2013 Taupo Day Night Thriller

Another year, another Day Night Thriller. Like last year, I was in the AvantiPlus Waitakere shop team, which was a pretty solid team comprised of Sasha Smith, Peter and Sophiemarie Bethell, Jamie Till and Myself. Dad and I drove down on Friday afternoon, stopping at my grandparents in Hamilton for a catch up and some typically awesome bacon and egg pie. We arrived in Taupo and went to drop some stuff off at the site, which was in a good location right by the entrance to the campground, with a good view up the track for changeovers. After this we went back to our rooms at the holiday park, sorted our stuff out and went out to dinner, where we found some bikes standing in the street, so we jumped on for a ride:

Between the Taupo and Rotorua 12 hour events, I usually prefer Taupo, as it has a wider and faster course, and is generally better for overtaking. It also has more teams, which adds to the atmosphere. Turning up to the event village this year, it was obvious that numbers were down even further, with only one main field of tents, which was a bit of a bummer, but by the time the race started, it was pretty well attended.

The riders and support crew from AvantiPlus Waitakere

After hearing rumours that the track was quite different and a lot shorter, I went out for a practice lap with Callum and Isaac to check it out. We headed through the campsite to make sure the time was accurate, and down the big hill towards the river. We then kept going around the road, then left and backwards up the last section of singletrack from the year before, then right and into some more trails that last featured a couple of years ago. We finished off with some freshly dug trails with some tight and slightly awkward berms, before a short road sprint and up the final two pinch climbs that took us back over and into the campground. While it was pretty short at about four km long, there was enough to it that it wasn't too boring. I didn't have very accurate timing, but clocked it at about 11-12 minutes for a lap. After this I decided to tell the team that we should be doing triples, but we decided that doubles would be a bit easier.

The start line, with me on the right. Cheers Jemma Manchester for the photo.

I volunteered to start, and the rest of the team seemed happy with that so come start time, I went to line up. Rather than like previous years where we started down by the river, this year we started on the track, by the start/finish line, heading around the gully and onto the course from there. I managed to get on the second row, but when the gun went, everyone else went right, so I got a clear run up the left and got up to the back of the front group.

100m or so since the start. The guy on the right was in 3rd, so I (3rd from right) was about 6th here. Cheers Deane Tetley for the photo.

The first lap was fast, and I came around just outside the top 5 riders, and maintained that going around the second time. I felt good on the track, it wasn't technical at all, but there were a couple spots where you could make up some time by staying off the brakes and taking some smart lines.

We continued doing doubles, and my first two rides after that felt pretty average, but after I started making an effort to do a bit of a warm down I felt a lot better. It was cold, so I made an effort to get changed out of my race kit in between laps. Apart from that I was happy that my bike didn't need cleaning after each lap like the Moonride.

I did have a couple small issues, on one lap my chain came off twice in the campground, and I lost about 30 seconds for a lap so that was pretty frustrating not really being able to do anything about it. On another of my doubles my rear tyre got a leak, and it was pretty soft even as I finished my first lap. I ended up having to ride heavily on my front wheel to avoid rolling and burping the tyre even more. It turned out I had less than 5 psi in it when I went to pump it up after my lap, and all it took was a tighten of the valve to fix it, so I was pretty gutted about that. I didn't seem to lose too much time though which was a relief.

Coming out of a tight corner at the end of the singletrack. Cheers Jemma Manchester for the photo

It was also a nice to be in the first event for a while where we had a full team of riders, so that meant I had plenty of time to wander around the campsites and relax between laps, chilling and catching up with mates and have some decent meals. Like Moonride, we had our support crew back, with Catherine managing the campsite, Dylan sorting out any issues with our bikes throughout the day, and Ben being a general helping hand wherever he could, and having that support was really awesome.

My last set of daylight laps was just before we needed lights, so I had the benefit of not being the first to ride the course at night. When I did get out, I was happy to see that the track was pretty much as fast as it was in the day, with the main line contrasting with the loose soil off the side. The dew had also settled on the track, damping it down and giving it a bit more grip. I came back to find that my laps were pretty much on par with my daytime laps, my fastest of the two being only twelve seconds slower than my fastest daytime lap.

As it worked out, I ended up doing the final two laps for our team, and I set off with about 26 minutes to go, so seeing as there wasn't much pressure to squeeze in any more laps, I decided to just go for it. I had some extra motivation at the end of my first lap, overtaking a rider who was only just slower than I was, so keeping in front of him made for some good motivation. Looking back at points in the track I only made about 30 meters on him in a whole lap, so it felt good to hold him off.
I crossed the line with around 5 minutes to go and rolled back around to the campsite to get changed, help pack up and get ready for prize giving.

Prizegiving went well, we ended up 3rd place in open which everyone in the team was pretty stoked with, and I got to see plenty of my mates get up on the podium as well so it was a good way to finish off the event.

AvantiPlus Wataikere Still Classy. Cheers Deane Tetley for the photo.

The AvantiPlus Waitakere Old School also team pulled off a solid 6th place in the old mans category and Duane for riding 45 laps (180km!) on his rigid singlespeed for a 10th place in solo men.
The biggest result from my point of view was the Massey High School boys team, who had four riders, smashing all other teams to take the overall 12 hour victory with a rediculous 68 laps. Impressive stuff.

We had a pretty good time, and topped it all off with a late night run to Burger King, and a hot swim the next morning.

The Waitakere Crew having a well deserved swim
on sunday morning

The jumping mat at the Holiday Park

All in all a pretty successful weekend and a good way to finish off my uni holidays. Thanks to Catherine for organising and managing everything, Dylan for making sure my bike was running sweet, Dad for paying for my accomodation, and AvantiPlus Waitakere for the continued support.

2013 N-Duro Winter Series Race 3

The last of the N-Duro series was, luckily for me, in the middle weekend of my mid semester break. I went down on the Saturday afternoon and went for a quick ride with the Beavens to check out the new Gunna Gotta trail.
The race morning was cold as usual, but I felt that it was going to warm up quite a bit, so after warming up, I decided to race without a thermal.

We had another pretty stacked field and I was thinking that the start would be pretty fast, heading up the road beside Mad If You Don't and into pig track early on, so I made sure I had a half decent warm up.
As the gun went off, I was second row, and managed to get near the front up the road, and was happy to find that the pace wasn't too fast, which suited me as fast starts tend to take their toll on me later on.
We headed up through Pig Track without too much trouble, and across the road into Turkish Delight/Soakhole, another nice, flowy track where I managed to get on the wheel of Carl Jones, so I got a couple of hot lines from following him through there, until I had to pull over to put my chain back on. We headed out of Soakhole and up Tokorangi Pa road, turning right partway up and heading up a steep section of firebreak and into Gunna Gotta. The wind was a bit gusty up top so I took it easy, trying to ride smooth and watching out for some tricky sections I noticed the day before.
Heading up through Paddy's run and Tickler I felt good through the fast sections in the trees, and focused on catching a rider I could see not too far ahead of me. I got a bit of overtaking done on the road before dropping into Tickler, where I tried to hold my place before we started to head up Direct road to Sidewinder. I struggled for a while to find my pace on direct, and after a couple of minutes I managed what felt like a good speed. Sidewinder went quick as usual, taking us down to the bottom of the hill pretty quickly and pointing us up Lentil link and Hill road. Making the turn into Frontal Lobotomy was painful, as I don't tend to get along with all the short pinch climbs. There was a guy right behind me so I dug it in a bit to keep ahead of him.
As I came out of frontal I put a pretty solid acceleration in up the last pinch limb to Billy T, knowing that the it was exactly the sort of trail that I could make good time on. I had to cruise along the flat section at the top but when the trail started to head downwards I felt pretty good, riding smooth and fast. I made it almost to the bottom when I realised that my back tyre had a leak, and because of the perfect trail conditions giving so much grip, I noticed it was burping more and more, so I stopped by the step up to put some air in it.
As I was doing this, a group of 5 or 6 riders passed me which frustrated me a bit. I jumped back on, feeling good to have some more pressure in the back tyre again. I was locking forward to the rest of the downhill, G-Rock and Chestnut are more open and fast trails that I felt good on, and the two doubles on G-Rock are a good bit of fun as well.
At the bottom of the hill, we headed into Old Chevy, and I knew that this was pretty much the last tough bit of the course so I went hard so as not to lose any places, however one guy managed to get past as I struggled up one of the steeper pitches, so I did my best to keep him in my sights, planning to go for him in Yellow Brick Road, the last trail in the race before we headed onto a couple of kilometres of road to the finish. I hammered it along the road, knowing that there wasn't anything to save my energy for, and ended up finishing in 16th place. I was ten minutes off Brett Stockman, who had I was stoked to hear had won, but only 4 minutes off a top 10, so despite it not really going to plan, I feel like I have some half decent form to build on leading into summer.
Cheers to the Beavens for giving me a lift down and accomodation for the Saturday night, AvantiPlus Waitakere for some last minute bike tuning before the race, and Ra and the N-Duro team for another awesome winter series.

2013 N-Duro Winter Series Race 2

Another N-Duro race, another Rotorua road trip. This weekend I decided to leave Friday morning for a solid weekend of riding before the race. I was lucky that my uni timetable made it easy to do this, although the week did get a bit busier going from five to four days.
I made it to Rotorua on Friday afternoon, and went for a easy spin in the forest for an hour or so, checking out the new and rebuilt tracks in the challenge block, with some awesome flow trails and a mean rock drop on Boulder Dash.
We then headed back for a hot swim in the pools, dinner from the local Indian takeaway and a movie.
The next day was another pretty cruisy one, heading for a ride at 10am to Split Enz, Pondy, Chinese Menu, and then back to the Challenge block for another play. My dad came down for the night on Saturday also, so it was cool having a catch up and a chat with him.

On race day, I knew the start would be pretty difficult, starting at Long Mile Road and heading up the tarmac climb, straight into Genesis, and then winding around the flatter tracks for over 15km without any real up or down.

I managed to get in the middle of the front row at the start, so I didn't have a lot to complain about with regards to that. The gun went and a couple of people went around me, but I managed to stay in the top ten until before the entrance to Genesis. I knew that the right line was faster, so I took it, passing 5 or 6 other riders that got caught up on the left and ended up in 3rd place in a group of well over 10 riders as we settled into a good pace through the trail. I felt good at this point, the flatter sections letting me recover a bit from a flat out start.
Heading into Rock Drop I held my position, until my chain came off. I pulled off to the side and put it back on as quick as possible, unfortunately I had to wait until the back of the chain of riders to get back on. This was not good, as I spent the rest of the flat trails hanging off the back, and I knew that if I kept riding this way I would waste a lot of energy, and put in a lot of work to try stay with the rest of the riders without using too much energy. I had a bit of good luck, sitting just behind Brett, so I got on a few hot lines watching him.

I got out of Yellow Brick Road, and heading up Sandy Skid road, I felt ok, but definitely not 100%. I got into a good rhythm for most of it, but heading up the short pinch climb at the start of Pondy New I realised that my legs were fried from all the sharp accelerations I had been doing, exactly what I was trying to avoid.

I nursed it through Pondy New, Roller Coaster and Chinese Menu, fuelling up when possible, knowing that Direct Rd was coming afterwards, and that this would hopefully let me get into a smooth pace and that there was the whole of Hot Cross Buns to come, which meant that at least I would finally get a decent downhill where I could recover a bit and possibly gain a bit of time.

I made it up, although as I neared the top of the road I could feel my quads starting to cramp, which wasn't helped by the numerous steep pinches at the start of the trail.
I made it down without any issues, and after a quick stop at the bottom to refill my drink bottle, I headed down Be Rude Not To and onto Pig Track. This popped me out at the bottom of Katore Road, the final big hill, which was a big relief as I tried my best to ignore my cramping quads and calves, knowing it would be over soon.

A good, long descent down Tokorangi trail, starting off with some fast, flowy, open sections and leading into the tighter areas in Turkish Delight.

The final run down Exit trail was a pretty big relief, after spending over an hour and climbing two solid hills without any real power in my legs this wasn't a race I was particularly happy with. As I came out of exit, I tried sprinting a rider from the short course just in front of me but my right calf wasn't too keen on doing any more work and cramped up after the first pedal stroke, locking up and leaving me to pedal awkwardly over the finish line.

So like I said, not a race to remember, at 17th overall, but always good to catch up with the MTB crowd and I had a good weekend of riding.
Cheers to Mat Waghorn for the lift, and him and Cambell for sorting out accomodation.
I am now looking forward to the final race in just under a months time, and I have been assured that there will be more hills in this one, so it should suit me a bit better.

Here are the Full Results, Course Map, and my GPS File from the race also.

2013 N-Duro Winter Series Race 1

The N-Duro Winter Series has been a series that I always look forward to. The courses are always pretty challenging, there is good competition, and always a good atmosphere. This year, the first one handily fell in the middle weekend of my holidays, so I ended up doing a day trip with my dad.
I had made some changes to my bike during the week, putting some very light tyres on and making it a single ring, experimenting with running it without a chainguide and just tightening up the clutch on my XT rear derailleur. I had just finished it all the day before, so loading it into the van the night before I was a little nervous having not ridden it off road at all yet with the new setup.

The course had a fair bit of road, with a short start loop that took us back to the car park in about 10 minutes, then some more road that took us up to Split Enz, which we headed down, then into Pondy DH, Pondy New, Rollercoaster, Moonshine, then across and up Chinese menu, down Dragons Tail and Te Ara Puna, then we headed down the road for a bit, into Yellow Brick Road, then out towards and up lookout road. We then headed down No Brains and back towards the event village via Jeffs link, a short and fun downhill that popped us right out onto the finish line.

Come start time, I felt alright, and luckily the start was pretty cruisy, and I was in the front group of about ten as we rolled around the start loop. Just after coming back through the carpark my chain came off, so I had to stop to put it back on, then as I took off downhill I came off around the next corner, which scooped some dirt into my shoe. A couple annoying things to happen, but the group didn't get too far ahead and I caught back up within a couple minutes. The group thinned out and there was maybe six of us by the time we got to the first climb. Some short downhills came and I managed to roll up to Graham Norman who had been about thirty metres off the front for a while.

Riding together up to Split Enz, the hill seemed to keep going on and on, and Graham was setting a pretty quick pace, so it was a relief to turn onto the undulating Moerangi Road and down Split Enz, where I followed Graham and tried to ride as smoothly as possible to save energy.

Heading onto Pondy DH, we started to pass traffic from the medium course, and got held up quite a bit through Pondy New and Moonshine, allowing local legend Garth Weinburg to get up to us. Once into Chinese menu, the riders cleared up a bit, and I stayed with Graham and Garth, who were setting a pretty high pace through the flattish trails. Garth unfortunately punctured early on, leaving just me and Graham. I was lucky to be able to sit on Graham and let him do the pacemaking, and while I was definitely pushing it to keep up, I was feeling good and I knew the trails pretty well.

Going down Dragons Tail I still felt good, dropping back a little and using my skills to roll up to him in places to save on pedalling. Halfway down we turned off into Te Ara Puna, and I was really enjoying railing the berms, until I leaned in a bit hard to a berm and completely blew my rear tyre off the rim. I ran down to the clearing and put a tube in, reinflating it with a CO2 which saved a bit of time, and I was back on my bike in about two minutes. Unfortunately, while I was off the side of the track, Graham pulled away, and Nick Reeves, Carl Jones, and Harrison Mudgeway, as well as five or so medium course riders that were having a good battle, including Peter Bethell, another AvantiPlus Waitakere rider.

Jumping back on my bike I fuelled up on the way down the road, and was feeling pretty good going into Yellow Brick Road, and went pretty hard coming out onto some undulating roads that took us to Lookout Road and up to No Brains. I had expected the Lookout road climb to be a lot longer than it was, and I was struggling a bit, getting in and out of the saddle and struggling to find a rhythm on the chunky gravel. The descent down No Brains was good despite feeling a bit tense and not really riding particularly well, but I made it down in one piece.

I headed up the last small climb, trading places with a 30k rider who ended up letting me go first into Jeffs link, where I came out and crossed the line in 2:04 for 4th overall, my best ever result in an N-Duro, so I was really happy with my result, despite losing time to a puncture.

It was cool to have a good sized crew of AvantiPlus Waitakere riders down there too, with Duane and My Dad in the Long Course getting 2nd in Masters and winning the Clydesdale Category respectively. In the medium course we had Peter Bethell getting 2nd Junior, Sophiemarie Bethell 1st Female overall, Sarah Natac 3rd Open Female, and Bernadette Mark winning the Female Singlespeed Category.

Overall a really good day, I was really happy with my result, and so was Dad which was cool. A trip to Zippys on the way home with the vouchers we won was a good bonus too.

You can have a look at the race result Here, the course map Here (PDF), and my GPS file here.

Mt Victoria Super D

Another local event that I was really looking forward to this year was the Mt Vic Super D - a mostly downhill cross country race.
The course took us from the top of the hill, just underneath the lookout, all the way to the bottom at the dipper, and included a bit of everything. There were some medium sized jumps, some flat pedally sections, a couple of pinch climbs, and of course, some steep, technical rooty sections.
I went for a ride the day before to have a look at the track, and was excited to see a lot of people riding, practicing, shuttling and doing some final tweaks to the track. I weaved my way up the hill, checking out where the course went and if there was anything to watch out for. There was a cool new track leading into Rods Drop, it was quite tight, with some off camber roots and being relatively new, it was nice and loamy in sections. Heading up from there most of the tracks I knew from riding and racing, so I would be up to speed pretty quick. I did two laps of the track, which I figured was enough for the day.
The next morning, after a bit much of a sleep in, I woke up to a stunning Wellington day, with a generous helping of wind, despite the forecast most of the week predicting rain of some sort.
I made it just in time to register, and only had time for one uplift before they closed for the morning, so I tweaked a couple things on my bike and rode up for another.

Rods Drop. Cheers Spoke Magazine for the photo, you can read their race report here.

At the bottom I watched the final practice runs come down, then sat around for about an hour waiting for the call up to go for seeding runs. Being open men I was one of the last to go up, so I got to watch some of the under 15 and under 17s come down, and some of them were insanely quick through the root section beside the event village.
After waiting and chatting at the top for a bit, I lined up for seeding, not really feeling 100% so I wasn't sure how it was going to end up. Taking off, I felt pretty good, and decided not to go all out for the pedally parts, not knowing how it would affect me for the more technical and less forgiving sections later on in the track. I go to the bottom without too much issue, not tired but I felt pretty good about my ride, and feeling like I could improve a bit more for the final race run.

Full speed down the roots by the event village. Cheers Ricoh Riott for the photos.

After a while, the results from seeding came out, and I was really happy to see I was 5th overall and 2nd open male, with a time of 5:40.7. This meant I would be the 2nd to last rider to do my race run.
I enjoyed waiting around at the top, and some people were surprised to see me line up on a carbon XC hardtail, so that was a nice feeling.
My race run went well, there were some sections up the top where the wind coming up the hill was strong enough to blow me off line a couple times, but I don't think it affected my race time. I pedalled quite a bit harder on the flats and the uphills this time, hoping to maybe make up some time, so I was pretty knackered by the time I finished, but I didn't make any major mistakes and I was happy with my run.
After what seemed like ages waiting around in the wind, prizegiving got underway, and I was called up for 2nd in open men, with a time of 5:38.7, exactly two seconds faster than seeding, and only 0.9 seconds in front of 3rd place. You can see the full results here.
My Scale 910 worked really well for this event, it rode real smooth and was really stable on the rough stuff, leaving me fresh to go for it on the uphills. I definitely didn't feel like it was a disadvantage at all, and it was great to show people what you can do on 'just' a cross country hardtail.
It was an awesome event, really well run, awesome track, and a great atmosphere. I really do hope that we see more of this type of event, it's good to do events like this where you get a very different sort of crowd than the XC races I am used to.

Time for a Blog

After moving to Wellington to study in late February this year I have been doing a couple of interesting events, so I thought that starting up a blog would be a good way to write about these races. I hope that whoever stumbles upon this blog finds some good reading.
I have written up some race reports for the events I have done since coming down here, and will update the blog periodically after events.
Enjoy :-)

Moonride 2013

Get comfortable guys, this is a bit of an epic.

The Moonride is definitely an iconic event in my eyes. The size of the event, the format, the huge range of skill levels and backgrounds, and the social side of the event make it something that I would go out of my way a fair bit to attend, and this year the adventure started well before the race.

I was asked by Duane to be in the AvantiPlus Waitakere team, which was shaping up to be a flyer of a team with Duane, Myself, Sasha, Sophiemarie and Callum, and we would be contesting the open mixed category. I decided to catch a bus up to Palmerston North and catch a ride with someone from there to Rotorua. I found out only a couple of days before the race that we were actually doing the 24 hour race, not the 12 hour as I had assumed (no one actually told me). So after sorting a ride with Mat Waghorn who was planning to arrive on Saturday morning, I got in touch with almost every mountain biker I knew from Palmy to find someone who could get me there on Friday night. I ended up driving the Pedal Pushers van, packed full of bikes and filled to the brim with luggage. After being picked up from the bus, I was informed that the van was manual, which was a small issue as I had had probably less than an hour of on road driving in a manual before. "Yeah that's fine" I said, trying to sound confident. I wasn't, although it did help that this van happened to the slowest (0-100 in 48 seconds. No lies.) vehicle that I had ever been in, so I had plenty of time to think. So after a lot of time on full throttle and some learner quality gear changes, we made it to Fielding, where we picked up an ezy-up for the site. The weather for most of the drive was pretty rubbish, with rain most of the way, so I was not looking forward to having to ride all night in rain and mud. As we drove alongside lake Taupo, we got word that the 24 hour had been cancelled due to the weather. A quick call to Catherine, our team manager, confirmed this, so while surprised, I was also massively relieved, and managed to get a warm nights sleep at Brett's flat.

I woke up the morning of the race to more rain and clouds, though it was pretty intermittent and I tried to stay optimistic. I got to the event just after 7, and the campsite was still pretty sodden. I doing the first two laps for the team, so I got everything sorted and organised for the 9am start. I went for a couple intervals to get the legs going, then came back and squeezed into the start, about 3rd row back. The gun went off and I managed to get through the pack pretty quick, avoiding an early crash, in clear space at the end of the 100m gravel section where we turned onto the road and the pace went up significantly. Luckily I felt really strong, able to push a pretty good pace on my own, so I put the hammer down and made it to the front bunch just before the turnaround. I sat on the back of that bunch until about 200m before we turned back onto the gravel road, when I pulled out to the side and got up to about 5th place before we headed into the trails.

Just about to head into the forest. Cheers Jemma Manchester for the photo

The trails were running awesome, the rain giving them enough slip to be fun, but still rolling fast as ever. I had done most of the trails before, so I took advantage of a couple of hot lines to save energy and overtake in places. As I came out onto the last road section, a guy on a cross bike overtook me so I stuck on him, figuring he would be going pretty quick. I followed him until the campsite, where he pulled away from me a little bit as we headed out for our 2nd laps, sitting what felt like just outside the top 5. I headed out for my 2nd lap, starting to lap people after a couple minutes of singletrack. This turned out to be the fastest lap for our team, at 14 minutes flat, so I was pretty stoked about that. I came in to the campsite afterwards with a massive grin, and actually looking forward to riding the rest of the day.

First two laps done, time to clean up now. Cheers Catherine for the photo.

After coming in, I went to wash my bike, then giving it to our legendary team mechanic Dylan who gave it a quick lube, tune and polish. He was awesome all day, the teams bikes got the pro treatment and ran awesome, with any issues fixed on the spot. Our support crew of him, Sarah, Catherine, Sue and Inver were awesome, keeping us warm, organised and well fed, with a constant supply of food. Cheers guys, it was much appreciated.
By my second ride though, the track had deteriorated noticeably from the fast rolling dirt that I rode at the start. There were ruts forming and bogs through the main line making the once fast rolling trails a constant slog. It only got worse too, and as the event went on it got muddier and muddier, and those guys on cross bikes started to look pretty smart. I had a good schedule of laps that meant I went out just before it got properly dark, and then did the final lap for the team, so I only had one lap it proper darkness. Unfortunately Piki's knee started to play up again, and she went from doing doubles, to singles, to not being able to ride at all. This meant that after you cleaned your bike, cleaned yourself, got changed and ate, there wasn't really time to go for a wander and relax. Luckily our crew kept the atmosphere around our site good so we managed to make do. And less of Piki riding means more of Piki talking which means you are guaranteed regular entertainment.
I can happily say that I was mostly well prepared with food, having cooked up four hearty meals of mince and pasta to eat throughout the day, along with bananas and buns for snacks.

My Mighty Mince Meals.

As I said before I was lucky not to have to do many night laps, but when we heard the call over the race announcements that the race was going to be shortened by an hour to finish at 8 instead of 9pm. This was with about 90 minutes left, so we had a reasonably tight schedule to make our last lap count. It was decided that the last two laps would be done by Callum, then me. I was pretty nervous for my last lap, I had done the last lap in these events a couple of times, but I hadn't done a proper night lap on this track, so I didn't know what the track was like in the dark. On the other hand, the track is usually quite clear, as a lot of the teams just don't attempt another lap. I warmed up and waited beside the track for Callum to come out of the forest.    As the 30 minute to go mark rolled over I was still pretty anxious, and the constantly over-excited commentator definitely wasn't helping. We saw Callum come out of the forest and across the paddock towards the tent sites. We swapped numbers and I went for it. The campsite was pretty tough now, with massive bogs that took a lot of power to get through, and I was finding it pretty hard to carry speed. Out of the tent sites and through the start finish, I had 23 minutes and 44 seconds to go. I knew this was going to be tight, so I put the hammer down as I got into the first single track. Upon entering I hit a rut the wrong way and stalled. It was almost impossible to tell whether I was riding into a rut or just a soft bit of mud, and I felt like an complete rookie, I'm pretty sure I came off at least 3 or 4 times in the first couple of minutes. To top it all off I even went over the bars and into a bush full of prickles, and it must have taken over a minute before I was back on the trail. I was convinced I had mucked it all up for the team by then, but I kept going as hard as I could because you never know. Luckily the rest of the track was a bit more straightforward, and I managed it without too much trouble. I went all out down the road, and when I came out into the campsite I heard the announcer "...SECONDS LEFT..." and again though that I had pretty much missed out. But I kept going, putting in every last bit of effort through the bogs and mud, and I came across the line, with about two minutes to spare, so I was massively relieved more than anything.

I found out that we had done 35 laps, putting us first for the open mixed teams and 3rd overall. We also beat the winner of the bike shop category by three laps. It was pretty awesome to be on the top step of the podium at Moonride.

A massive thanks to my teammates - Duane, Sophiemarie, Sasha and Callum, as well as our support crew - Sue, Inver, Catherine, Dylan and Sarah for making the weekend as good as it was. Also thanks the the guys from Pedal Pushers for the lend of the van for transport, and Brett for housing me. All appreciated guys :-)

Looking forward to the Thriller now!

Crazyman MTB 2013

This year, while staying at the Maclachlans place for the first half of the semester, I was told that I would be doing the 2013 Crazyman in a team with Jordan, a hockey player my age (actually 23 hours older than me) who would do the run. The weekend came and I stayed the Saturday night at their place to have dinner and make sure we all left in time. I had just gotten my new bike and ridden it the day before so I was looking forward to giving it the beans in a race that had a really strong field, with a couple of top national riders from the Wellington region doing the mountain bike and some, the run as well.

We lined up at the start for a sprint across a wide grassy field and onto the tarmac path that ran beside the Hutt River. I made a strong effort to stick with the front runners, as the first ten kilometers was almost completely flat, so we stuck in one big group and drafted for the first twenty minutes, which was pretty good fun. There was unfortunately one pretty gnarly crash where two guys just in front of me piled into a bollard in the middle of the path at what must have been at least 30 km/h. I was lucky to avoid it, as I felt something hit my knuckle hard, and something else cut my knee, so I was happy to make it through safely. In an interesting twist, rather than crossing State Highway 2, we went under the road and through a 50 meter long culvert, after which we ran up and onto a short tarmac section, then up into the hills.

The first climb was pretty sizeable, but constant and mostly gravel so I got into a good rhythm and it took me about 27 minutes to get to the exposed and windy top, and I made an effort to keep within sight of the next guy up ahead, and on some sections I could see the leaders, so that kept the pace and motivation high. We then dropped down along some high speed, open, grassy descents, which were awesome fun, hopping and jumping over the terrain, and I dropped 300m of elevation in about 5 minutes. We then went up and over a smaller hill, after which there was some very technical rock sections and stream crossings, so I ended up running a fair bit of it.

We then started the final big climb of the day, which didn't go too well for me. I started heading up the gravel road climb and felt like my brake was dragging, I just felt like I was going far too slow for the effort I was putting in considering it wasn't particularly steep and seemed reasonably fast rolling. I made my way up the climb a little bit when the next guy behind me passed me. I stuck on him for a bit, but lost him at a small rise where he just had a bit more power than me. I continued on up the undulating climb, trying to hold my pace and not waste too much energy.

At the top there were a few small undulations before the final, very steep decent that I was looking forward to. Knowing that the last of the hills were done I went for it, picking my lines carefully as there were some big rain ruts and some fairly slippery sections. It was awesome fun though, hauling down this steep, techy fire break, just the sort of thing I like. I then came out along a stream at the bottom, where I did a couple more stream crossings and up into the transition in 7th place.

Exhausted and cramping up, I happily handed my bib over to Jordan, who took off towards the finish for his 15km run.

I stayed for about 20 minutes while to help Scott with his transition, and he came in a bit later than expected after getting two flats and having to run, in bike shoes, down the final downhill, so he was not in a particularly good way. Luckily he had packed plenty of gels to keep him going, so with full pockets he ran off as well.

I packed up the car and drove off to meet them both at the finish, arriving just after Jordan came in from an awesome run, finishing us in 8th place for the overall duathlon (MTB/Run), and 3rd out of the teams.

Scott came in a bit later for his 3rd straight win in the masters duathlon! Awesome work by him, especially considering 2rd place was only a minute behind.

Overall it was a really fun event, with a great atmosphere and some impressive athletes

New Bike!!

So on Friday I got word that my new 2013 Scott Scale 910 had arrived. I had been looking forward to this bike for a long time as an upgrade from my 2012 Scott Scale 29 Pro that I had been riding for the last one and a half years. It had the same frame, which was awesome, as it is one of the lightest XC frames around, it rides really smoothly and has great geometry. The Scale 910 has a full Shimano XT groupset, Fox forks, and Syncros components.

I changed a couple things from the original spec, putting the excellent Kenda Small Block 8s on for their speed and predictability, a carbon railed Selle Italia Seat to lighten it up a little bit and a -16 degree stem to get the front end a bit lower.

The new machine at the top of Mt Victoria, looking over Wellington City

Saturday I went up to Scotts house to build it up and take it for its first ride, a quick spin around Mt Victoria.  There was a couple of things I noticed first off. The XT crankset was probably the first thing, it was noticeably stiffer under pedalling than the XO cranks on the Scale Pro, as well as a far more positive feel under shifting. The Fox forks also had a far smoother action, especially noticeable going over braking bumps. The double upshift feature on the rear shifter was surprisingly useful when going straight from an uphill into a downhill. Many good things have been said about the XT brakes and now I understand why. They have great feel at the lever, the servo wave system giving an awesome bite and really smooth and predictable power delivery with good feedback.

The frame is obviously the basis of the bike, and this is the main reason I stuck with the Scott Scale. The relatively slack head angle and micro suspension in the seatstays are the defining features of this bike, and whenever I ride it I am amazed at just how easy it is to make it go fast downhill. The stability and smoothness mean that trail vibrations are noticeably smoothed out, and the you can stay composed and relaxed through some surprisingly rough and technical terrain.

I can't wait to race it in the coming weeks at the Crazyman MTB, Rotorua Moonride, and the Mt Victoria Super D.

Cheers to my Dad and AvantiPlus Waitakere for setting it up, packaging it and sending it down so quickly. Much appreciated guys.

PNP Club Champs 2013

One of the things I was looking forward to about racing in Wellington was the PNP MTB Club races. I had heard good things about the atmosphere, the trails, and a good level of competition.
I headed out with Scott MacLachlan, a family friend kind enough to have me stay while I look for something longer term.
The format for the day was that there were three events - a shortish XC race, a Super D and a 3 lap Criterium. All three counted towards the overall results, with the XC worth double points. I entered for all three on the day, joining the PNP Club at the same time.
After a short spin up the first section of gravel road, I lined up for the Open mens start with some local speedsters. The start was fast, heading up the relatively narrow gravel road, but gave plenty of time to get into a rhythm before we hit the first section of switchbacks. after a minute or so the Junior grades split off to head an easier way up the hill while we headed up a reasonably difficult downhill track. Eden Cruise was just in front of me until he dropped his chain while running up one of the steep sections. I went around him and continued, trying to anticipate the pinches and stay on my bike. I stayed in the lead until we popped out on the gravel road that headed up to the top, where Eden and a couple others passed me again. I wasn't too bothered as I didn't really expect to be doing this well anyway. I headed up the road and into the downhill, which was quite rough and technical, and I struggled to hold on as I got closer to the bottom, but the track was well made and dry so it was easy to get into a rhythm. On the second of my three laps I really struggled on the downhill, I felt tense and awkward, and I had at least three or four 'moments' where I went off the track and lost a lot of speed, so that didn't help. I got to the bottom and headed up for my last lap, which was pretty routine, I managed to get up the first trail smoothly and the downhill went a lot better.
I finished in a time of 1:10:03, 6th place and 6 minutes off the winner.

In the zone near the bottom of the track.
Cheers Wayne Jones-Nevrilk for the photo.

The next race was the Super D, which I was looking forward to, as it went down the same tracks that were used for the second half of my XC lap, so I had already practiced it 3 times. There was a decent sized queue for the start, so we all relaxed in line and had a good chat while we waited. My time came around and I headed off at full tilt. Unfortuately about 20 seconds into my run I hit a rock and pinch flatted, so that was my race over. I walked down and changed my tube ready for the criterium.

I had an average start, so I didn't really end up where I wanted to be, trying my best to make up time on the road, but the race was too short to make much of a difference. It was really good fun though, and I don't think I embarrassed myself too much. Considering I came dead last in the Super D there wasn't a whole lot of pressure as far as the overall results were concerned.

At the end of the day we sat around a bit more, I ended up 7th overall, as well as getting some lollies and a drink bottle at prizegiving. Also my AvantiPlus Waitakere teammate Sasha Smith took the win in the Elite Womens category which was awesome.
I also ended up with this sweet tan line:

Karapoti Classic 2013

I hadn't planned to do the Karapoti Classic this year, but when I got offered a free entry into the 20k race I figured it would be a good chance to enjoy the the atmosphere, say hi to some people, and have a good quick ride.

The Wellington region was in the middle of a decent dry spell, so the famous start across the river was well below its usual level. I watched the 50k riders start, then went down to line up for the 20k start. There wasn't a huge amount of people so I decided not to go all out through the river. Out of the river and onto the road I rode up to the front of the race, but there was one kid who managed to get on my wheel. I stayed on the gas all the way through the gorge hoping to drop him, but that plan backfired a bit when I missed the turn off for the 20k course and headed up the warm up climb. All I knew about the 20k course was that there was one decent hill, then you came back down and home, so the warm up seemed to fit the bill at the time.
I realized my mistake when my speedo was showing 15 km completed along the undulations at the top of the warm up. I stopped at the marshal point at the top of the Rock Garden to ask the marshals, at which point I also realized that the fastest way home was to do the full 50k.
After a quick chat with the marshals, I headed off at full speed down the Rock Garden, only to smack into a rock, pinch flatting and putting two fairly decent holes in my tyre, despite running tubeless. I walked my bike back up to the marshal station, where I put a tube in and borrowed about three different peoples pumps. I finally got the tyre up and headed down, a bit more carefully this time. I then did the obligatory run/walk/stumble up the devils staircase, which despite the drought seemed to be as slippery as ever. At the feed station at the top I filled up with lollies and water and took off, sprinting, drifting, and hopping my way down big ring boulevard.
Dopers up and down was the usual, slow and steep on the way up, flat out on the way down. The river at the bottom was barely ankle deep thanks to the lack of rain, and I managed to ride all the way through. I then popped out on to the gorge track, where I went as hard as I could, knowing that the track was quite wide and well banked. Coming out onto the tar seal I again gritted my teeth, tucking low and putting every last bit of energy in. Coming back through the river I played it a bit careful, knowing that it is easy to lose time, and look like an idiot, by falling over.
At the finish, several people asked why I had taken an extra two and a half hours, so word got around that some idiot went out for a 20k ride and ended up doing the full monty, I even got a quick mention at the prizegiving. I ended up with a time of 3:25:54, and worst of all 2nd to last in the 20k.
It was all good fun though, and I had a good time relaxing after the race.
Cheers to Scott MacLachlan for giving me the entry and sorting me with a ride to and from the event.

A special mention also to Pete Reynolds, who smashed the 60+ record in a 2:55:32, his fastest time ever, and probably the most impressive result of the day for me.