The weekend’s intermittent rain provided Darcy Strudwick, Harry Hollaway and Noah Piggin with hero dirt conditions over at Adelaide MTB Club’s Flinders XCO on Sunday. 

Darcy and Harry took home 6th and 8th position respectively in a strong A-grade field, while Noah was stuck battling with early season allergies.

Full race reports are below from Darcy and Harry – we’re excited to see how they go at Eagle!

It was great to get back on course at the AMBC Flinders XCO race on Sunday.

Here i came with no position expectations, rather a hunger to learn and grow. My objectives for the race were to control my pace, be consistent and finish in the top 10. Began by cutting my practice laps on the course in the weeks prior, I knew that Harry was looking forward to this and I’ve heard riders call it the Hollaway training facility.

Starting out I plunked myself right in the middle of the front row, here I started on the bitumen and had a perfect spot to go from. Taking off, clip fell straight into where it needed to go then I hit the gas for 1000watts for 10seconds. After a quick elbow battle I slotted into 3rd wheel. Here I pushed on the descents, but worked to save energy for the climb. Looking up the trail I saw some big crashes in the mid-pack!

Hitting the climb for the first time, I pushed too hard for the first half before gaining composure and understanding I needed to focus on the longer race. Here I held 6th place after leaving the door open and getting bombed on a corner. I settled into a pace of cautious descending followed by hard climbing, with a regular attack on a 30% gradient to break up my wheel hitchers.

Final lap came and I was able to ride home in a comfortable 6th place. The result was great and I was even more impressed by the way I was able to hold a more consistent pace keeping lap times under a 1 minute drift. This race gave me a valuable experience coming into the big state champs race at eagle late September. Massive kudos to Curtis Dowdell for absolutely smashing everyone.

Darcy Strudwick

Flinders was a powerful but calculated race where I was able to post very consistent lap times and hold a good position for most of the race, after entering the single track in 5th place then dropping back to 8th by the end of the first lap.

Eighth is where I stayed till the end of the race… I was able to hold Darcy’s wheel for the first two laps before taking it a bit easy to maintain pacing.

A solo but hard ride to the end only marked by a front tyre puncture on the start of the second last (5th) lap. finishing the race on that wheel with half pressure but no other issues. 8th place in the end out of a field of 15 for A grade, all laps at well under the 14 minute mark.

Harry Hollaway