NZ XC MTB Cup Round 2 and National Championships

It's been non stop for the past few months training, racing and travelling with just enough time between to eat, sleep and work. Just the way I like it, I love to always be busy doing something! Although my body seems to have decided it needs a rest despite what I may think. After an awesome race at Nelson, (my best performance of the season) I had one weekend before National Champs in Rotorua. This was an opportunity for me to suss out the Nationals course and practice it.

Before I get to Nationals, here's a quick recap on Nelson's Top Gun event (which included the second and final round of the NZ XC MTB Cup). Sunny Nelson certainly lived up to it's name and we were lucky to have beautiful weather the whole weekend. After some practice laps on Friday and Saturday I was feeling pretty good for the race on Sunday. It was an awesome track, and suited me well with several shortish climbs, some really good downhill sections with tight corners and a couple of rocks thrown in here and there.


My brother Peter was competing in the Downhill on Saturday so after some practice laps in the morning I went out to watch him race, unfortunately he got a flat tyre in his race, much to his disappointment. It was a very rocky course and there were a lot of flat tyres over the weekend, it was so unlucky, but like he said it's all part of racing! And since he had come all the way to Nelson he decided he might as well give the XC a go the next day!

On the morning of the race I was feeling pretty relaxed, I was really looking forward to racing on this track as I felt pretty confident on most of the sections. Although once it came closer to the start the nerves crept up on me and I ended up not doing such a great start, which put me quite far back at the single track. Despite this I got a good tempo going and managed to pass several of my competitors, even managed to pass and beat my brother!! Yeeya technically he is a downhiller but still... I was stoked to cross the finish line in 6th place (Elite woman) and was the 1st U23 woman. I was pretty happy with that!

Thanks to Corey Russ for the photo from the Super D

To conclude the Top Gun there was a Super D race held on Monday. Super D is a combination of cross country and downhill, it's predominately downhill (6-12 minutes long) but it usually has some uphill and flat sections. We had a couple of hours in the morning to practice on the track, during which I was able to suss out some hotlines and get a bit of flow going on the many tight corners. I had a pretty good race run and came in 4th place. It was a great way to finish an awesome weekend in sunny Nelson!

Next up was the National Champs in Rotorua. This was the big one, the one I'd been working up to all season. I knew the course pretty well having ridden it the previous weekend, so I was feeling good in the week leading up to the race. Unfortunately my race didn't go quite to plan, I started off strong, having learnt from Nelson how important it was to get a good start, I was determined to get into the singletrack in a good position. On my second lap I had a spectacular fall, I went flying over my bars and face-planted into the ground. Thankfully my bike was fine and I was also ok just quite shaken, I got straight back on my bike and continued to finish my last three laps. Although mentally I was fine, my body got quite a shock from the impact of the crash and all my energy dissipated. I tried really hard to push on and catch my competition but my body did not want to cooperate, I was in the box till I got pulled out because of the 80% rule. I was pretty disappointed with my result as I was aiming to do well at National Champs, but that's part of racing and it's all good learning experience.

Photo credit: Alan Ofsoski

After Nationals I flew down South for a week of tramping it was a amazing experience during which I hiked up a mountain, crossed several rivers and saw some beautiful scenery round the area of lake Wanaka. So that brings me to last week when I arrived home. I had a couple of days off the bike due to a sore and swollen knee, with this putting me behind on training and just starting uni I have decided to not go to Christchurch for Oceanias in mid March, as much as I would like to I have decided this is the best thing for me. This week I started my first year of University at AUT doing a bachelor of Sport and Recreation, which is very exciting!

For the rest of this year my main focus will be study but I will still be out mountain biking and racing, just doing events closer to home. Keeper of the Cog is this week/weekend which I hope my knee is better for so I can compete!

NZ XC MTB Cup Round 1 - Wellington

Last weekend I was down in Wellington to compete in the first round of the NZ MTB Cross Country Cup. It was my first time racing elite cross country and what an experience it was! Thanks to PNP Mountain Bike Club for holding such a great event.

Firstly I have to say racing Cross Country is quite a big change from the downhill, the technical mtb skills are still the same but the start and duration is very different. In a DH race you are on your own for the race run which lasts between two-five minutes during which you have no idea how your other competitors will do, whereas in the XC you start with your competition and it's a battle to get to the finish first with the race lasting about one and a half hours. Not to mention the training! XC requires endurance which means a lot more hours on the bike and not just the mountain bike, getting out on my road bike also to improve my aerobic system. I'm really enjoying riding my cross country bike and am loving the challenge of pushing my body to the limit to see what I can achieve.  

The first XC course of the season was up Mt Victoria situated near the center of Wellington. You can view it here, it was about a 4km lap with some seriously steep uphills as well as some equally steep, technical downhills, rooty sections and a drop in the middle. Overall it was  pretty cool course, very challenging but fun! Lining up at the start with all the elite woman I felt pretty nervous, the moment the horn went the race was on and my all my nerves left. I had a good start and once I got past the first killer of a climb I got a steady pace going. It was a very physically demanding course with very little rest which meant it required a lot of concentration. Some of the downhill's were pretty gnarly and if you didn't stay focused, it would have been easy to go off course. Five laps later, I crossed the finish line in 8th place (2nd U23), I was pretty happy knowing I had given it my all and pushed my harder than ever before! I loved every moment of it. Check out more photo's here. Cheers to Cycl1n for the photos above!

Can't wait to race again this weekend! I'm off to Nelson for the Top Gun, number two of the NZ MTB Cup and I'm also doing the Super D. Real excited for it!! :)

Auckland MTB Series #2 Hunua

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!!

2W Gravity Enduro

"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! :)

2W Gravity Enduro

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.

    

Thriller and Auckland XC Champs

After a wee bit of a break from events and racing I'm back into again :) I've got a number of events coming up over the next couple of months so stay tuned.

To start it off I travelled to Taupo to race the Day Night Thriller, this event is run in the same format as the Moonride. It's a 12 hour relay race, which you can do in a team or you can go solo if you're real hardcore like Duane and Megan!! Avanti Plus Waitakere put together two mean as teams 'A+ Waitakere Still Classy' and 'A+ Waitakere Old School Classy', I was part of the still classy team along with Piki, Elliot, JT and my brother Peter.

The start of Thriller

The course this year was very different to what I remember from two years ago, for starters it was quite a lot shorter and it was real fast with the fastest laps recorded just under 10 minutes! Due to it being such a short lap, double laps were the way to go, this gave each of us more time to recover so we could go out hard again. The track was pretty straightforward, reasonably flat with a couple of pinch climbs, tight corners and a fun, fast grassy downhill near the start of the lap.

 I enjoyed the course even though it was a lot shorter, this added an extra challenge, because there were so many people out on the course it could get quite congested so you had to be on constantly on the lookout for hotlines. It was was cool being in the same team as my bro, because we're both real competitive so each lap I pushed it harder, I was on a mission to beat his best lap time!

Thanks to Peter for the photo!

Team A+ Waitakere Still Classy

Overall we managed to complete 64 laps, which put us in 3rd place in the open category. Big thanks once again to Catherine for organising us and being the best camp mum! Dylan for doing a awesome job looking after our bikes and my team mates for another wicked 12 hour relay effort!

On Sunday morning we decided to go via Craters of the Moon and hit up the trails for a couple of hours before heading home, it was so worthwhile as the tracks there were so much fun. Check out this video my brother put together one of the awesome trails we rode...Craters of the Moon - Coasters

The following weekend was the first round of the Auckland XC Champs series. The first race of the series was out at Woodhill, nice and close to home. Luckily we had a heavy dousing of rain during the week which meant the trails were in prime condition! :) Unfortunately I didn't get to ride much of the trails, on my first lap I got a mechanical :( much to my disappointment! So I headed back to the race village to cheer on the JAFAKIDS. There were a lot of blue shirts out there racing! It was so good to see so many Jafa riders out there racing and dominating, as well as the younger ones giving it a go. Especially the girls congrats to Jess, Gemma, Isobel and Paige for taking out the u17 girls, and Harriet and Brittany 1st and 2nd in the u19 girls. So good to see you girls doing so well! Was stoked for my bro Peter who came 2nd in the u19 boys. It's awesome to see such good results coming from the JAFAKIDS!

Next event is the Giant 2W Gravity Enduro which I am soooo excited about!!!!      

Dawn 2 Dusk

Two weekends in a row I've been riding at Rotorua, am I lucky or what?! Last weekend I was down for the first round of the N-Duro and this weekend just been it was the Dawn 2 Dusk.

For those of you who don't know the Dawn 2 Dusk is an event that Descend Rotorua has held for several years. In recent years it has been as a fundraiser to help get some of the Rotorua's downhillers overseas to race at the World Champs. This year all proceeds were going to Louis Hamilton and Lawrence Cawte to help support them in their campaign to get to World Champs in South Africa in August. The event is run in a similar format to the Moonride in that it's a team relay (or you can go solo) held over eleven hours from dawn to dusk. The difference is that it's held predominantly on downhill tracks! There are several different tracks which you can choose from, with the exception of a couple that you must do before the eleven hours are up. My and I brothers were keen to do this event, so we decided to make a team of three, me, Peter and Liam. 

6am: The event village

With the race start at 7am, we were up well before the crack of dawn. Peter did the first two runs with a light mounted to his helmet, it was still quite dark in the forest. Meanwhile as the weather wasn't looking so promising for the day, Mum and I set up some shelter and lucky we did because the moment it was up, down came the rain!

Who needs an ezi up?!

To be in to win the event there were a several tracks that were compulsory to do; 3 runs of corners, 3 of National Downhill, 3 of Jump track, 1 of Billy T and 1 of Hot X Bun. It was up to us to choose what tracks we did and in what order, however there was a bit of a twist, the Hot X bun run had to be completed between 7 and 9 & the Billy T run between 9.30 and 11.30.

Throughout the day we alternated between Peter, myself then Liam. A few hours in we decided to do two or three runs each in a row because it was pretty chilly and we'd only just get back, get warm and then be having to get ready to go again. The tracks were running soo good, I did a run of jump track first and was surprised to see despite the rain the trail was in mint condition. Jump track is one of the coolest tracks in Rotovegas, it's smooth, fast and flowy with some sick berms and tabletops. SO much FUN!!

Thanks to Liam for being chief photographer!

I took my xc bike as well as my dh rig because I thought Billy T and Hot X Bun would be a lot faster on a hardtail. Peter ended up doing the  Hot X bun run and I got to do Billy T. I was so glad I did take my xc bike for this run because there was a bit of a steep climb to get to the start of the track, would have been a killer on my dh bike! 

I switched back to my dh bike for the next couple of runs, I did a run down the National Downhill, which had gotten pretty slippery and tacky because a lot of people were riding it. This track was the most technical of the five, with some slippery roots, tight corners, jumps, rough sections and jumps, it required quite a lot of concentration and skill to get down without sliding out in the mud. I made it down all good with a smile on my face, love riding that track even when it's extra slippery!

Time flies when you're having fun! All up we'd done several runs each, and as 6pm drew near Peter donned a light and headed out to get one last run in for our team. All up we completed 20 runs in the eleven hours, which was good enough to place us 1st in the 3 person team category. :) Overall it was an awesome event, we got shuttled to the top of some of Rotorua's best downhill trails which we then got to race down! What more could I ask for?! Looking forward to next year, maybe I'll take on the challenge of riding solo...     

Thanks to Descend Rotorua for putting on such a great event and good luck to Louis and Lawrence for the World Champs!  

N-Duro Winter Series Round 1

Awesome day at Rotorua for the first of the N-Duro Winter Series, it was a lovely sunny day and the trails were running so nice! :) The best way to spend a Sunday! Riding hard for 30km's round some of Rotorua's coolest trails.

http://www.n-duro.co.nz/winter/index.php

 When we arrived in Rotovegas, there was a definite chill in the air and it took a wee while to get warmed up for the race start. There were three different event options to choose from a 15km, 30km or 45km, I opted to do the 30km course, you can see the tracks here.

The race start for the 30km was pretty hard and fast along a gravel road, that seemed to go on and on. I had a good start and after several km's of gravel forestry roads I was so glad to see some single tracks at last! I have to say the ride around the Green lake was very beautiful, which I was briefly able to appreciate whilst maintaining a steady pace. I feel so lucky to live in NZ, we have such a beautiful country with some seriously stunning scenery.

The trails were AWESOME!! (especially after the gravel road climb to get there)There was a mix of fast as downhill, tight corners, rooty sections and some sweeet berms all linked together to make a fun as race course! The km's flew by and once I reached the 25km mark I dug it in, with not far to go I pushed my legs even harder. One of the final climb's felt like it went on and on but eventually I got to the top, the track down called "No Brains" was pretty tight and technical and so much fun!!

I have to say I was pretty glad to see that finish line, 1 hour 43 later I was the first female to cross the line in the 30km race. :) Stoked. Looking forward to the next race in four weeks!

Night riding!

With the shortest day approaching, winter is well and truly here which means night riding!! and there's always fun to be had out riding in the dark! :) Especially at the forest, (occasionally you might get to see a deer leap in front of you!) Woodhill's the best night riding destination over winter because thankfully it doesn't get all that muddy so that's where I'm headed most Wednesday's either to coach Jafakids or lead a DoC ride.

Ready to roll with ET?! 

With the sun going down earlier, and the days getting shorter it's hard to get a decent ride in before it gets dark. The spin trainer is an option but it's not nearly as appealing as getting outside on my mountain bike. Tonight I got my light and hit the roads around Waimauku for an hour with my bro. Way more fun than sitting on a spin trainer for an hour! Let's just hope the bad weather that's expected to hit misses us...

Looking down on Waimauku  

Ghost-rider

AKDH Woodhill Downhill

This weekend just been was the annual AKDH Woodhill Downhill, a race which has been hosted by the Auckland Downhill club and Woodhill for three years now. It's held on Woodhill's famous "SPCA" trail, a flowly, downhill track with some nice berms, a few decent sized jumps and a sandpit at the bottom if it hasn't rained for a while! It's a great event, which brings together not just downhill riders but cross country racers, bmx racers and those racing for a laugh at the "16 inch National Champs!"

The basic format is you get in as many practice runs as you can in the morning, (with a shuttle running you to the top each time) then you get two timed race runs, and if you're game to ride a 16 inch bike down the trail you can enter both your age group category and the 16 inch National Champs. Which I decided to do! For a bit of a laugh I thought I might as well see if I could get my hands on a 16 inch bike and give it a go. Thanks to trade me I got myself this mean machine!

Unfortunately I did not end up getting to race it on Sunday, I had some real good runs in the morning and had the track sussed, on my last practice run down I was chasing my youngest brother, got a little too close and stump jumped out at me! I went flying over my bike and saw stars! Lucky for me my bike was all good, and my body only a little battered with my head taking the biggest hit. I ended up sitting the race out (much to my disappointment :( ) but the medic didn't think riding again that day was very good idea. I'll make sure I'm in front of my brother next time!! :) Lucky for Peter, he got to ride my mean black and green machine (which he had been eyeing up...).

Stoked to see Peter take 2nd in U19 and my youngest bro Liam take the win in U15. Great to see such a good turn out on what threatened to be a pretty wet, cold day, awesome to see some Jafakids's out there getting great results; shot Josh in 2nd and Issac 4th (both in U17), Jake 5th (U15) and Hayden close behind in 6th. Well done guys! Hopefully next year we see some more of you Jafa's out there!

Thanks AKDH for putting on another successful Woodhill DH race, and everyone who volunteered their time to help out and make the event happen!      

Morgan Blue

Check it out....

GO get amongst that mud this winter!! and while you're at it get a photo of you and your bike dirty as. Then enter this comp to win some wicked Morgan Blue cleaning products!