Road Trip pt V - Psychosis, Golden

So. It's been a gazillion years since I last blogged (despite the fact that through a marvel of modern technology the dates don't appear to show it - assuming I remember to doctor them!). It's just that it takes a month of sundays to figure out which pictures to use, upload them (yawn) and rearrange them into something that makes sense. Well, I suppose not quite a month, maybe a fortnight of sundays ;-)

So onto the business in hand. Now....let me cast my mind back.....

So the headline news today - or rather yesterday - or perhaps even a few weeks ago - Is the CRAZY conditions we saw in practice. We thought we'd sneak in another run and maybe it'd rain later. What we didn't realize was that by the time we'd done the half hour drive to the top the clouds were literally busting with rain. "Hmm" we thought "it's starting to rain! Better hurry up and head down". Rich, Tim and I were all done with Dead Dog and didnt want to push our luck too much so we bypassed it and headed down to the singletrack. Dave and Derek wanted more of Dead Dog so dropped into the super-gnarl - in a rain storm! GNARLY!

Unfortunately for Dave, it proved a little too gnarly. A hundred feet or so in, the mountain got the better of the battle and took Dave down - to add injury to insult, it also gave him a serious shark bite - 9 internal and 36 external stitches - OUCH!!


Unfortunately for Dave (to say he was having a bad day doesnt really cover it) he was now seriously injured and 100ft below the summit of a large mountain in torrential rain, thunder and lightning! Fortunately for Dave (at last some luck) there were a number of other riders at the top. It took 14 of them over an hour to drag Dave back up to the waiting ambulance. Good work guys and special thanks to Arthur, Clark, and the Dunbar Cycles crew.



With Dave all patched (stitched) up and a good night's sleep under our belts we headed off for race day.







...the damn van with the Red Bull arch in the background












The race went pretty well for me. I cleaned dead dog and hit most of my lines to come in 8th with a time of 17m 35s. I was just happy to have had a decent run.










After my race we had plenty of time to head up for a spot of spectating - riding in the back of Brian's truck was so much better than the crazy army trucks the organisers were using - I swear there must have been more than one rider to have developed back problems while shuttling Psychosis style!









Here we are at "Wet Dream" - a big jump over and down past some rocks














imagine coming over the lip of this rock right in the centre of the picture and landing out of the bottom of the frame. Oh, and watch out for the tree dead ahead!

If you survived Wet Dream you have only to hang on for another 5 minutes before you get to the road gap.....











The road gap is HUGE. I walked up to the edge but I'm not quite ready to chuck myself off this one just yet! If D was here, she'd hit it. Crazy gal.











Tim













Tim, Tim and Tim








Well done guys. Quality job and thanks to Dave for being totally understanding and accomodating to all of us riding despite his shark bite.