Gary “Flipper” Perkin will be sending us his 5-a-day from the WC in Canberra. Here’s day 1:

Despite my ‘world traveller’ image, this is my first time in Australia
– land of Kangaroos (which I have seen 2 of), beers (which I have
drunk a few of), Utes which have seen a lot of, and all kinds of
nasty things that apparently kill you if you look at them funny (which
I thankfully haven’t seen yet). This was my first pic of Oz – arriving
into Sydney after 19 hours of travel – which according to some of the
people who travelled here was nothing!

Not much happened today on the course – according to most this is
normal for Canberra as a whole. DH track walking took place in the PM
with a number of riders heading down the track in the obligatory black
hoodie. Here we have locals Jared Rando and Ben Cory leading their
posse down the first rock section. The start of the DH is just next to
the antennae on the right.

Just in case the Sydney aerial shot and the dry, dust rock section
wasnt enough to tell you this was Australia .. this flag should set
you straight – unless of course you mistake for the remarkably similar
New Zealand effort. With the seven pointed Commonwealth Star being
the clincher.

Maybe the fisheye shot exaggerates the flatness of the place, or
probably its just that is pretty flat when compared to something like
Champery or Schladming. But in all things it is good to celebrate
diversity and this course is different to anything we have seen this
year – unless of course you raced Canberra previously! The World Cup
requires racers to adapt to any course or condition and this will be a
better test than some this year when it comes to finding levels of
grip or getting the timing right through the various sections as any
small mistake will be magnified by short length of the course.

The big plus – if you can call it that – after the bush fire that
swept away the forest part of the Stromlo Forest Park is that you can
see almost the entire course from pretty much anywhere on the hill.
there’s going to be some cool long shots of dust trails stretching all
the way down the hill.

g.

Canberra WC:Flipper’s 5-a-day