It had been three years still I'd last raced the Port to Port due to always having clashes with overseas racing. This year was going to be the mighty comeback with not only myself, but for first time in a while we had a full team of riders back together, especially with Liam Jefferies making his long awaited return which was soo good to see!
This set the bar for what was an awesome four days racing both on and off the bike. For the first two stages I found myself with good legs but kept on getting rolled in sprints (sprinting my achilles tendon) finishing 3rd in both. Then in what turned out to be a critical dirt crit, I could only manage 4th in the sprint and loosing 45sec's to the leader due to time bonuses.
So that set me up for a big Stage three and an all or nothing approach. The stage suited me with a large climb were I managed to split the field and move myself up to 2nd overall on GC, 13 seconds down on 1st placed Brendan Johnston leading into the final stage.
Last stage and again all or nothing, all I had to do was drop Trekky (Brendan) and make 13 seconds right, easy? But there's a reason he wins so many races and after driving it everywhere physically possible couldn't crack him... man one tough cookie. I did get the stage win, but will have to settle for a Port to Port overall win
another year.
We also had a special addition stage 5 Sunday night, celebrating young Benny Metcalfs 18th birthday. Was a great night laughing about racing and telling stories, what its all really about.
It was also my last race on the dirt for a little while, currently I'm on the road completing in the US crit series. But don't worry I'll be back on the dirt as soon as I get home getting ready for the next big MTB showdown.
