2008 L2P Ladies Pink Jersey holder and ex-professional road racer Jenny Fay has turned her hand to mountain biking in the last year to great 
success.
Jenny, who moved to Sydney Australia with former Yellow and Green jersey winner Anthony Shippard, started mountain biking at Christmas as a break from the road after Anthony bought her a bike as an Xmas present. After a lot of initial falling off, nervousness at the steep drop-offs, and coaching from others, she has clearly taken to it like a duck to water, and has been able to employ her strength from the road to great effect.
Her first Australian mountain bike season culminated on Sunday 26th July with the New South Wales State Championships.
Over a short, technical 5km loop in the lower Blue Mountains, the elite women faced 6 laps. All of the favourites were present, including Katrin van der Speigel (a Belgian living in Aus) who is the current Australian 12hr and 24hr champion, Vanina Vergoz who is a national champion in her own right, and Kath Bicknell - the former NSW state champ, and winner of the previous round Kylee Lock. Jenny was not being talked about before the race as a favourite, just the way she likes it, but had done a perfect 6week training block leading into the race, and had a very clear race plan to warm up extremely hard and put them all under pressure from gun, risking a bit of a later race speed as she would tire earlier due to the 30mins spent on the turbo trainer warming up ready for a flying first lap.
As the gun went the riders performed a short loop around the start/finish area before entering the tight wooded single track. Jenny dropped into 5th place overall from the gun, not panicking but waiting for the wider fire-road section after the first km. As the riders emerged from the woods, Vergoz lead, with around 10seconds, then the others came through. All riding in their 'big-ring', Jenny moved out from the shelter of the bunch and dropped the hammer. She rode away from the other girls and moved up to Vergoz's shoulder
At the start finish area at the end of the first lap, all the talk amongst the spectators was of how Jennys lack of technical skill would see her at a disadvantage over the others through a tough rocky, steep climb, with not much room to exploit her road strength. Secretly, Jenny knew otherwise, and had a plan to nulify the technical ability of the more seasoned mtb riders.
"I knew the other girls would be able to ride up the technical climb at the back of the course, whilst I struggled to ride it in practice. Anthony and I had talked about a plan to lead the race into that section, and run the climb. By my getting off to run, I would restrict the other girls ability to ride it, and therefore to put time into me. After the more technical part of the race, there was a long, open false flat leading into another climb where I could open a gap, using the fitness I have built from too many early mornings doing hill reps in the cold!!! - it worked perfectly."
Jenny came through the first lap with a 30second lead over Vergoz, and a further 15seconds to van der Speigel. She never looked back and it soon became a case of 'out of sight, out of mind'. As the race wore on, the gaps grew and going into the final lap she had 90 seconds to second place (now Van der Speigel), and all that could stop her was a mechanical failure, or a crash. She nursed her way round the last lap, without losing any time and crossed the line as the 2009 Elite Womens Champion in 1hr 38mins 5seconds, an average speed of 18.35kph - no mean feat off-road!
Well done to Jenny and we look forward to tempting her and Anthony back for the 2010 edition of the London- Paris, on the road bikes this time though!
We wish both of them the best of luck!