The Hunter and The Hunted (or the defender of the crown)

Ok I admit it, I kinda like Strava, I use it pretty much most of the time, mainly to keep track of Km’s ridden over the year.

I’ve also been doing some secret training runs on a local trail which has been cleaned up recently, it’s an old favourite of days gone by and with all the new bikes we are riding it is becoming alot of fun to ride.

It’s loose and rocky, has a heap of 1′ drops, launches and a few steep pinches to catch you unawares.

It’s the best training I can do for the style of racing I am doing.

Unknown to me, a few training runs one day after work, I plugged in my strava recording device and uploaded the ride while I went for a swim to wash off the dust and sweat associated with these kind of rides.

While in the water I’m thinking to myself, I think I had a few good runs today, there were no obvious stops, no flats, and the whole run seemed fairly smooth, there was no other traffic out there either, be it a dog, goanna or the fabled large cat.

I grab a quick shower, grab a nice cold beer cause I earned it today and it was still 30 degrees and check the pc to make sure everything had uploaded correctly. As I stare at the screen I see trophies and a crown appear down the list. I can’t beleive it a KOM, I’ve only ever had one KOM before and that was on a new trail we hadn’t shown any one yet, sadly, I lost it  a week later.

I check the segment with the crown first, to my amazement I had taken the KOM of the segment without really going for it,or knowing I was going for it, I had also taken it by 14 seconds over the previous title holder. (Which is quite alot and he also holds most of the Crowns in the area)

Now it puts me in the predicament of holding onto the title, I overheard at a party recently that one of my friends is trying desperately to take the crown for himself, He’s close, but not quite close enough, even though there is only 3 seconds between us.

What do I do? Do I keep riding it to keep my title and fame until tomorrow when some of the very fast boys come riding with me? Do I jump in 1st in the pecking order and slam on the brakes just to hold them up?

I’m sure my buddy will take the title off me one day, but for the moment i’m not going to make it too easy for him either.

Then there’s the other half of the trail, I’m so close, well, 10 seconds away from the KOM killer.

I know where i’ll be this afternoon…no pressure, no pressure at all.