Kodak Cycling Team Australia: Gravity 12 hour 2007

On the 10th of November Chris Neenan, Phil Watts, Bill Woolmore and Tim Harman took on the Gravity 12 hour Mountain Enduro at Rosewhite, about 3hours from Melbourne.
The team decided to stay the weekend with the race being on Saturday. It was quite a big camp with family and friends there for support.

The storm clouds were visible Friday on the drive up but blow past without leaving a drop. The weather was forecast for a sunny 28 degrees all weekend.
Chris and Tim headed out for a pre race lap on Friday. They both competed in this event last year so they were keen to see if the course had changed and much to their liking it was pretty much the same as this is an awesome course with just the right amount of single track (80%), hills and fire trails (20%) over 13 kilometres.

Profile of the hills

Bill got the short straw so he was the first rider out. He had to run 400 meters to the start before he got on the bike and as Bill is the only runner in the team it worked out well that he started.

At the start, all the bike handlers waiting for their team mates

Bill making the run to his bike

Somewhere in there is Chris holding the bike for Bill

At 9am the race got underway. Bill worked hard on the first lap trying to get a good position amongst the other 181 race starters, over taking many. The Kodak team was competing against 37 other teams in the Male Fours category.
The first race results posted showed the team coming 18th.

As with all team sports a little friendly competition amongst the team began. The boys were pushing themselves hard to get the best lap time. At one point just before Tim was about to head off for a lap Chris gave him a little mocking, letting him know his lap times were a minute behind his. This friendly competition inspired the team and the next time the results were listed the team was coming 13th

From about 5 o’clock the storm clouds were in sight again but the sun was still finding it’s way through. At about 6 o’clock when Phil was out on his lap the heavens opened up. It poured, flat out, for about 20 minutes. This made it a little uncomfortable at camp as everything was now drenched but the rain just helped to make the track super tacky, increasing the grip level, a big help for the riders.

The team worked well lapping turn about but as the results were getting posted and it was nearing time to put the lights on it was obvious that they had to put a strategy in place to gain some positions. The team was holding 11th and the time to 10th was coming down with each lap. The team in 12th were nipping at their heals just waiting to pounce. Armed with the knowledge that Tim and Phil’s lap times at night usually are pretty close to their day laps it was decided that Phil and Tim would do the last two laps so a little reshuffle in the riding order took place

Chris having a rest between laps

The BBQs and gas lights were getting fired up around the camps and several people were already walking around camps with beer in hand as Chris, Tim and Phil strapped lights to their helmets before heading out for their last laps. Lucy, Bill’s wife was given instructions from Bill before he headed out for his lap to insure he had a cold beer waiting for him on his return.

The team rode well and finished in 10th position, only 7minutes from 9th.

It wasn’t long before the team had had a feed from the BBQ and had a beer in hand.

A big thank you from the team goes out to Karen, Chris’s wife for looking after us all weekend. She did a great job insuring that the team was well fed all weekend and just making sure we were comfortable, like offering cold towels to cool us down after a lap