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.