…not a bad morning's work at all. The mildly warm temperature and easterly that were promised were there and a bucketful of PBs was collected. Second man across the finish line was Dylan P-H, breaking the old course record that he then had the chance to enjoy for forty-six minutes when Trav flew across the line, removing another 2min43sec. and becoming the first man to dip under the hour in 14 years on this course.. Not quite half a minute after the arrival of Travis, Darcy Pirotta screamed down the hill and set a masterful Junior record, some 15 minutes better than previously managed in that category. Four of the fastest five times on this course were set today adding to the nice arrangement of ten 40km/h+ times at the fast end of the rankings. Number ten on that list, Adrian White was a meagre 0.6sec slower on the final drag up Big Gidge than Travis. That shouldn't be a surprise of course, as Adrian did earn a podium spot at the Hillclimb Championships two weeks ago.

The biggest PB in the collection was that of Nat Roberts giving her the custody of the women's trophy for the next year; she had been thinking that small marginal improvements might be the best on offer for her after her run of big improvements some months back - nope, eight and a half minutes is not trivial. It's also good to see Nigel back amongst the PBs; congratulations to Richard Williams too - the only other Hand-cycle rider today willing to take up the challenge of this course. Well, it might have been his first exposure to the course but this is the sort of stuff he likes; he'll be back! Incidentally, it was Nigel's ninth ride on the course, moving inexorably towards that 30km/h mark. It's an interesting comparison: Nige has a number of 40km/h+ averages on flat courses - it's a big difference; hills are particularly unkind to hand-cycle riders.

Lorraine was at Gidge early, got a few things set up for Carolyn Equid to sort out some registrations before the bus left for Toodyay. By then Lorraine was making the most of the cooler morning air and the chance to get in a few hilly kilometers by pedalling to Toodyay before driving back and looking after the timing hutch. In the meantime Carolyn had moved shop to Toodyay to look after the registrations at that end where Troy was the voice counting down starters. That job completed, he packed up and towed the shiny new ATTA trailer back to Gidge, doing duty as the sag-wagon. Carolyn had yo-yo'd back to that end of the course to complete the day's desk duties (with the assistance of Dave after he'd had a ride and scored a 3min PB). While all that was going on Alan Flanders had the task of caretaking the finish site until others, like Lorraine, had returned when he moved up the road to look after the intermediate timing at the foot of Big Gidge. It all worked quite efficiently; they make it look easy.