The first round of the
Series took us to the familiar setting of Yarramundi, nestled at the base of
the Blue Mountains in NSW. Sound recognisable? Well it was almost what I was
reading word for word just the other day before our own Round 1 of the WSMTB XC
Series. It continued, “the venue, which is now a familiar stop for the New
South Welshmen amongst us, hosting its second national round in as many years”.
Wait, hold on a minute, Yarramundi is a national series trail in past history?
We were flipping through
a 2006 mountain bike magazine last week before our first round and stumbled
across Aiden Lefmann’s (of RLC Sport and Cyclinic) words. A classic tale of
persistence and adversity, quite easily re-invented for our most recent event.
Take out the solid shredder names from yester-year, inset our newest bunch of
shredders and you have yourself a race wrap-up.
After racing at
WSMTB’s Yarramundi XC trails for over 8 years now, “it was no surprise to find
myself lining up for yet another traditional Yarramundi race, this time”,
(Lefmann added, with the added prestige of a national round) as round one of
the 2018 Series. “A strong showing of competitors from all over…” Sydney ”… lined
up for the series opener. With numbers up in all categories, it shows that there
is still plenty of depth in the Olympic format style of XC racing”.
“The Yarramundi course
treats you to some super fast, but dray and sandy racing, with very few
opportunities to get the climbing legs out to play. The course follows several
kilometres of fast but also twisty single-track with the odd section of fire
road for the passing manoeuvres to take place”.
Lefmann goes on to
call out the good depth of talent on the day, Flemming (formerly Clarence St Cyclery),
Taberlay (formerly Avanti) and Cooper (formerly Scott/Ritchey), just to name a
few. Like wise we could do the same, Gordon, Green, Brame and Dinham. Names, all
becoming synonymous with some fast riding at National level.
We get underway, A
Grade, and it wasn’t long before our regular front-runners start putting the
hurt on anyone near the pointy end. We had managed to pull in behind BigDog and
were attempting to hold the furious pace the guys were producing. Through the
trees behind us were our team mates, Browny and Troy, it was going to be
important to maintain this XC pace, not letting the endurance team specialists
get one up on us.
WSMTB regulars Ludenia,
Steve and Ian eventually catch me and there is no contest. Who does catch and
we tussle for a couple of laps is Jamie Anderson. Eventually Jamie seems to
succumb to his own pressure of pace, we gain a placing, dropping Jamie
somewhere amongst the trees and holding it to the finish line.
It was a massive first
round for all grades and we had seventeen riders registered for A Grade. WSMTB
had altered the trail for the round, making it shorter and perhaps a little
more fun. Our team mates Browny and Troy held steady to place further down the
order.
We can only envisage
the duelling pair of Dinham and Brame at the front of the race were having some
form of showdown. In Lefmann’s write-up of 2006 it was Cooper V’s Flemming
coming out of the single track for the 150m sprint to the line. Lefmann,
digging deep in the last few kilometres had held on with Cooper making the
attack to reel back Flemming. In a flurry of pedal strokes and a spray of
stones, in that last 100m, Lefmann came from behind taking the win. In 2018 Brame takes it at our local clubby level from Dinham.
Full results from WSMTB here.
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