CYCL1N’s blog

Wild Welly was on the Saturday

VIC Cycles Martinborough Charity Fun Ride.  was on the Sunday,

Jude had planned to do this and for me after last years effort I had decided to give this one miss but had planned just going out for a nice ride somewhere over there, Apparently it's my fault, Jude has succumbed to one the cold/flu thingy's that is going around and is barking like a dog and her coach told her not to race/ride, well as we had already sort of committed to going over taking Lisa & Conner we went over picking conner up from the bottom of Haywards yes he rode out there from Churtonpark after racing at the wild welly the day before and Lisa from here place we had a nice trip over the event Jude managed to get her number allocated to Conner as he had not entered ( hadn't planed on doing it till the day before when he talked into it)

Lisa and Conner set of with 115k starters which also included Gav Tony and Angry Clive, and about 1/2hr latter I set off and rode the 67 km section of the 115 in the reverse direction, not sure but I felt for me this was the harder direction as it was less sheltered from the nor wester (head) wind and was heading the wrong way on all the false flats, anyway it took me about 2:20 - 2:30 to do this ride 69ks in all with a wrong turn and my legs were really suffering from the day before, with a couple of cramp attacks on last few short climbs

anyway by the time I had got back to the van Lisa was already there she had pulled the pin at the 48km mark (results show as second fastest of those who puuled the pin at that point & fastest female) as she too was sufering form the day before, Did I mention Gav Conner, Tony and Angry also raced at the wild welly

Just a couple of quotes I found somewhere on the internet

Angry : Am tired now... 12 Hours of Wild Welly, followed by 115km road race today

Conner :If only the roadies knew we'd just done 12hrs of intervals...

Angry :You want to hear something else funny, Connor will hate me for this but....
Connor comes up next to me and says hey is that Kris Gemmel out front in the white top, I said errr no thats Joel 

Joel: so your the guy the R&R kit? don't think i yelled at you.. much  

Conner: Grrr! Still reeling from the dirty roadies boxing me in the gutter and you getting me by 100th of a second! Was another good day in the sun :

Angry: Road racing is about final position not time  

Conner:  Thanks clive... At least I was sticking with someone who'd actually ridden in a road race before! Tony had tucked in behind my wheel figuring I'd know what I was doing and would lead him through the race!

and the comment of the day went something like this " I'm gutted you two beat me, you only passed me when I sat up 20 metres before the finish", Tony to Clive and Conner. it was both Tony's and Conners first road event,  Clive, Conners & Tony finish 15,17&18th in the main bunch which included 3rd through to 55th and Gav finshed 56th with a flat front tyre that started going down about 5 ks out of town, he rode the last 500metres or so on the grass once the tyre popped of the rim. There was 425 finishes. in the 115km event

as per usual the BBQ was great with venison patties, sausages, lots of salad & cookies

we dropped Conner of at Pauatahanui giving him a approx 50min ride home

Last year when the Wild Welly was on I was in taupo racing VMX

This year that wasn't the case, but  had no intention of racing at the Wild Welly, but then I got asked to do a few laps for someone who was going to be quite late turning up (a social 4 man team), then the call went out on vorb from a team who one their members was hurt in car accident, I put hand up hoping not to be the snail on the team, unfortunately I still had work the morning, so I arrived about 2 hrs after it had started.

I looked at the time the team had already been doing (there was about a 10 min variation) so I felt quietly confident I wasn't going to be the slowest, Phew!. Lap 1, I was in oxygen debt before I got out of the velodrome ( the grass was uber power sapping) and it didn't get any better for the entire lap, man this was going to be a hard day. Lap 2, I set of a little slower and now that I knew the course I didn't make as many mistakes but I was still in oxy debt within the first quarter of he lap but did mange to ride a clean lap and was about 40 seconds faster

Lap 3, was much the same as the above but sorted a couple of things and chased a R 'n' R rider most of the lap till the last uphill, never did manage to save enough energy for that last hill, another 10 second faster for that lap

Lap 4, and by that stage my legs felt like they were about to start cramping, (bear in mind my lack of riding lately) so I set of fairly casual and when I hit the road I was able to actually hook up a couple of gears, but when I hit the steep bit in the gravel walk way I relented back to granny gear and spun up which meant when I hit the soccor feild I was able to power across it rather than just using it for recovery and grovel across it, from there on the lap went mostly well, except I cocked up the rooty climb and had to run the top of it,  amazingly I took almost another minute out of my lap time

The next and my last lap was with lights on, started off with much the same theory as the previous lap, but I almost chucked it away going into the first rooty descent I missed the groove and end up in the trees but stayed on. unfortunatly my bike had been ghost shifting all day on the bumps (uber expensive Nikon cable IMHO are not the ticket) and when I turned into the single track after the soccer feild and stood up to power up the small climb it skipped gears and jammed the chain,  off the bike ran up the hill kicked the pedals backwards and it freed up but it just continued to get worse as the lap went on and I got badly held up on the second piece of single track on the way up so this lap was not good about the same time as my first lap.

at the end of the day I was rapt that

I manged to get faster even though my legs got more fatigued,

I manged to find challenges all the way around the course to keep it interesting and more than just a slogg challenge

I managed not to cramp at all even that night in bed when cramp often hits me real bad.

My fastest lap time was within about 30% of the elite racers, which when consiering my lack of riding and the course was 80% climbing, I was more than happy.

The team I rode for finshed about 9 or 10th in cat, I think, I was not the fastest on the team but by no means the slowest.

well that what it feels like anyway now

for 1, the silly season at work has started,

On the cycling side of things Jude has been doing the PNP series and I have been taking photo's

PNP MTB series

Jude so  far has a 4th and 2 x 3rds in cat which is good for as some of the course's have been quite hard and she specializes in the very long events, I on the other hand have improve my photo skills as the round s moved on.

you ask why haven't I competed, lack of riding  & poor heath, nothing serious just cold and flu's on and for the last 3 mths, but back on the bike now. just been dragged onto a team for the Wild Wellington, and Jude is doing the martinborough fun ride  on sunday

jude missed the 4th round of the PNP series because did the Tour de Whitmans which was the same day

next weekend is the lst round of the PNP series, then hopefully a weekend off then its of to taupo for jude to ride twice around the lake, the follow weekend is my cousin Rob's wedding on the Saturday and Makara rally on the Sunday

and the eastern Express is the weekend after that

After not doing round one due to supporting Jude at the DNT. Round 2 rolled around quickly and I had been a bit slack and not looked at my bike sense last seasons finals, yep I hadn't even cleaned it and it was friday night and Murray my cousin who I was going the event with is picky individual when comes to cleaning. (for you MTB'r along the lines of Big Gav, not sure who is worse) any way after last years success, I think I had been avoiding it as I was paranoid that some old issue's were going to come back to haunt me,

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About 10 oclock friday night the bike was loaded into Murray's van the back home to pack gear, to be back at Murray's by 5 am for the trip to wiapawa were the event was to be held

The ground was very hard with a good covering of grass meaning it was going to be slippery, practise didn't go well it was slippery and felt very slow wheel spinning out of evry corner, not getting good drive etc, My back tire was showing its age,

Any way race one and I hole shot'ed it and lead for almost 2 laps but made a mistake on a section I never really sorted out all day and i was really struggling with rear grip, yes I need a new tyre, finished 2nd,

Race 2, 2nd around the first corner and at about the 1/2 lap mark 3 of us swaped the lead a couple of times with me ending up in front for the next lap till I was passed and as he went through he carved up my front wheel (don't think it was intentional but) it roiled my up a bit and pushed hard to try and get the lead back and missed a groove and ended up laying on the ground. By the time got up and restarted my bike I was back in forth where I stayed till the end.

Race 3 again 2nd around the first corner and manage to get the lead early but made a mistake in same plac as first

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race which cost me a lead and ofter swapping the lead a few times I over committed my self into corner and he shut the door, i had lay the bike down or I would have slammed into him,i managed to keep the bike runing but still lost 2 places but managed to get one back, so with a 2nd, 4th and 3rd for the day I guess it wasn't to bad, considering I am the only one out of the top 5 at least who doesn't race a modern MX bike also. It is so hard to turn up 4/5 times a year and not be race fit.

the next round is not till feb next year! oh and my bike is clean already, but does need some TLC. Sorry he being Kev Hermansen

Sydney NRL finals

Work won a trip to the NRL finals in Sydney, it was the Stacy Jones / Mad Butcher tour

Jude and I got to go, we flew out at 6:40 am Saturday meaning we had to be at the airport at 4:40 am, the alarm went of a 3am,

arriving in Sydney at 8am we caught the train to central station, we sat down behind a couple who asked us if we knew which station they should get off at for Paddy's market, they were from Auckland ! we at that stage had no idea,

we dropped our bags at our hotel for the weekend and went walk about for the day

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the building were amazing, the amount of block work, the size of the building etc.

With the 3hr time gain it made that day about 22hrs long

Sunday was NRL day caught the boat from Darling harbour about 15mins walk from our hotel, which took us up the river to Olympic park, and a bus to the studium

Stadium1

From memory there was about 80,400 in attendance and Manly Sea Eagles thumped the Melbourne Storm 40 nil

On monday we had a look around the Powerhouse Museum

we flew out that afternoon arriving back in Welly just before midnight, so another long day but all in all a great weekend

Ok I have meaning to do this for while now......

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Especially after Jude's top result at the Jamis Day Night thriller in taupo. Jude won the Womans 12hr solo category completing 1 more  lap than 2nd placed Megan Dimozantos, who won the 24hr Moonride where Jude finished 3rd in rain drenched mud fest. Megan also finish 7th pro elite female at the world 24hr solo champs in Canada this year.

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At this point I must add in Jude's result wouldn't have been possible with out the help of Lisa Morgan who was Jude's main support person for the day, Lisa also managed to support Celia Lie who won the the 6hr solo woman cat. while I support Mike Northcott who won the 6hr solo mens and the 6hr event overall & Lee Poston who finished 5th in the 6hr mens solo cat, so all in all we had a good day in our tent taking wins in the 3 of the 4 solo cats

Unfortunaltly for me this event meant I missed the first round of the NZ MR VMX champs but with Judes result I didn't mind one little bit, I have sence done the second round with mixed results will post that up soon