Terra Australis Stage 4 - Time Trial, like the eye of a storm

Stage 4 of the 2011 Terra Australis saw the first time trial in the three year history of the event. After a searching stage 3 yesterday, the riders welcomed the later start and relatively short 20km stage.

Utilising the iconic singletrack in around the alpine village of Bright, the time trial was an overwhelming success amongst the competitors. Bob Ilchick, all the way for the USA said “the time trial is the like the eye of the storm. We had an enormous day yesterday and we have the queen stage tomorrow.

It was great to get on some singletrack and ride hard. Stage racing is about pacing yourself and we saw a lot of riders blow up yesterday on the monster climb up Mount Ebenezer and tomorrow Mount Buffalo looms large. We got a bit carried away on the excellent singletrack course today”.

Mark Weir from Falls Creek said “The race director has redeemed himself. Yesterday was nothing short of brutal and today was one of the best rides of my life”. Weir’s comments were echoed by all of the competitors with Bicycle Superstores Nigel Letty saying “I asked a lot of my teammate John today and he just kept on going. We have been riding together for years and today was a great day on some fantastic trails”.

The time trial results did not have much impact on the general classification positions but did see a maiden stage victory for the Rollin Thunder (UK) team who punched out an impressive 1:05:39 for the 20km singletrack course. Adrian Scott and Gavin Rumbles who make up the team have had a horror week with mechanical issues but put all that behind them today to complete a faultless lap of the course.

Second place today went to overall race leaders Onya Bike Superstore (Jason McAvoy and Andrew Hall) who delivered a 1:07:41 time.

Katherine O’Shea and Dean Clark who make up the Torq 2 team were third with 1:09:15. O’Shea, one of Australia’s elite female mountain bike riders set a cracking pace for the pair. Clark said “Katherine just smashed me from 100 metres after the start right through to the finish line. I went to place today that I did not want to go to and stayed there for the entire hour”.

World 24 Hour Champion, Jessica Douglas found today’s stage was a welcome relief from the relentless climbing of the previous day. “Yesterday made the Otway Odyssey look like kindergarten. Today’s time trial still hurt, it was an hour of pain instead of a day of hell”.

Douglas and Giant teammate Brad Davies still trail the Torq team of Mark Fenner and Jo Wall. Tomorrow’s epic stage 5 will be more suited to Douglas’ ability to grind away and could see the Giant pair put some genuine pressure on Fenner and Wall.

Many of the competitors have lost sleep contemplating the enormity of the stage in front of them tomorrow. The 107km stage has just under 4,000 metres of vertical gain including a climb up to the Buffalo Gap on the South Face of Mount Buffalo.

This starts two epic days of racing with a massive ride between Bright and Beechworth to follow on stage 6.

For full results including GC stage and category winners as well as overall standings please go to http://www.terraaustralismtbepic.com/