This was my first race where I got to the start and had bike issues. The bike was fine Friday morning but the morning of the race I had no back brake. I tried pumping it but nothing, decided to throw a new set of pads to see if it would help just a little and nothing. Kept pumping the lever and bang, it improved. There must be a bubble somewhere but for the rest of the race it was fine

With brake issues sorted (thanks Ant for doing this) it only left me about 15 minutes to warm up and bed in the new pads. Down to the highway I just did some short sprints and hard braking to bed the pads in then it was back to the start line as I was starting in the first group.

The gun goes and we're off. It always seems so fast and everyone's sprinting and jostling for places. I nearly took Paul Sloan out trying to get a better line, sorry mate Smiling . We get to the single track and it stops for a little bit while we all go single file. It didn't seem long and I was just sitting on Paul's rear wheel as we were making our way though the single track which just seemed to go forever. By now my back is hurting and in the panic of the start I didn't have any drugs within easy reach so they would have to wait until the untimed section.

We get to one section at the end of a fire road and it was a bit hard to see where the track was. There were crosses everywhere and the arrow looked just to be pointing to the bush. It all happened quite fast but guy right on my rear wheel goes to overtake and in the confusion of not knowing where the track is, thinking its goes to the right, he completely turns in front of me hooking his bars under my elbow and throwing me off the bike. I manage to stay on my feet but my chains off and a quick sorry from him and he was off. By now I've lost the group with Paul.

I push on to the untimed section where I see Dave, he was about 5 minutes ahead of me and just leaving the stop. I stop to get water and take my pain killers and cruise to the end of the untimed section.

The rest had no incidents except for some of those corners on the firetrails heading over to Stromlo were slippery as.

With my sore back I didn't feel good the whole race. It also feels like I was overtaken by hundreds of riders but surprisingly I came in 90th overall and 35th in category so it was a big improvement on last year. I was also just over 20 minutes faster then last year so I'm happy with that.

Next race is the Australian XCM Champs at Atherton and can't wait for that.