i have arrived in Switzerland

I am enjoying some Swiss air and hopefully soon some summer weather, which will be the combination for perfect training conditions. The weather here has been much like the weather i tried to escape from, cold and wet. But it looks like summer might finally be arriving here now, we are meant to be in for a sunny day  and 20 degrees ; )

The plan for the next few weeks is to do loads and loads of riding to get in great shape for MTB Marathon World Champs in St Wendel on 8 August, very exciting outlook :)

A huge thanks to my sponsors:.

Bike Culture, Santa Cruz Bicycles, Biotrace, Blue Shark, Pig'n'Whistle, Maxxis, Adidas Eyewear, Cycletech, RideRotorua.

Ah yeah, almost forgot! I've got a brand new super fun, super fast and super light race bike!! :) very very cool, it's a Santa Cruz Blur xc carbon with lots of nice bits on it, and only nice bits :) I will send some pics soon.

I will be back with some pics from my rides.

i have arrived in Switzerland

I am enjoying some Swiss air and hopefully soon some summer weather, which will be the combination for perfect training conditions. The weather here has been much like the weather i tried to escape from, cold and wet. But it looks like summer might finally be arriving here now, we are meant to be in for a sunny day  and 20 degrees ; )

The plan for the next few weeks is to do loads and loads of riding to get in great shape for MTB Marathon World Champs in St Wendel on 8 August, very exciting outlook :)

I will be back with some pics from my rides.

Moerangi Trail x 2 - what a day!

Yesterday Fiona, Jason, Mike, Rob and I went to tackle the double crossing of the stunning Moerangi trail in Whirinaki. It's a pretty honest ride in itself but there is nothing like a little bit of a challenge to keep us entertained on a sunny Sunday :)

We decided to head out early, giving the Sunday sleep-in a miss, to ensure we had enough daylight up our sleeves for our mission ride. The drive towards Whirinaki forest was stunning, there was some thick fog hanging about that made it look like a place in a fairy tail . Scott from Jail house farm stay in Murupara was already waiting for us welcoming us with his big smile. Hearing of our plan he thought we were a little crazy, most of us quietly agreed... ;)

Mike and I had decided to warm up on the road by riding the extra 12 km to the end of Minginui Road which is where the Moerangi trail ends (or for us started), rather then taking the ride in Scott's van. It took a little longer to warm up as the air had a good nip to it and with the moisture in the air felt rather chilly, it might have made us pedal a little harder though, so that was handy ;) we soon warmed up and we had to start peeling our layers off. It was great riding the trail backwards, it's like riding a new but at the same time familiar track.  and knowing that we would come back the same way gave the climbs a different attraction as we knew that all the uphills would soon (in a few hours) turn into descent, so we got to check out downhill lines while grovelling up the climbs, a nice way of keeping you entertained and enjoy (at least in the first part of the ride) the uphills.

There were hardly any people out there in the forest, we saw four walkers at one of the huts who had stayed overnight and looked like they were not planing on moving on for a while, I don't blame them as the spot close to a pristine river amongst the ancient forest is magic. And we saw a group of riders when we got to the other end of the trail, the actual start of the Moerangi trail, were we enjoyed a little picnic break in the sun to refuel our engines before we tackled the second part of our ride. It was stunning weather, not too hot and not too chilly either, just right and blue sky as far as you could see! :)

Going into the second leg was fine, it's undulating and flat so we felt pretty good and our little stop probably helped too. We all started feeling it by the time we began the second to last big climb (i reckon it's the hardest of the climbs), but we kept plodding along focusing on the flowy 9 km descent (with a couple of short sharp uphill pinches - it's best not to think about those)  that was waiting for us as our treat after the last climb. We soon made it to the top of that last hill and enjoyed the anticipation of that downhill to come :) what an unbelievable feeling ;)

The descent did feel like a well earned treat and made it even better due to the hard ride up to it. It goes on for ages and you don't want it to end :)

The hardest bit was probably the slog back to the Jail house farm stay as it's on the gravel and sealed road without the attraction of the stunning forest or single trail and our legs had no juice left by then. Mike pulled Rob and me back for most of the way, I tried to do my bit of work but the legs gave up as soon as there was a slight uphill.

What a day! We will be back for more....

Ohope Half Marathon

Budge at the start of the race

a brand new event, the Ohope Half Marathon, was held in Ohope last Sunday . the course was flat and on the road so the perfect training for Rotorua Marathon as it is an easy way to do a longer time trail session. so i decided to tag along with Jo, Jen and Budge who had planned to do the race for quite some time.

there were a few fast runners there. i didn't know how i was going to go an how the body would feel as i hadn't done a running race for quite some time and it was only my second road running race. i do prefer running offroad, having to navigate over uneven ground and being surrounded by lush vegetation, but it's good to do something different for a change.

Karen Hanlen was at the start too, we had a chat about mountain biking. Karen is a local runner who i had a good battle with at Toi's challenge last year, it's great to see some familiar faces at events, it makes racing much more fun.

the pace was up right from the start and the field spread out right away. we were 6 girls in our little groups but we didn't stay together for very long, Helen Rountree from Hamilton took off early on and extended her lead throughout the race to finish in 1hr 20min 22sec, 3min in front of Hannah Barker and 5min ahead of me. i could see Helen for quite some time, ahead of me in the distance becoming this little dot, she certainly didn't only looked like a runner but also performed like one. Karen and i had a bit of a battle for a while and i kept on thinking that she might catch me back up, she didn't, but it was a good excuse for me not to slow down too much. Tracy Clissold finished only 6 sec after me, i had no idea she had snuk-up on me, lucky the finish line wasn't 100m further along or we would have had a sprint finish.

Jo finished in a fantastic 1hr 45min, 5min ahead of Budge (great job for having done bugger all running) and Jen also did really well in 2hr 15min cool!

the event was really well organised and it's always fun to do a race in Whakatane or Ohope as there are plenty of friendly people along the course cheering everyone on and having a good time. it makes racing much more fun.

we had a great trip away and a good time.

away ride at Whirinaki; Moerangi mountain bike and walking trail

last Sunday we (Fiona, Jase, Gaz, Rob and I) got to enjoy a mtb ride of a different kind. we had been talking about doing an away ride for quite some time but somehow didn't manage to get ourselves organised till now. Rob and I hadn't done the Moerangi trail before but were sure that it was worth a visit as Fiona and Jase had done it once before and Gaz had done it twice already and they all were keen to do it again!

the trail starts not far from Minginui where you can get a shuttle service to the start of the trail. the people to contact are Scott and Vanessa from Jailhousefarmstay.co.nz, they will also let you stay overnight in their jail house, Mike and Kath enjoyed it there.

the best way to ride trail is by starting from the Okahu Rd end so get to enjoy more down- then uphill and most importantly you finish the ride with a big long downhill and a huge smile on your face!

the trail is about 38km long and takes you through ancient forest with crystal clear streams. there is an astonishing variety of fauna to admire and bird life to spot, it's like going on a little holiday and traveling back in time. there are 3 huts along the way that you can stay in to make the most of being away from it all but amongst the nature.

the trail starts with a few quite steep but short climbs, as a little wake-up call, and from there just keeps rolling up and down through this amazing forest, following a stream for most of the way, some of the way you are right next to the crystal clear water and then you are climbing back up a narrow and sometimes sketchy looking single trail to enjoy the view of the refreshing water from high up. be aware of stinging nettle, we all managed to ride into the same plant and still felt the sting and tingle couple of days later. the other thing to keep an eye out for is the nice drops right next to the trail, if you did miss the trail it could end up being rather painful for you and your bike, and there are some sharp rocks around too.

at the end you can either be picked up at the end of the trail or ride the last 10km on the gravel road back to the farm. 38km sounds like a pretty easy ride but i must admit the ride was not as easy as expected but great fun and an unforgettable experience. we are already talking about riding it again, but this time we might do it two ways just for a bit more challenge :)

Karapoti 2010 National Mountainbike Marathon Championships

Well it already seems like a little while ago that I raced Karapoti, but in fact it was only just 2 days ago. I decided to do Karapoti 2 weeks out and was super lucky to have the Peters family offer me a seat in their car to get to Wellington and back. It made the travel fun and fast, despite taking 6 or so hours each way.

I had done Karapoti once before but had such a bad time that I had no intention to ever do it again. In my first encounter with Karapoti I had one front and one back tire puncture in the first half hour or so and after that no more air to fix any further punctures, it made for a very long and slow ride as I knew, if I managed to get another flat tire, I would have had to walk the rest of the course and there are now short cuts back to the start/finish area. Luckily I got through without any more punctures.

I was determined to have a better time on the course this time round, meaning more fun on the bike and less time to get through the course. I was hoping to find the course in pretty dry condition but little did I know that it had rained most of the week, not in Wellington, but on the hills where the course is located at; so much for a dry fast track!

The start always seems to be a bit of a scramble as everyone lines up along the river in random order. As soon as the gun goes everyone tries to run through the river and get to the tarmac first. I managed to find some pretty deep spots in the river and had the water up to my hip, luckily the water didn't feel too cold and we soon would get covered in mud from head to toe anyway.

The first little bit of the course is on the road which then leads into a gravel road through the gorge. There is plenty of space to pass people as long as you don't mind riding through massive puddles and getting splashed, but that's all part of racing Karapoti. I managed go get my way back up the field after I ended up way back at the start due to my poor navigation though the river and probably not ideal starting spot. When I saw Nic Leary a little way ahead I planed to catch her up and then stay there for a little while to wait for a good place to attack but when I got to her I had changed my mind and instead of easing back kept going at a steady pace. I was expecting Nic to get on my wheel and stay with me but she didn't, I didn't know for sure if I had managed to dropped her as I didn't want to look back, so I just kept pushing and by the time I did look back the distance was big enough that I couldn't see her anymore. I wasn't sure if there where any other girls ahead as I came from the back and decided to keep pushing ahead to hopefully catchup to any other competitors I had. I caught up to some guys and some other guys came past me from the back but I didn't see any more girls. Eventually Garth came flying past me and then Marcello caught up to me too and the both told me that I was the first girl, so I was getting more sure about my position.

The devils staircase was a bit of a grovel but the rock garden was great fun and would be fantastic if I had time to look at it beforehand as almost all of it is ridable if you pick the right lines. Unfortunately the end of the ride was a bit of a downer as we went back into the rain and super wet and muddy gorge, I would have loved the race to stop at the bottom of the last decent but that doesn't quite work.

I won the race with an 8 min lead, I am very happy with my result and that I managed to defeat my national mountain bike marathon champion title.

Tim Wilding won the race in a staggering 2h 21 min!!! what a machine!! :)

Dirk unfortunately had his chain come off at the start of the race, lost some valuable time and didn't manage to connect with the front few riders again. He finished 8th overall which is still a great effort. He's also Under 23 Marathon Champion.

Alexa won her race (Under 19) and won, just like her brother, her second championship title in two weeks!

3rd and final round of the n-duro summer cup

I was really looking forward to having a final battle with Nic Leary as we have been having some great times pushing each other in the last two races. It’s good fun having someone that challenges you to push harder, as it makes for a proper race.
Unfortunately Nic injured herself and wasn’t able to race on Sunday so that was a real shame. I was still hoping she would show up on the start line but it didn’t happen.
It must have rained rather hard over night as the trails were wet and some quite slippery.
It was the smallest field of all three races, most likely because a North Island Round of the National series was on that same day.
The course was cool, we got to enjoy a lot of single track, most of which we hadn’t done in the last two races. There wasn’t as much climbing in the course as in the second one, it was more undulating so there was plenty of time to recover between the hills.
I managed to come off my bike quite early on in the race and couldn’t get into the swing of things again after that.
I won my race and kept the title of ‘Queen of the series’ from last year.
The n-duro summer cup is a great way to start the year as it’s a good motivation to get some fitness up and getting the first couple of races under the belt is always a good feeling too, especially the first one being a real shock (and a bit painful) to the body.

I am looking forward to the next set of adventures! :)