North is no stranger to pushing hard on his host course given the glut of talents within the Bathurst Wallabies Triathlon Club, but on Sunday a pair of Orange hopefuls saw him having to dig even deeper.

It meant by the time North had completed the 2.5 kilometre run, 200 metres swim, 16km cycle, 200m swim and 2.5km run that comprised the course for round two of the series he was spent.

But it also meant he stopped the clock at 49 minutes, 32 seconds to take a narrow win over Jack Bilton (49:32) and Tom Tudor (50:08).

"That was more than 100 percent, that was 110 percent max," North said.

"I'm kinda not focusing on tris this year due to work, but Australia Day, home soil, inter club, I thought I had to lay it all on the line and man I did that.

"I cracked big time last year, unfortunately Rory [Thornhill] wasn't racing this year, he won last year, but I tell you what, Bilto and Tom really stepped up, they are a big threat now. Well, they were always a threat, but today, oh man that was hard."

"I wanted it so I could cruise through the last run, but they just kept coming. Far out, that was unreal. It hurt, but it was unreal," he said.

"I knew I couldn't just go easy on the bike and warm up, I knew I had to hit them hard. The gap just wasn't going out and I was thinking 'This is hurting me, it has to be hurting them'.

"About half way up Eleven Mile [Drive] I was able to get the gap and I just pushed from there.

"I saw them in the swim and thought I had about 100 metres, about a minute, but when I was on the run they got it down to 20 seconds and it was like 'Where did that come from?'. There was no relaxing then, it was a good race."