ROAD TO ROLLAPALUZA

Sunday just gone Newcastle held one of eight national qualifiers for Rollapaluza and it was amazing! Put simply you and your opponent strap yourself in to a set of bike and do as much damage as you can to your legs whilst covering a 500m distance.

First up was the qualifiers with the top 16 riders going through. Reaching speeds of well over 40mph every had there race face on!

Once through it was no longer fastest time that goes through it was a head to head knock out for the 8 places in the quarters. It was in this round that I got knocked out by Hugh Sherlock and swiftly took up my role as chief cheerleader and Matty went on to be the rider that everyone feared breaking the 23second barrier.

I'll cut away from the men's racing for a minute.

During the breaks in the men's heats the women were racing and with only 6women racing we were determined for Jo and Steff to make the GSH proud. With Joanne being knocked out in the semi's it all rested in Steff's shoulders in the finals and she did a sterling job finishing just 2seconds after the overall winner which let her take home the prized tshirt.

Back to the mens

Now into the quarters Matty really picked up the pace knocking out his contender by a clear 2seconds, unstobable? His next round proved a helluva lot harder with only 0.3 of a second between him and Matt with both of them riding sub23 times. The other semi's battle was between Ricky and Tristan

I think that this was actually the best fought ride of the night, neck and neck for the first 200m then Tristan crept in front but like the hero he is Ricky smashed the last 50m to take the win and his place in the finals.

Not content with with the distances they'd already covered the organisers raised the distance to 1km! Cant say the lads were too pleased though ,when asked "Matty you ready?" he simply replied "Fuck you!"  the crowd loved it.

Now Im not saying that Matty's victory is solely down to his cheerleaders  but when you've got Andy putting in so much effort that he takes over everyones face then you must be able to smell the victory, click here to see the full thing.

As soon as the race started Matty tore ahead not letting up his pace atall  despite the distance, the gap grew to about 150m and the victory was his covering the 1km in just 52seconds!

As Matty won the whole event he has been invited down to London for the National finals going up against some of the uk's best. According to the guys there to even qualify in the first round Mattys gonna have to ride the hardest he rode on Sunday but then in the next rounds the speed is only going to increase so to overcome this Matty has enlisted me to be his 'trainer'. My aim is to transform his legs into these in 4months, no idea how Im gonna do that yet though.

You can see a load more photos here: shithawks philxthomas 4130 Rollapaluza Press play along with the results here and a video from the night below.

Press Play - Ride In from Press Play on Vimeo.

Road to Rollapaluza