The weekend just gone was the Australian Singlespeed National Championships, held at Wangi Wangi, just South of Newcastle. People from all over turned up for a total of around 80 riders; the weather also turned itself on for a top of 36  degrees on  race day.

Sponsored by Coopers the weekend unsurprisingly started on the Friday night with a small race around the peninsular beside the caravan park, finishing at the local RSL. While this sounds easy, the heat, hills and requirement to skull beer halfway through the race made you work for any glory you desired. Additionally, the lack of adequate route description meant that only a handful of riders got to the RSL the shortest way, and without forbidden bitumen roads. Winners were eventually decided upon - no one knew who came in first, no one really cared, but the first seen to buy a beer was the eventual winner!

Decidedly worse for wear, the next morning began with fresh pies from the bakery before we headed 20 minutes out of town for the race venue. Briefings, then the first real event, the time trials. We ventured deep into the valley, where at least it was cool, before being let out at intervals. The idea was to race to the top of the downhill course (event 1) then race down a section of the downhill course (event 2) - no beer involved, although many were consumed at the start line.

Then it was time to relax and wait for the heat of the middle of the day so that we could start the main event. The concept was simple - start in a dismounted bunch, find your bike, race four laps, find a winner. The interesting part came in the ability to take a short cut. The short cut involved drinking a beer instead of riding a section of trail. Depending on your urgency to drink the beer, the shortcut was well worth the buzz of skulling a semi cold beer.

I rode with Bec for a majority of the race and found that my casual drinking of a beer was timed exactly to her completion of the 'non-shortcut'.

Anyway, I drank beer while racing, someone won then it was back to the camp site.

*Huge thanks to Kurt Petersen for some of the photos above. It's always good to have a great photog in attendance when you're too busy to ride, drink AND take photos!!

The main event for the night was the 16" crits. Self explanatory really - large humans riding bikes way too small for them. Questionable brakes, loose soil and general lack of coordination led to a fantastic event.

The finals involved a Le Mans start, with the bikes stacked on the start line. First in best dressed!!!

More beer and more RSL finished off the night before the final events in the morning. The Huffy Toss and the Bunny Hop competition.

A guy from New Zealand won the mens and a chick from France won the womens!?!?!?!? All in good fun, all a good weekend. Looking forward to next year.