I had a very interesting weekend just gone, which all started with a last-minute entry into a 12-hour Cross Country event in Buckenbowra, near Bateman’s Bay, NSW.

With no real plan, I headed south and met up with Husqvarna Racing’s Glenn Kearney at Bombo beach near Wollongong. GK was getting a quick surf in before steering the ship further south and getting us completely lost on the way to the event.

Neither of us had printed out directions how to get there, so following our nose became increasingly difficult with all the flooded road closures. Long story short, we wandered off-course onto a hardcore 4WD track, which you’d struggle to even push a stolen car through.

It was ridiculous and I was even making it through in my 2WD commodore wagon – cursing GK with every grind and bash from below. I was spewin’, but we’d gone too far to turn back.

Eventually arriving before sunset, I had enough time to enter and even put a not- so-worn tyre on the rear of my bike. My teammate Husqvarna racing’s Luka Bussa finally showed up too, so by morning we’d come up with a simple plan to pit and change every three laps.

I started the race and rode as hard as I could. After tagging Luka for his first set of three, he put us in the lead and we basically held it with our three-lap strategy for the entire day. On my last stint though, I was so weak and fatigued with cramps that I pitted after two laps, as one of the four-man teams were wearing us down.

Luka checked out and smashed the final lap to take the chequered flag. We won the Men’s pairs division as well as the Outright for the event. Luka did a total of 13 laps, while I ended up doing a total of 14 laps, and I tell you what, two days later I can hardly move.

There’s a lot to be said for being bike fit, I try to cycle a few times a week and do a bit of cardio stuff, but as I learnt over the weekend, nothing will condition your body to the stresses of racing like racing itself.

As for my KTM 350 EXC-F, what a little trooper that thing is. I crashed it a few times here and there, basically just picking it up and hammering off without really checking for any major crash damage.

I was so stuffed towards the afternoon that I had to ask GK to go and have a look at her while I flopped on the ground and tried to rehydrate. He just kicked the tyres a bit and said “she’s in a happy place man, just keep going!”.

I’d also like to thank KTM Australia for their support with this bike and for giving it some TLC a few weeks back – here’s the video I pieced together for its 50-hour rebuild…

’Till next week!