The 2010 Terra Australis was as hard as I remember the last years race! Plenty of long granny ring hills, lots of rough descents and not much flat between! This year I teamed up with fellow team member Mark Tupalski. Our major mechanicals happened on stage one – the roughest stage for the bikes. Mark suffered a flat or two while I managed to snap the tension screw on my rear derailleur. Using the high limit screw we sorted out my bike (less a few gears) and made it to the finish in 2nd place for stage 1.
On stage 2 I suffered a bit, particularly from the last feedzone to the finish but finished 3rd only a couple of minutes behind the 2nd place of Troy and Phil. Steele and Robbie had fairly well established their lead in 1st place overall and we were sitting comfortably in 2nd overall.
Stage 3 was a great day of descending which most people enjoyed. Again we finished 2nd just behind Robbie and Steele and increased our overall lead on 3rd. From this stage, final positions were already decided pending a major mechanical from any of the top 3 teams. For the rest of the week it was a matter of riding the stages and having some fun on the bike!
The mountainous stage 4 with the climb up the back of Mt buffalo had both of us TORQ teams riding together til just near the finish line when Robbie and Steele pulled away from us on a descent. Stage 5 for this year was a completely different stage to last year and provided us with some excellent climbs! The finish line just always seemed to be over the next range or the next climb.
Stage 6 was a cruisey loop which most of us rode together and exchanged stories from the week of riding. With the racing done for the day, the afternoon was spent chilling at the brewery with Dean showing us that he can drink better than we can!
The final stage 7 was again turned into cruise stage which was a great way to finish of the Terra. A great section of single track in the Beechworth mountain bike park started the stage and some flat firetrails to have a laugh on finished the stage. I do have to make a note that I did beat Steele in the final spint for the stage – probably the one and only time ever! Hopefully next year we can look forward to some more teams competing in this fantastic race. If you are going to take a week off work and get away to a stage race this is the one to do – both challenging and scenic. JD
