The race that never was

Enduro Race 2 was upon us and we were going to have a full team present looking forward to catching up with everyone.  We all arrived on Saturday and meet up at the mill side of the forest for a team ride.  We had just received our new Scott helmets which are comfy as and looking forward to a blast on the tracks It had just started raining, but takes a lot of water to slicken the track so we so we tapped out some trails down through rock drop for an hour or so but we keen to save some energy for the race day. 

The team was all staying together in Rotoura and decided to cook a team pre race meal.  With the usual carbo loading pasta and team mate Martyn offering to make his “lovely white sauce”.  We opted for the shop brought variety and is now a bit of a in house team laugh.

The rain has continued to become more intense and could hear the spouting over flowing most of the night.  I enjoy racing in wet and muddy conditions and was looking forward to racing in these conditions.  We awoke to more heavy rain and a very flooded back lawn.  As people made there way to the kitchen for there usual pre race feast we had just got the news that the race had been cancelled.  But could this be true.  After nearly 20 years of mountain bike racing and having never had a race canceled due to weather even the infamous National champ’s race in long gully Wellington were the 17 ankle deep creek crossing over night turned into chest high raging streams.  But it was true they had cancelled a MTB race.  I was disappointed and thought it was still possible.  But Marcus the events race organizer definitely made the right call.   As the safety of all those riders were in his hands. 

So we packed up, hit Zippys café for coffee as you must do when you’re in Vegas and started the long wet drive back to Welly’s. Passing the race car park as we left Rotorua It looked more like a swimming pool than a car park with about 4 inches of water covering it.  The weekend was definitely not a wipe out with great company, food and laughs at the team accommodation it was a great team building exercise.

N-Duro Summer Series Race 1

N-Duro 1 its that time of year again.  Everyone full of Christmas goodness, and a good chance to burn some of it off.  A cool but clear day unfortunately today’s race clashed with a national round but hasn’t affected the field.  Still full of the big hitters Dirk, Cabin and Carlos. 

We have four of the Avanti Plus her today myself Jamie, Scott and Josh.  As usual the pace of the start is full on with Ken Feast taking a flyer on his cyclo-cross bike and I managed to slot in on the back of the first group with Scott and Josh.  Managing to hold the first bunch for the first 15minutes by then Dirk had disappeared off the front.  I was starting to feel the effects of the last week and a half of towing my son on the trailer bike while on holiday.  As it was a constant come on Dad lets go for a ride.  Legs were quite heavy but didn’t pay much notice as the tracks in Vegas are so wicked to ride.  You just want to keep on hammering. 

Having a few Arrows moved round wasn’t helping as groups of riders would disappear and then suddenly pop out again in front. as we found out later some locals thought they would have a bit of fun and move a few around.  Despite this everyone found there way back onto the trail.  By this stage we had all the big climbing behind us and it was time to cut loose down Billy T.  Later heading down corners and could feel the heat of a few riders just behind.  As it turned out one of those was my team mate Scott. 

The last 5km was a full on session after passing Cameron on one of the Gravel Link roads he was on my tail.  I was trying to stay off the brakes as much as possible with a few close calls.  Made it to the finish line, with less than a minute to Cameron and Scott who were chasing hard. 

Good Day for the team as Jamie, Josh, Scott and Myself all had good rides.  Managed to Score a 1^st in Master’s and Scott and Myself picking up some Fish n Chip money for finishing in the top 10 over all