Spring Crusher

The Spring Crusher MTB race was certainly a good race to have a crack at. With 36km across all of the Hanmer tracks and trails along with 1000m of vertical climbing gains it made for a solid on the body. From the start I was where I needed to be and not long after the first hill the race split up with three of us leading the charge. Conditions were wet and as we came onto the first long single trail downhill my tyre choice wasn't on the money. I struggled to ride smoothly and cleanly slowly slipping away from the other two. Not that this mattered too much as I could still see them up the next few climbs that made there way throughout the forest roads. Each corner I knew I was gaining easily back onto them and thought this was great as I didn't have to put myself in the 'box' to get back on. But when I was about 20metres behind the inevitable happened. The course came around a corner and levelled out, I managed to follow some old course markers which made there way down the hill and up the valley, completely off track! Once I realised this I knew any chance of winning was well in truly over as I had already lost roughly 10 minutes so I followed my tracks back and found where I was supposed to go! I was pretty disappointed but it was still a good training ride around the Hanmer trail network!