KWT-Maxxis Sunshine Series XC at Brookfield


The fourth Sunshine Series race was held last weekend at Brookfield, following a big night of le Tour, 'non-russian vodka' Ruski's, awesome greek food and Kathy's A-MAZING (it deserves special spelling!) macadamia and sticky date pudding with caramel sauce. Mmmmm....

After a long day at work on Saturday, Aiden and I headed out to the Greeks' (it's a term of love, endearment and love of moussaka!) all the way out in Boonah, or somewhere close to there. We arrived in the middle of the night, having difficulty finding their place in the middle of the countryside, and had an amazing time...with a fire, food (have I mentioned how awesome the food was yet??), some drinks and le Tour. Not to mention the terrible recurrent French accent that kept on creeping out (baguette, escargot, champagne etc etc in the style of Gabriel Gate himself).


Lots of fun! Unfortunately, and kind-of fortunately, our time there was cut short as we had to pack up and leave early the next morning to schlepp out to Brookfield for the fourth round of the KWT Sunshine Series XC races.

We arrive with an hour to go before the race...which is usually not a great deal of time when you want to register, get changed, check your bike, get your feeding gear ready, warm up and check out the course. But it felt like forever!

The course itself was unusual. Short 5km laps, with a ten–twelve minute climb from the gun each lap. I love that! Parts of the descent were awesome—like a sweet rock garden and chute right at the top—but on the whole the descent was a bit ho-hum.

I love a climb where you can open it up and challenge yourself each lap. I managed to create a gap on the first lap f around two minutes, and though my subsequent laps were a bit slower (but consistent for the rest of them, which is not like me!), I still gained time each lap which was nice! But also bad, because you don't ride as heavily on the rivet as if you were elbow-to-elbow.

But anyway, Aido and I both took home the win, with DH winning the sport women and Glenn taking second. Cyclinic was out there that weekend! And soon I may make enough accumulated cash from my few wins to get some new, sweet shoes. Awesome!

Today, I felt a little bit motivated, which is exciting! The weather has been beautiful, and I am in a good headspace to try and race hard and strong for the next few races. 4.5 hours of off-road hills today—I was in heaven.