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International Mountain Biker Perren Delacour (Pezza) is a member of the Sutherland Shire CC (and is sponsored by YETI) and isn’t too shabby in a sprint either!
Keep abreast of Perren’s 2007 activities here or look at the Archive for the last couple of years!
Index to 2007 Entries
PEZ IS BACK ON TOP !!!!!!! (October)
After a well deseved break having 3 months off the bike I've re-found the top of the podium.
So here’s the deal. I've been on the tools building and getting back into a solid training routine finding myself smashing it up with the local boys and loving it. With a fresh head and some revived legs I signed on for a handicap at my home clubs circuit. Starting with all odds against me the old handicapper was suprised to see me come up trumps. "Never underestimate the mountainbiker on the road, ay ". Especially when there’s cash up for the taking.
Race one for the season and Win one for the season.
So enough with the Roady's as the two biggest 24hr races are just weeks away. This year its going to be "GAME ON" as its possible to take home nearly $20,000 for our catergory. For a weekends work its hard to resist that kind of cash hey.. I thought that’s it, time to get the Mtb race program underway with a race at one of Australia's roughest courses out the back of Sydney.
Arcadia is a tough little track based around an old rally car track with some fun hucks and rock gardens that really keep you on the ball at all times. So with some race starts being on the recent training programs I nailed it and got the jump on most of the other riders never looking back. Riding my Yeti 575 which is a bigger travel bike then what I would normally race I was able to really smash through the techo rocky sections and pin all the drops.
Win number 2 and the legs are feeling good.
Stay tuned for the next report coming from the Scott 24hr.The biggest 24hr in World...........
PEZ
P.S. I be riding in the Gu energy,SRAM and Nightrider Jersey for both events. Top products for top riders.
2007 National Australian MTB Championships, MT Stromlo Canberra
" NEWS FLASH"
PEZ TAKES BRONZE
After spending most of the past month going from Road training camp to Road Nationals to removalist / house cleaner I headed down to the Aussie Champs with the honest hope thatI would be able to pull off a top ten result. The reason I say top ten is because some of these young guns coming through have been training the house down and have some big futures ahead of them. So "YES" I was pretty concerned that they would hand my ass to me on a platter.
The Outback was loaded to the hilt on the way down with enough Team Gear to built a bomb shelter which is exactly what we needed to escape the dust storms from crazy winds blowing across the front range of Mt Stromlo. We went into Camp on the Wednesday staying at probably our most luxurious apartments yet. 7th floor and you could see everywhere from here. Telecom Tower just across the ways looked spectacular at night. The Team was pretty pumped all week and knowing that our "LEGENDARY" Team Leader was fit as and had been off the beers for at least 5 weeks. We had some more stripes coming our way.
Race day arrived and again looked to be another 35 degree day at the office. The Women put on an awesome race for everyone to watch and so I guess we guys had to turn it on aswell. Heading out for my warm up I decided to head up the main road where I had raced a Road Tour last year hitting a few hills and trying to fire the legs up. One problem was then the wind was blowing that hard that I felt like I was going backwards. I looked across to see the second last climb of the course right next to me. Man its gunna hurt out there!!!!! We lined up and I got myself a second row spot on the grid right behind Chris (Fast Starter/half roady) Jongawaard. This gave me a good wheel to try holding on to. The gun went off and we powered up the fire road climb like a bunch in a Road race until the singletrack. Someone stuffed the line and everyone was on foot. You could hardly breathe as the dust was that thick, I pushed to the front of my group and found that I was sitting in about 15th place for the first lap. I settled into my rythym and found that on the 3rd and 4th lap everything fell into place. They say I did faster laps then the race leader pushing up into 5th place. I tried to keep the hammer down and had the TV Camera Moto following me in the single track giving me encouragement to push harder. At one stage I moved into 3rd spot but wasn't able to hold on as he surged again on the fire climb. Leaving nothing out there I managed to hold on to my 4th place overall with Shaun Lewis U23 finishing second not counting in the Elite Race.
I took the 3rd step on the box and the Bronze Medal. Pretty stoked considering I was looking for a top ten.
The next day we backed up for the Short Track XC which is a 20min + 3 lap event on a 1km circuit. Having 2 Team mates out there today was gunna help if we were all on our game.
I did after a fierry warmup the usual slow start (I dont know why) and Winny went straight out the back door aswell. This left our STXC specailist Paul (I"M BACK) Rowney to do his thing at the front. I worked my way back to 8th but obviously Rowney had it under control getting into a break with the 2 other XC National Champs attacking them and sitting like it was written to script. 1 Lap to go Rowney did what he does best and hit them so hard he rode away to take yet another STXC Victory.
Next stop Team Yeti heads to Victoria for the final round of the XC series at Mt Beauty.
Thanks for reading
Perren
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