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.
