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.