Perth Mountain Bike Club

Hi guys

We have been in Europe for over a week now - its gone so fast! the weather has been pretty ordinary, raining and cold, but good for the MTB.
we did our first race on sunday 24th in a small town called Frammersbach, in the Spessart region - National park. It was a great spot, the Mountainbiking was pretty good too. we arrived a week before the race and so we did a fair bit of riding over the course and around the area. It had been raining non stop the week before the race, and made the course VERY muddy, and VERY hard. We have decided oprobably the hardest bike race we have done so far.

The 120km had 3300m of climbing in it,over a 2 lap course. One of the best parts of the lap was riding up this steep hill towards the end of the first lap coming back into town, the street was lined with spectators about 10 deep, screaming and yelling, playing drums, shouting up, up, up!! and of course smoking!
it was an amazing feeling. It took Tim 5hrs 40 and me 6hr 54, Tim paced 13th and I placed 7th (I won 50 Euro!! payed for dinner and beers!)
the winners in both men and womens races were pretty fast.

We are in Bern at the moment and going to head out for a ride later today with one of our friends, he is going to take us for a ride on some of his favourite trails. we then make our way across to Italy and to our next race.

we will keep you posted

Tim and Jo
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