row, I tried to go for the hole-shot and ended up going into the singletrack in 5th. The gap from 1st to 2nd opened up really quickly and there may have been some encouragement to let the brakes off. The Merida kid in 4th was letting the gap open to 3rd after a few hundred metres and wasn't happy when I tried to take advantage of the door he left open coming into a open lefthander. Up the start finish straight on the end of lap 1, everyone was looking at each other so I laid the gas down was led the pursuit of 1st place. By the 2nd of lap 2 I was in no mans lands 20m off first and feeling the effects of the chase. After an incident with the mud it became evident I wasn't going to catch first so I backed it off a little and maintain second place.

Going into the last lap I did all that was required to go into the first section of singletrack in the lead. I accelerated onto the short fireroad to ensure I went into the last section of singletrack in front. I felt the effect of my chase and the headwind so with a group of 3 on my wheel took the tactical decision to back the pace of to let myself recover. I didn't brake check anyone (have been known too) but chose the time and place (tight bend) to lay down it all down for the sprint to the line. I just managed to take out the sprint for 2nd from a member of the recent world champs downhill team. I very unlady like fashion she let loose on my dirty tactics and had a good bitch to everyone about it. I wasn't in a position to defend myself as I was sitting by the track trying to get my breath back.

Claire had an annoying race, she went into the singletrack just behind me but spent 2 laps trying in vein to get past the Merida Kid. He was strong in a straight line up a hill but could ride singletrack to save himself. Eventually Claire stuck past and finished just off my group. The Merida Kid continued his bad form, bring down our mate Karen at the finish.

The best bit of the night was the de-breif with the crew from Mals at Edgars over a few beers.

More woodsy playtime

More fun in the woods on the Hemlock this weekend with a trip to the edge of the Peaks for some woodsy sniggletrack and rocky downhills. Blue skies and winter sunshine at last! :-)

Not the usual Cotic

Popped by Round 1 of the Gorrick autumn series at the weekend and although I wasn't competing, it was great fun to blast round on the Hemlock rather than the Soda which the AQR team usually race on; good to see such a busy XC event at this time of the year too.

Joolze's full report is here but thanks to her also for the photo while I was checking out the course!

Riding not racing...

Peak District Hemlock-ness
Originally uploaded by James Dymond

So summer's over and with it has come the end of my '09 racing season and all the fun and frolics that go with tearing round the country to rip each other's legs off for a few hours! At the same time autumn's well and truly arrived... but all is not lost and the last couple of sunny weekends have made a nice change to be riding purely for laughs. Taking the Cotic Hemlock out for a blast in the peaks with mate Jimbo was amazing the other weekend; I haven't chuckled as much on a ride for a while as when I was tearing down the Beast to the edge of Ladybower reservoir. The following week I even managed a few hours off work for an afternoon blast round the local race course at Sherwood Pines... check out those shadows from the warm afternoon sunshine! So farewell summer and roll-on autumn :-)

Autumn shadows at the Pines

Originally uploaded by James Dymond

Some 24hr Photos

As the house is back to normal I felt I can add some photos from the weekend. OK there aren't heaps of racing pics but I will leave that up to the guys at Sportograf (Luke features in the best of). Hopefully the atmosphere of the event comes across.

We were there ready and waiting to hand our Luke his bike for the first lap, in the dog and ready for a fire road drag race. Any cross rider would be pleased with how smooth the hand over was.

24hr racing in Canberra has always featured a 'le mans' start. Luke is some where in the group of 500 runners.

Is Angelo going pig shooting, riding or ready for some strip tease? At least his shoes finally arrived.

The Hemlock coated in a fine layer of Stromlo dust and Angelo's digs know as 'The Shanty.' I wonder why he was cold on Saturday night?

Claire here in action on her last lap. She dragged the four guys in the background around for the last 10km, sadly the favour wasn't returned in the last section.

Two champion Claires.

Claire spending some time on the podium, 3rd in the hot lap TT. As you can see the podiums in Australia are a highly profesional affair.

A special mention must go to our mates Claire and Joel who took the title for the mixed pairs. Well done!

News Flash: AQR gets on podium twice Down-Under

Hot of the press, the AQR Down-Under crew of Claire and Paul Aubrey made some podium appearences at the Scott 24hr race in Canberra, Australia over the weekend! The Scott 24hr is the biggest and longest running 24hr race in Australia and was run at Stromolo Forest Park which held the world championships only a few weeks ago.

Before the race got started properly, Claire enter the prolouge time trial, with the possibility of being crowned the fastest women at the event. Without much racing under her belt Claire rode sensationally posting a time which let her step onto the third step of the podium. It was close, 13 seconds sepearted both first and second and second and third. During the event, Claire backed up her hot lap with the unoffical fastest night time lap.

The main event start and midday on Saturday and by the time dawn broke on Sunday morning we knew it was going to be really close for the podium positions, 20 minutes separated the first 4 teams. All the members of the Malcontents stepped up and left everything on track to move up into third position in the Mixed 6 category.

The team was Luke Graydon(front right), Angelo De Maria(back middle), Harry Hearn(front left), Stuart McDougall(back right), Claire Aubrey(front middle) and myself (Paul Aubrey (back left)).

Some photo's will follow once the house is back in a livable state.