This track was pedally full stop but mostly near the end where it hurts most! When you drive into Canberra it is dead set weird all the buildings in the city have tiny signs or none at all so it makes it damn hard to find anything but we did discover the suburbs of Mitchell and Fyshwick a must see if you are heading to our capital. Mt Stromlo Forrest Park is about 15 to 20 k’s out of town, when you get close to the Hill which is what it really is it looks like someone has dropped an A-Bomb on it there is no trees nothing just desert so it doesnt really get your juices flowing upon first glance, I suppose you cant really expect much when 3 years ago one of the biggest fires canberra has ever seen ripped through full on pine plantations leaving nothing. We drove straight to the top which is a sealled road right to the top so shuttles should be a quick process if we had enough shuttle buses to get us up so be prepared to wait for up to an hour + to get to the top and with four small tents top keep us out of the blazing sun!!

Up on the hill the wind was like no other and it would not go away for the whole time we were at Stromlo. We walked down the track on the Tuesday before Wednesdays practise it was put together nicely, there was a cool start ramp made of scaffolding so you could get into a descent gear straight up for your run. First up there is a little kicker which took out a few guys 5 seconds into their run ouch! followed by a couple of descent drops leading up to a wide open rock garden with heaps of different line but all equally punishing, thats where my brake lever waved goodbye. after that a blown out right habder with a double that I ate shit on with the crazy side wind, then you come to a rock garden with 2 lines outside smooth but heaps slower inside quick but you could get busted up easilly which is what I did and put a crazy gouge in my Boxxer stanchion, couple more turns here and there past the ridiculous 10 foot drop to flat which they bunted of because someone was going to get airlifted if they didnt, into a big well groomed berm of to the right bit of this and that over the road flat out into some of camber hit 2 turns dead straight then over a slab step down into a boulder berm which I ate it twice on then into this off camber turn that you could take up high to miss out on all the messy shit down low then berm, berm, berm of to the right into some rocks beside a huge step down which was shutdown also because of the wind and x factor, down the rocks pump a double or if you was a Madcat double it then over the blind hip with the huge rock sticking up (this jump took out I think 24 or more people of to the Ambo for a little tlc) through another rock garden which a few guys cleared including G-Ritzy into a loose berm and on your way to the harshest road jump I have ever seen you could hit the A-line B-line any line and your bike was going to get hurt either way, followed by a low berm or high double, most riders went the berm because it was faster and set you up way nicer for the next berm which was falling to bits, few more turns then a berm to double then start pedally your worn out booty like you have never done before, drop onto the road then pedal like a freak to make the step up then ski jump then your on the home straight of about 300 meters be prepared to bleed through your mouth mmmm!

The whole thing was well organised except for the shuttles and car park number 2 being a kilometre away, and the track was good if the bottom was removed and they smoothed out some of the landings and opened up the second big double which I dont think the wind would have made much of a difference.

Results

Elite Men

1 Jared Graves 3.20.26
2 Nathan Rennie 1.39
3 Jared Rando 3.55
4 Filip Polc 4.30
5 Amiel Cavalier 5.07
6 Ben Cory 4.49
7 Dave West 5.47
8 Sam Hill 6.38
9 Ivan Oulego Moreno 7.36
10 Adam Smithson 7.48
11 Brad Kelly 9.04
12 Timothy Eaton 9.02
13 Ryan Norton 9.07
14 Darren Pokoj 9.30
15 Adam Dossetor 9.45
16 Benjamin Bell 10.17
17 Deon Baker 10.25
18 Ricky Lee 10.36
19 Brock Newling 10.55
20 Rick Boyer 10.43
21 Gareth Paton 11.19
22 Jon Odams 12.04
23 Michael Kearton 11.43
24 Lindsay Klein 12.29
25 Lincoln Verass 12.41
26 Cody Eichhorn 12.49
27 Alan Crisp 13.27
28 Evan Winton 13.42
29 Stephen Foley 13.35
30 Steve Marsh 14.38
31 Alex Swann 14.34
32 Dennis Beare 14.40
33 Christophe Poupon 14.53
34 Tim Nelson 16.12
35 Bryn Atkinson 15.55
36 Rhys Atkinson 16.06
37 Ayden Eves 16.10
38 Ryan Walsch 17.35
39 Harry Armstrong 17.41
40 Dean Robson 17.59
41 Tim Richmond 18.39
42 Miles Mead 18.46
43 Glen Adams 20.44
44 Andrew Maxwell 20.51
45 Ken Ballhause 21.23
46 David Bowden 21.29
47 Trevwah Burke 21.37
48 Cillian Kennedy 21.47
49 Ben Goff 22.51
50 Ben Morrison 23.02
51 Jason Blackmore 23.07
52 Jamie Green 23.43
53 Ben Tregoweth 23.54
54 Michael Manning 24.06
55 Tom Richards 24.26
56 James French 24.57
57 Hamish Armstrong 24.43
58 Ben Mundy 25.26
59 Timothy McCullough 25.43
60 Andrew Eckett 26.04
61 Adam Kessler 26.07
62 Scott Grundy 25.42
63 Kaine Cannan 27.00
64 James McMillan 27.17
65 Murray Dickson 27.59
66 Thomas Kerney 27.41
67 Geoff Grennan 28.14
68 Reece Kyte 29.19
69 Regan Arthur 29.43
70 Shane Gayton 29.44
71 John Campbell 31.03
72 Craig Fisher 32.04
73 Joe Mullan 32.01
74 Dwayne Purdy 32.55
75 Damien Bogatek 33.58
76 Nick Rudzki 33.35
77 Simon Ballard 34.23
78 Thomas Rose 34.39
79 Daniel Sprague 35.42
80 Matthew Wilson 35.49
81 Tim Cox 35.55
82 Jay Taylor 36.03
83 Dean Davies 36.16
84 Brenden Wood 37.57
85 Jake Pendleton 39.50
86 William Cookesley 40.07
87 Thomas Cranston 40.08
88 Clement Jente 42.02
89 Stewart Bruce 42.21
90 Kye Hore 59.02
91 Angus Coombe 1.00.43
92 Dan McEwan 1.11.29
93 Martin FLANAGAN 1.11.59
94 Matt Swann 1.14.08
95 Chris Kovarik 1.28.47
96 Shane Wode 1.47.08
97 James Bashford 2.31.43
98 Llewellyn Cameron 3.46.35
99 Christopher Panozzo 4.19.12
DNF Craig Yates
DNS Liam Panozzo
DNS Ryan Lennox
DNS David Howse
DNS Luke Gowen
DNS John Farrow
DNS Oliver Kristevic
DNS Scott Graham
DNS Aaron Bashford
DNS Brett Pengelley

Elite Women

1 Julia Boer 4.12.23
2 Joanne Fox 0.51
3 Claire Whiteman 5.49
4 Cara Smith 6.16
5 Julia Martin 16.57
6 Jayne Randall 22.58
7 Sheryl Field 2.02.14
DNS Sarsha Huntington
DNS Sarah Booth
DNS Emma McNaughton

Under 19 Women

1 Caroline Buchanan 4.18.09

Under 19 Men

1 Mitchell Delfs 3.26.17
2 Will Rischbieth 2.23
3 Joshua Button 4.16
4 James Maltman 6.21
5 Tom Patton 6.40
6 James Brodie 7.44
7 Samuel Ward 9.46
8 David Hetherington 12.20
9 Murray Stephens 12.43
10 Cameron Allonby
11 James Taormina 13.02
12 Michael Jobson 13.58
13 Chris Coombe 14.00
14 Lee Wallace 15.09
15 Clark Hawke 15.29
16 Dale Grixti 17.06
17 David Maud 17.16
18 Todd Robertson
19 Oscar Buckle 17.19
20 Tom Brodie 18.04
21 Liam Paiaro 18.08
22 Lucas Kuncewicz 17.57
23 Llewellyn Griffith 19.05
24 David Habicht 19.07
25 Mark Beeksma 19.49
26 Jack Bellotti 25.47
27 Brenton Gowen 26.43
28 David Gnany 29.49
29 Jack Wilson 29.58
30 Patrick Young 30.14
31 Charlie Barratt 33.06
32 Ben Thomas 33.22
33 Alex Wruck 34.16
34 Callan Ridge 36.09
35 Tom Mallett 38.17
36 Jared Blay 38.30
37 Andrew Karas
38 Tyson Jones 39.18
39 Michael Dart 40.21
40 Mitchell McKinlay 40.39
41 Branden Taylor 41.17
42 Rhys Collins 43.36
43 Jonathan Archibald 45.56
44 Jared Gill 47.51
45 Adam Rostron 49.42
46 Mitchell Boyd 49.55
47 Rowan Saunders 52.51
48 Scott Parsons 53.52
49 Tom Lewis 55.57
50 Timothy Harrington 59.12
51 Jake Pamment 1.00.55
52 Thomas Osborne 1.01.19
53 Toby Breheny 1.28.15
54 Tim Windshuttle 1.30.01
DNF Lachlan Paton
DNS Matthew Vincent
DNS Hugh Jackson
DNS Brodie Sturgess
DNS Lachlan Gardiner
DNS Travis Phillips-Johnson
DNS Ben Leaper
DNS Dylan Prohm
DNS Jake Lecluse
DNS Ryan Meader