Wow, what a day. From scraping the ice of the bikes before the first lap to chasing a top 10 finish right till the last second.

Big ups to all of the event crew for putting on such an amazing race, Even for amateurs like us having the timing system with live updates really gave us the feeling of a being in a professional race team (without all the free stuff and personal masseuse of course).

This was my second team 24 event and a very different kettle of fish from the Jet Black 24 I'd done previously. If we could just drop the cabins from Del Rio into the Kowan site it would be perfect. In the interests of bevity here's the concise version.

Highlights:
- The slugger: John. Was crook and was out for the count in the tent from lunchtime on Saturday but still managed to get out for every one of his laps bar one. Didn't puke once on the track

Had an absolute ball at The Mont and can so very easily see why everyone raves about it. Arriving at the campground to see so many people there to ride their bikes, the excellent set-up and facilities at race central, the nervous/excited buzz and then, on that first night, the quietest and stillest campground that I have ever witnessed.

Wow the Mont 24 Hour 2011, what a great event and a great track and great people in the team and who we camped with as well. It was great a great weekend if a little cold.

I got down on Friday Arvo with Rob and we quickly got our gear sorted and pitched the tents etc. Scouting lap in the arvo with Gazza and I going pretty balls out during the singletrack, it was clear it was going to be a sensational piece of track to race on with some nice bermed corners and technical challenging stuff. Friday night, chilled with crew and watched NWD10.

Race report, photos and lap info to come...

All the gear is hanging up in the garage and nearly dry after a very wet Sunday & packup. today I'm starting to feel normal again, after a couple of nights sleep, and the flu is passing at last.

I’ll start by saying I had an awesome time for my first 24hr event. The team members were (alphabetically) brakeburner, Brian, craked, Logan, loki & Rob. Rob has been out injured so we weren’t expecting many laps from him and he didn’t disappoint .

I arrived Friday mid morning to find we had a spot in the overflow area. At first I was thinking WTF, the grass was knee high and if you’d laid your bike down you would lose it. Anyway, it didn’t take long before it was starting to get trampled and ended up being a really good spot.

I actually enjoyed Capital Punishment but I really should not have.

Hmmm SS and canberra are normally great fun......
Not so much today. Dont get me wrong I had a great day out on the bike, the tracks were awesome as always. My problem was I was on a SS set up to climb the big hills that the Otway 100km race had that I did a month earlier, I was too lazy to worry about changing the gear to suit this race and as such I found the going very tough on the flat parts of the course.

This was my first 100km event and also marked one year since I got hooked on this MTB lark (Last years CP 50km was my first event). There's already been lots of posts on the event and track so I won't repeat that content, instead here's the patented Danny summary of how my ride went

What worked:
- The weather; after last year it was just perfect
- The track; with the exception of the fields around the airport it was great and a lot better than last year. Bring on the Mont 24hr so I can try more of that Kowen goodness