So here I am the day after the World Championships mountain bike marathon and just 3 days off my flight to New York. The Race was a pretty amazing experience. Before the Pro riders started they had to get 15,000 hobby riders through. The feed zones were pretty restricted so our plan involved me riding along the course to ge to feed zone 4 and then riding back to the start after that. This hobby race with the 15000 people has a rule that each rider must have a back pack with 3kgs in it. This is to symbolise the weight of the new born king of some years ago when he was carried over the hills. Im guessing it wasnt on a mtb though. So anyway me with my bag full of drink bottles pretty much just blended into the field of riders and I had a very enjoyable 30km ride to my station. They were the old guys when I was riding so they were not to strong but at times I would look behind me and I would have a road train going on back there. Riders would just tack on in my draft zone and then another and another and another. It looked pretty cool. At times I would put up the pace a bit just to see who could stay, then id stop to take a photo and come past them all again. Oh so much fun. The feed zone was crazy. With the course being so much road it was a certainty that the riders would come through in bunches. Our first girl was in a bunch of 7 riders and they were going pretty fast when they hit me. She got the first bottle but for the 2nd there was no chance. The 2nd girl was in a bunch of about 10 riders. I spotted her and it went pretty smooth so I was happy with that. As for the men though.. I was waiting for Jorg and a SMS had told me he was in a bunch around 5mins off the leader. Well after the leading two came through next was a bunch of 25 or so guys and it was mayhem. You had no chance to spot your rider at the pace they came through and guys were grabbing at any bottle they could get. A gel on a bottel exploded behind me and I got covered which was not much fun at all. In then end bunch after bunch past with no Jorg and me standing in the think of action each time when I finally got the SMS saying he was out. So now it was time to ride in the finish. I got going and soon a bunch of 7 riders came through. they were probably around the 70th place or so but I hooked straight onto them. Seems there 80odd kms had them all pretty tired so soon I found myself working on the front for them. Probably a bit dodgy but I enjoyed it, even with my pack on. A few asked if I was in the race or not, as im sure they could not work out how this guy was riding with them having a pack and no race number. I turned off near the finish as they had to do another 15kms from there. I got in just in time to see our 2nd Gril, Ester Suss get 7th and Anna Enocsson had got 4th. Pretty good I rekon, in fact 4th at the World Championships is bloody awersome especially with fields as strong as they were. So not much else to say. Still fat but maybe ill loose that in Canada. Ive got no chance in New York as ill not be riding. Doh. Looking forward to the road trip though.