Luck runs out

Lining up with some new faces in A grade with plenty of lycra and all riding light hard-tails. the weather was stuffy and warm, it didn't take long to raise a sweat during a short warm-up. predictions were of rain later in the day, I hoped it would hold off till after the race. launching off the line in the usual sprinters fashion we headed down the trail in road train style. over the course of the first lap I found track conditions at Yarramundi to be dry and fast. just not fast enough as the pack rode away over the course of the first few laps. It was on the second lap that my mechanical luck finally ran out. Turns out it has been a very, very long time since a good mechanical put me on the side of the track. So National Parks had been out with the slasher and sorts trimming here and there, putting a variety of sticks over sections of the track. It could have been one of these or just a random black wattle that jumped out from the track to catch it's self in my rear derailleur. Many times before I have caught the stick here, pulling up and removing the offending piece of timber. This time the little blighter ate half my jockey wheels on its way through, strike one. Getting caught on a spoke the lumber continued it's destructive path, with the causality being the derailleur hanger. Two. It looked like a mess of twisted shiny metal, black plastic jockey wheel teeth wrapped around some dark wood, classic MTB Deco Pop art. After flipping the bike over and manually twisting the hanger back to a much more straight stance, I gave the pedals a quick rotate to make sure things worked, just. The derailleur had a bit of a limp over the half cogs but worked best on the smaller gears of cassette. I jumped back on the bike and completed the lap without further mishaps. Out on lap three it was best to drop to the granny for the power-line climbs and wrestle the bike single speed style in the middle ring through the undulations. It was lap four of five when the next incident happened, flying down a technical decent when, phf-shhhhhhh. Three, it was a punctured front tyre and tube, just a quarter of the way through the lap, and instantly the tyre was flat. My enthusiasm deflated just as fast as my front tyre, I don’t consider DNF part of my racing and yes, three strikes and it was on the for front of my mind. I shamefully trekked my bike back to the start/finish, this was the first time my luck had run out.
On the upside while commuting home on Monday, trialing a new 50-60 minute route, I came across a nice tool that had taken a small beating on the road. Turns out probably a hundred dollar item and the beating was only minor. The new route will also be good for steady spinning on flat terrain.