Tristan Bennett

Riding Discipline (or lack of): Single speed 24hr endurance riding and other 'silly' things on road and track bikes.

Favourite Riding spot: Castlemaine pines. Particularly 'C*nt Hill' and 'The Seven Switch Backs'

Short and long term goals: http://www.hardmanriding.com/challenges

Favourite Bike: A clean one.

Years Racing: Since 2002.

When did you begin cycling and why?: When I was kid. Then a renaissance in 2000 when I used mtbing as a cross training tool to get fitter for national/world level sailing. Then I stated sailing less and less. Rest is history. The single speed thing? Broke my derailleur at the 2002 Mont. Didn't have the $$ to fix it, so I converted my bike into a single speed. Solo 24hr racing? Mate pulled out of the 2004 Mont with a week to go (doing it as a pair). I had no other option apart from ride for 24hrs. Fished it and thought that was not so bad.

Have you suffered any serious injuries cycling? Describe what and how: Left collar bone twice in a span of 6 weeks.

Describe your greatest cycling achievement to date: 8th overall at the 2008 24hr Nationals on a hard tail single speed.

Describe your worst race or cycling experience: Would have had to been some time around 2002 when my house mate and I commenced an all day epic at Lysterfield (back when it was adventure to ride there) . We forgot to bring any food and after about 5 hours of riding, we began to bonk and still had to climb up and over to Churchill. It was about then that I spotted a red jelly snake on the ground that been ridden over and stepped on a number of times. Despite this, it looked rather tempting. The question was then posed, 'think that would be alright to eat?' The response was a resounding 'Hell yeah!'. The snake was mostly cleaned of dirt and divided into two. Crunchy, but got us home!

Tristan Bennett's Blog