Grafton to Inverell Cycle Classic: Tamworth rider aims to make amends

Neither one can exist without the other in the context of Australia’s most demanding one-day bike race, which starts on Saturday.

It will be Traill’s third start in the event – his first since failing to finish in 2013.

The race slapped him around that year, and he vowed before the cycling gods he was done with it. No mas.

But as so often happens in sport, proclamations of “never again” are eventually reversed.

So on Saturday morning, Traill will once again confront his inner demons as he mentally prepares for a race that, finish or fail, will exact an intense toll on his 42-year-old body in the division three section.

He will start the race in the best shape of his life after five months of solid training. But he will also be nervous.

“It just wasn’t my day,” he laughed in reference to him retiring at Glen Innes in the 2013 instalment. “It just got too hard physically.

“After the first year I said I was never going to do it again – I’d ticked the box.

“But I backed up a second year and didn’t finish. And again, I said, That’s it, it’s not my kind of race, it doesn’t suit me.

“But after five years of riding and doing different other things, I decided to set myself a goal this year, and this is what it was.

“It’s not the kind of race you want to do every year, for me. So one of the major factors to do it again is to finish it, so I can say, Yep, I finished it again.

“And if I have a bad day, as long as I finish I can be happy with that.”

Five other Tamworth Cycle Club members will start the race.

They are Michael Sherwood, fresh from his win at the 12 Hours in the Piney mountain bike race in Armidale this month, Mark Jeffrey, Joe Kelly, Min McDonald and Kierin Lewis. Lewis is now based in Newcastle and will compete for the Futuro Pro Cycling team in division one.

McDonald can compete because this year marks the debut for women in the race.