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.