2007 Aussie MTB nationals through John Waddell's eyes

Well..Well..Well... If you're going to have a bunch of champions in one house there's definitely going to be some stuff hitting the fan, and if it wasn't on the race course it would have to be on the dance floor. That was the deal when I went to Canberra(Australia) for the 2007 National Mountain Bike Championships.At Jared Rando's ("Giant" bicycles) place there were the likes of: Chris Kovarik ("Intense bikes Europe"), Nathan Rennie (Santa Cruz Syndicate/SRAM/Red Bull), Ivan Oulego Moreno a.k.a the "Spanish Pinner", Ricky Boyer ("Orange" Bikes), as well as some magazine and photo people all rammed in the one house. Going out to the dust ball (I mean race course), every day wasn't much fun for any of us but we all had to check out our courses (XC and DH). I feel my XC race track was pretty straight forward (not too technical) and from what I could see the downhill track looked good with three nicely sized spectacular jumps half way down which were closed off due to the strong winds.

While a few of the guys had some brews leading up to the race, I stayed mainly on the ample Red Bulls I had sent out, which wasn't the best way because I try to sleep these days Jared, being the top fisherman he is, had a few yabbies (mini crabs), with sharp claws left over in a bucket as bait. Me, being the curious guy I am, wanted to see how much it would hurt if one was hanging off my private parts (hey it hurt a whole heap but it was entertaining for myself and everyone else).

Fast forward a couple of days of crazy antics and reminiscing on some wild nights, I was the first one to hit up the race course on Friday. I haven't been feeling very strong or confident over the last month since Christmas and New Years Eve and it really showed in my performance, finishing back in tenth place.


Everyone was anxious on Sunday to see who would pull it off. In the seeding run Sam Hill set the pace with the fasted time but Kovarik told me he was confident he could do a fast one for the finals. The final started on the chopped out, dusty as anything track, and Rennie set a ripper time that would have him sitting in the hot seat right up until the last couple of riders. Jared Graves (a.k.a" Stains") smashed it and won the national championships with Rennie in 2nd and Rando in 3rd. Sam Hill crashed out and finished a respectable 8th and Kovarik was really "cut" by double flatting.


Is it celebration time yet?? I'm glad Mr. and Mrs. Rando were on holiday because this is where we commenced our warm up/pre celebrations. I just get amped up at with being with my best mates and I knew Rennie was in fine form for partying, as usual. Eventually making our way round about and into the casino, after throwing down some heavy coin on the roulette table in the middle of the night, Rennie did one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. We went into McDonald's before we got home and Rennie starts drawing pictures on napkins and describing in detail to the server how he wanted his breakfast burger made. If you can picture it, it was frigin' hilarious and made my day, I mean breakfast.


I was satisfied with how the night panned out and I only got escorted out of 2 of the 3 places that were luckily enough to have our presence.

Hail the Rando family who have always been there for so many of us over the last 10 or 11 years.

Also a big thanks to my personal sponsors that have always been by me!

Santa Cruz Bicycles
SRAM
RockShox
Truvativ
Avid
DT Swiss
Kenda
PUSH
Crank Brothers
Chris King
WTB

Red Bull energy drinks
Dragon Optics
Andrew Ivey Sports