Greg and Ash represented 3Fidi in the CCC Iron Mike on Saturday in conditions that were, ah, less than ideal.

Ash’s version of the race:

the results are up now, and it seems i got second. as we started with A grade it was hard to know who was A and who was B. they told me at the line i was the first B grader over but there was another guy, Andrew Schloeffel, who managed to stick with A grade all the way. Which means he should be in A grade not in B if you ask me… Basically, greg and i just tried to stick behind A grade as far as we could. I think i did one turn the whole way. Greg did more on front in the early stages. You can imagine what it was like descending in that weather. There were actual torrents of water running down the road. Crazy A graders didn’t slow down too much. It was a matter of just trying to get some braking action happening in the straights and then winging it around the turns. Greg’s choice of carbon tubulars for that day wasn’t ideal!

Managed to hang on over the top of blue ridge by digging very deep. Greg and I got dropped a bit coming down the other side as we descended more cautiously than the crazy men. They started to ride away up the next slope and I dug deep and just got back on. Lost Greg at that point, and also I think one or two others.

After that it was a bit grim. Somehow I managed to hang on all the way to the dirt. I was puffing audibly the whole way, silence all around me. I don’t think the others were even hurting that much. The descent from Condor was ridiculous. I just hung off the back, trying not to fall, and trying to stay in touch. Guys were braking through corners, crossing the white line (there were 4WDs coming through at high speed pretty frequently), ridiculous. When we got to that last climb before Uriarra homestead they upped the pace and I just couldn’t hang on. Me and another guy kept the bunch in sight. He got back on over the other side. I should have stuck closer on his wheel but lost him a bit in the descent. Tried to chase but they were riding away pretty quickly.

Freezing cold, deep in the red, trying to get back on, a marshall’s car comes up beside me and I see this crazed looking face peering out saying “Do you want to get back on?!” It was, guess who, Ian Downing. [I am still not sure if this actually happened or not. perhaps it was a hallucination born out of pain and fatigue. Greg claims not to have seen him].

Bizarrely I started to feel OK once I got to the foot of the 3 sisters, and rode up those at a decent pace but not killing myself, as I was never going to catch A grade again, and there was no-one in sight behind. As I got closer to the turnaround I kept wondering why I wasn’t seeing A grade coming back. As I got very close I realised they must have agreed to call it a day at one lap. Highly sensible. So I came over the line alone, fully 10 minutes behind them, and about 2 in front of Greg, who overtook the other dropees to take 3rd.