It was a good race this weekend out at Hunua, the course was the reverse of what they ran at the national round in Feb so a bit of a change to the usual, also this time it was a lot wetter which made for a good challenge. The parts that weren't gravel, were nice and muddy (my favourite!) and there was a couple of pretty gnarly root sections which I really loved the challenge of trying to ride! The race start was pretty intense with everyone battling to get into the single track first becuase there wasn't much passing after that. The 11km loop consisted of a lot of tight single track, a couple of gavel roads to link it up and with a grassy field to finish. (with a mean headwind!!) Thanks to the Auckland MTB Club for such a great race. Looking forward to the final round at Slater Road! :) Next up is the Whaka 100, it's gonna be one EPIC ride, can't wait! 100kms of Rotorua will be AWESOME!!
"The most fun you'll ever have MTB-ing" that's the moto for the 2W Gravity Enduro held down at Rotorua's renowned MTB park at Whakarewarewa forest. The event certainly lived up to it's moto, I had so much fun! It was such a good weekend of racing and riding, we were lucky to have amazing weather and the trails were in tip top condition! :)
The format of the 2W (2 Wheels) enduro was quite different to most other events I've done before, basically how it worked was there were five 'stages' that were made up of a combination of trails. Each stage was about 5-20 minutes of flowy downhill with the occasional climb, some sick table top jumps, steep and tight technical sections and lots of smooth as berms! So when we registered we were given a map of the stages and told we had five hours to complete all stages, you could do each stage as many times as you liked as long as you were back at the finish within five hours otherwise there was a time penalty of 6 seconds per minute you were back late. The stages were located throughout the forest and it was up to us riders to decide which order we did the stages in and how we got to the start of them, there were several shuttles running so strategy played a big part of the event. Placing's were then determined at the end by the total combined time taken to do the five race stages.
My brothers and I decided this was an event we did not want to miss after seeing how much fun was had at the first one held earlier this year so we were up bright and early Saturday morning for the drive to Rotovegas.
The weather wasn't looking so promising...
...and then the sun came out! :)
A cool thing about this event was that as well as racing individually, you could also enter as a team of five. Everyone's times were then combined to give a total time and the lowest teams time won. Then you could all cruise round between stages together and race each other down. Since there were already three of us doing it (Peter, Liam and myself) we decided we might as well put a team together, Charlotte Rayner and Kim Wright from Jafakids joined us to make a mixed team.
Talking race strategies...
We arrived to beautiful sunny weather on Saturday morning, with over 300 people entered it was pretty busy at the race start. Our team got together to work out our strategy for the day, with some inside information from Charlotte we decided to complete the stages on the open side of the forest first. (The wind was forecast to pick up later in the afternoon).
Queuing to get to the start line
The race started at 10am but with over 300 riders it took a while to get to the start where we clocked in and the time started ticking. There was a pretty big queue at the first shuttle point so we opted to ride up the hill to the first stage we planned to do. Not only did we just beat the shuttle up, it was a good way to get warmed up for our first run of the day too!
The next stage we did was on the same hillside and we opted to catch the shuttle this time to save energy. As I came racing down the final section of the course I found my youngest brother Liam on the side of the track and his bike in the bushes! Unfortunately he had quite a big off (luckily nothing major) but he wasn't up to riding the rest of the stages, much to his and our disappointment. :( We were a team mate down! Peter, Kim, Charlotte and I carried on with Harriet and Alex Beaven (from Jafakids) who also joined us.
The trails were in such good condition and everyone was loving them as there were smiles all round. Once we'd completed the three stages on the open side we headed over to Billy T and Little Red Riding Huck, the final two we needed to complete before we could head back. These trails were my favourite, they were pretty much all fast and flowy downhill, Little Red Riding Huck was so awesome, had some sick as berms and a lot of fun tabletops. After we'd completed all the stages we still had about an hour to spare so we decided on the way to the finish line to do one last run on one of stages on the open side and see if we could better our times.
I was stoked to win the under 23 women's category (and come 6th women overall) with Charlotte in 2nd and Harriet in 3rd! :) Stoked for Peter too who came 3rd in under 23 boys, because we were a team member down we were no longer eligible to place as a team, but all good it was still an awesome day on some of NZ's best MTB trails.
The trails were running so mint and the weather was amazing so we decided it would be rude not to do go for a ride before heading home the next day...
Thanks to my bro Liam for the sick shots! :) and Peter for putting together the video.
We arrived to beautiful sunny weather on Saturday morning, with over 300 people entered it was pretty busy at the race start. Our team got together to work out our strategy for the day, with some inside information from Charlotte we decided to complete the stages on the open side of the forest first. (The wind was forecast to pick up later in the afternoon).
