This weekend I headed over to Waiheke Island to compete in a 4 hour team relay event. The Waiheke MTB club has held this event for the a number of years in the past and this year I decided it was time I gave it a go! I roped my two brothers into joining me to make a three person team. Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, we had an early start to catch the ferry at 8am. On the ferry we met up with a number of fellow riders also competing, so we all went in convoy to the track which was about 30mins away from the ferry dropoff point. It was a beautiful day and by the time we started racing it was scorching hot! The track was a 15-20 min loop with a killer uphill then some nice flowy, but tight downhill, it was a pretty cool track, real tiring in the heat though! There was a good turnout at the event with a number of teams as well as quite a few riding solo! Mad respect for the solo's it would have been tough work doing lap after lap in that heat!
I had heaps of fun, (when my legs weren't burning!) with only three of us in my team I'd only just have time to catch my breath and recover then I'd have to go out again (although I certainly had it easier than the solo's!), over the 4 hours I did 5 laps giving it my all each time. It was an fun day and our team Bethells on Bike's took out the mixed open catergory. :) With Peter completing our final lap with 20 seconds to spare!! Thanks a lot to Waiheke MTB Club and all the organisers for putting on an awesome relay event.
I'd like to thank Schwalbe NZ and Morgan Blue for supporting me along the way. I raced at Waiheke on my brand new pair of Rocket Ron tires, so stoked with them, they certainly are like rockets! Fast rolling as well grippy on the corners, tires I know I can trust to give me an edge. Also thanks to Morgan Blue for the cleaning products, my chain ran super smoothly thanks to the Syn lube.
Next race on the agenda NZDH round at Hunua! :)
