Terra Australis Stage 2 - McAvoy & Hall consolidate Terra Australis lead

Canberra’s Jason McAvoy and Andrew Hall (Onya Bike Superstore) have consolidated their lead at the 2011 Terra Australis with another consistent stage win.

McAvoy and Hall were part of an early breakaway which was never headed.

McAvoy and Hall worked hard to build and hold their early lead. “It was a tough day at the office today. It was not all smooth sailing due to someone pulling out some of the course signage overnight which had the lead pack going around in circles for a few minutes and then we had two tough climbs” said McAvoy.

The pair completed the gruelling 92km stage in 5:20:52, putting more than 20 more between them and their nearest rivals the BSS Rangas (Adam Kelly and Simon Easy) and Rollin Thunder (Adrian Scott and Gavin Rumbles - UK).

The battle in the mixed pairs between Torq (Mark Fenner/Jo Wall) and Giant (Brad Davies/Jess Douglas) took an interesting turn on stage 2. After a day of mechanical issues and crashes on stage 1, the Torq pair had an incident free day and managed to win their category by 27:21 to erase the 11 minute gap from day one and take a handy 16 minute lead. Jess Douglas was quite circumspect at the end of the stage.

“We just never got going and then ripped out a tyre wall before the first feed station. It cost us 10 minutes and our more importantly our mojo” said Douglas. Brad Davies was also philosophical about the day. “We had a bad day. I am glad there are 5 more days so we can try and undo some of the damage done today” said Davies.

The weather forecast was not promising for the stage but over half of the field arrived before the rain set in.

The second half of the field then had to battle the major climb of the day on wet slippery track which will see the time difference blow out.

Mountain biking can be a tough sport and there were some painful and truly amazing stories shared over the dinner table at the conclusion of stage 1 but none more so than Rowan Tatchell’s eventful day on the bike. Tatchell, a rider in the Grand Masters (combined age of over 120 years) used his face to break a fall yesterday.

Jiri Cech who was first on the scene described what he came across. “It was not so much that his nose was broken more relocated. It looked like it was an inch or two from where it was supposed to be. There was blood everywhere. We were in the middle of the Alpine National Park and a long way from home.

In the end his ride partner Kerry Ryan held his head while Rowan put his nose ‘back in place’ by effectively punching himself in the face twice. It brought tears to my eyes”. Amazingly, Rowan went on to complete the stage before finally taking the medical advice on offer and going to hospital.

With stage 1 and 2 completed and some great battles evolving, the race now moves from the mountains to the valleys for the next three days. Tuesday’s stage 3 will see riders race from Dinner Plain to Bright. The stage is 82km’s in length and will include one major climb up Mount Ebenezer between Harrietville and Bright.

It will be an interesting stage as the teams should remain together until the climb up Mount Ebenezer. The descent into Bright will see the courage of the riders tested as it expected to be a high speed descent to the finish.

Stage 4 will see a team time trial for the first time at the Terra and how teams will tackle this before the queen stage, circumnavigation of Mount Buffalo on stage 5 will be interesting.