“It was pretty dismal preparation," says Tasman Nankervis of the run into his first UCI Gravel World Series race victory at SEVEN in Nannup, Western Australia. Flying into Perth on Thursday to find that the airline hadn't brought his bike along for the ride made sure of that, particularly when numerous delays to the promised quick delivery spiralled into a last minute dash to the airport to retrieve it just in time for race day.
That lost bike led to a whole lot of entries that fit squarely into the 'do not do' column on the race preparation table. That included a race eve 6 hour return trip to collect the bike, a service station food pre-race dinner on the way, then a late night rebuild and just 3-4 hours of disrupted sleep.
