National Champs Dunedin

National championships Forrester park Dunedin.  Flying in on the plane from Welly it was plain to see that Dunedin had had plenty of moisture in the previous week as surface water was easily spotted.  I thought to myself this could be great, as Forrester park is known for its muddy surface when wet.  After arriving and talking to other riders the usual panic over what tires to run had started already.  With myself happy to run my Kenda small block 8’s which are designed for dry hard pack conditions.  But I have no problem running these in the mud.  After myself and team mate Josh had assembled our bikes we were off to the track to tap a few laps. The course was in its usual format, a real riders track. Having had several national rounds and championships held on this course before.   With a good mix of single track up and down, gravel climbs and open riding.  This course has a good flow to it.  After discovering that the best section of course was only for the elite riders and the age groups would miss out this year I was guttered.  This section due to the rain was a slippery winding single track up and a hang on tight muddy slalom down which was a hell of a lot of fun.  So we rode this section on our practice lap just for kicks. 

Race day dawns fine with a cool southern wind with no chance of over heating today.  With the age groupers set to start at 10am and the elites at 2pm.  With Martyn, Sadie and myself  racing in the morning and Josh Sasha and Karen racing in the afternoon.  I was having a good race although I missed the starting jump, and it took a lap for my legs to warm up, I enjoyed the slippery, sliding conditions. I was having a ball my Spark 20 wasn’t missing a beat.  Feeing better with every lap I managed to move up the field and finished in 2^nd  place a minute down on the Master 1 Winner. 

With team mate Sadie showing she still has it becoming National Master 1 Champion.  Martyn having a strong ride and gaining 4^th. 

After been retired from elite level racing for 5 odd years it was time to sit back and watch a highly competitive field from the feed zone where I would be feeding Peak Fuel to team mate Josh and mate Cabin. I was looking forward to a very tight race but unusual for a elite men’s race the field was blown apart from lap one due the intensity and pace of Carl Jones. He managed to establish a gap on lap one and hold on to become national Champion. While in the women’s elite race with one of the best fields in years team mate Karen had a blinder of a ride mixing it up with National Champion Rosara and eventually finishing a strong 2^nd.  And team mate Sasha also having a strong ride and finishing 7^th.  A fantastic weekend for Team Avanti Plus at National champs.

Wild Wellington 12hr Relay

Wild Wellington was going to be the first team race for our Avanti MTB team.  We were all amped and excited to get under way.  We had 5 of us myself, Josh. Martyn, Sasha, and our ring in Rock star Jamie J.  Wellington had been dry all week so the track was hard fast and dusty.  We arrived on site early Saturday morning to unload my van and set up.  We were all set up and ready to roll by 0830.  Wellington had put on a cracker day, warm fine and light winds.  After I had rolled round the track for a sighting lap in under 20minutes we decided we would start with three lap stints. 

I had drawn the short straw of starting the race along side our seven time national champ.  Stu Houltham who was on our rival mixed team.  The race start was below the velodrome with a fast uphill tar-seal section leading into the single track.  I managed to line up along side Stu on the front row and were joking around like usual awaiting for the gun. 

Stu started at his usual hard charging pace I was able to hold his wheel and follow him into the first single track.  Course was designed for all levels of riders so a lot of the steeper climbs had been taken out which meant for very fast riding but still a lot of fun.  Managing to keep Stu lead to a minute I handed over to Josh for his stint who was ampted up to be on the MTB bike again. 

With Sasha, Martyn and Jamie all doing fast stints we had formed a lead over the mixed field and had set our sites on trying to chase the leading open Men’s team.  The gapped sea soaring between 12 and 5 minutes for most of the day.  With Martyn unfortunately puncturing his 29er tire and having to ride back to the tent village on a flat.  Which caused a little bit of panic in our team as he wasn’t due in for another 20minutes, with most of us chilling out and refueling the body with Peak Fuel.  At the time I was sitting in the bean bag eating some cream rice and had to jump up and get on the pedals in a matter of seconds which got the adrenaline going and managed my fasted lap of the day. 

Martyn’s friends home baking had won us some free coffee’s and with all of us having turns on the Megaphone screaming at each other it was only the night laps to go.  We were starting to close in on the open men’s team.  We had sent Josh out on what we thought would be our last lap hoping that we had enough time to complete the lap we all lined the start finish area trying to spot our man in the on coming lights constantly coming towards us.  Watching the stop watch it was going to be super tight but we new Josh with give it everything.  The race announcer had got it wrong by two minutes and Josh arrives in completely spent just a minute shy of the cut off.  Which would of given us the overall win as well as our mixed division win. 

A lot of teams had wacky costumes and a fantastic atmosphere was in the tent village with  a great crowd at the back of the course.  Big thanks to Frazier from Avanti and Nathan from Avanti Plus Porirua for there help