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.