Tom and guest Peta Mullens recap their race weekends at the Otway Odyssey cross-country marathon mountain bike race. 

Peta's the current national champion and Tom is trying it for the first time, so who crashed on their face and who made it to the podium? The answers might surprise you!

The road bike has been left behind (for now) and this month Tom's trying out cross-country marathon mountain bike racing. 

Before he rode the 50km race at the Otway Odyssey in Victoria, he sat down with current Australian XCM champion Peta Mullens to talk about her long and varied career in cycling, the intricacies of the marathon discipline, and tips for beginners looking to try it out for themselves.

Tom's now gone out and completed a crit race, so he sits back down with Steve Flack (@fresh_crits) to talk about how his race went (spoiler: poorly), what you can learn from getting dropped and how much of a difference carbon wheels really make.

Tom is joined by Steve Flack (a.k.a Fresh Crits of Melbourne) to talk all about road criterium racing in preparation for Tom's crack at the mighty Glenvale criterium circuit in Melbourne.

Try it yourself!

An introduction to the Tom Tries Bikes project, where you'll meet your host, find out about why he wants to try 12 different kinds of bike racing in 2026, and which forms of bike racing sit atop his Pyramid of Terror.