The Epic 2024

I nearly didn’t race. Chain broke on Thursday while riding at Cornubia, which would’ve been a 4hr walk back to the car at Underwood Rd. Fortunately, I was riding with Matt Brooks and he rode back, got my car and returned, I still managed to walk 4.5kms to get back to a road.

Now I was lucky enough to get a 2023 Specialized Turbo Levo S-Works from Hit Bikes at Caloundra last year. The bike is awesome.

Found out Thursday afternoon that nobody in Brisbane had a T-type chain/cassette for the bike. So, Thursday night I wasn’t racing. Received text from Craig from Hit Bikes on Friday morning, simply saying I will try and sought something out. 3pm Friday I’m over eating thinking I might still race on Saturday on one of my other bikes. Then at 3pm, Craig rings, cassette and chain on its way down from Caloundra, I collect Cassette and change at Belmont at 4.10pm, race straight to Epic Cycles, arrive about 4.35pm. plead my case and the awesome guys at Epic cycles have my bike ready for racing on the weekend. Two stores which I highly recommend. It’s sometimes the little things that mean the most. Shop local people.

On Saturday we raced the All clear 22km race at Hiddenvale, Jacquie was amazing as always and won the female E-bike race, I got 3rd and young Oscar also 3rd. Oscar was on a new Specialized Epic XC and this was his first serious ride on this pure race bike. I asked him how it went; he thought it was a little rough on the rocks and wasn’t yet convinced.

On the Sunday he raced the 35km race, we played with the suspension and tyre pressure before the race. Oscar went on to win the U19 race and is now pretty happy with his new bike, he still has plenty to learn about this awesome Epic WC bike and he’ll just get faster, exciting times ahead for Oscar. Jacquie got 2nd to the amazing Katarina Day.

Rebecca came out on Sunday to race the 67km Epic. Only being her 2nd race back from injury. Certainly, a tough race to get back into the swing of things. This is a good example why Base training is so important, although she hadn’t done a lot of training since her injury, she completed the race, came 2nd and had a ball. We did talk about whether she should do the 35km race or the 67km race. It was a short talk and we were both very happy with the result.

I got stuck in traffic at the start of my and race was pretty much over before it began but I still rode hard when I had the chance and collected a few PRs on Strava which made me smile. Yes, I should’ve got to the start line earlier and ensured I got a good position on the start line. Maybe I need to do a couple more races during the year. Still love to push myself hard and improve where I can. Keeps life interesting. If you don’t challenge yourself from time to time, what are you doing.

Things I learned from the two races, besides, get to the start line early. I still had plenty left to give and so did the bike. Now if I was training, what I’d hopefully would’ve done is push harder at the start, lot easier to dig deep and find more if you’re at or near the front of the race. Always plenty to learn from each race, make notes, enjoy the experience and work hard on areas that need improving. Pro tip:: make notes

I think I need to do some interval training.

More importantly, as a Coach I was very happy with how everybody raced on the weekend.

You can check out the action shots of the team from the weekend here in our gallery.

State XCC and XCO championships at Gordonbrook in 2 weeks, time to focus on speed. The guys and girls at South Burnett MTB Club have been working hard on the track, you are going to love it. See you up there!

JR