The Karapoti Blogs - a Wellington angle

Sifters story. You can feel the grit in your eyes....
http://sifter-writes-bikes.blogspot.com/2011/03/karapoti-2011.html

Lynskey, the diary of a retro singlespeeder.
Really good if you want to know what it was like at the pointy end of the SS league. A good ripping yarn.
http://moon-rambler.blogspot.com/2011/03/hard-work-at-karapoti.html

Oli's photo-essay. A picture tells a thousand words.
http://oli-roadworks.blogspot.com/2011/03/karapoti-2011.html

Hamish Norton - Newbie SSer
An ex hard-core trackie, personal trainer and all round nice guy. Got mixed up with a bad crowd and only made two bad moves. Buying a single speed, and riding it around Karapoti! Not doing the Karapoti cos its muddy is a bit like not doing Iditarod cos it snowed eh ? Hamish inspires.
http://onegoodrun.propellife.co.nz/2011/03/karapoti-2011-inside-story.html

Bushlove Racing.
Bush, racing, and mud.
http://www.bushloveracing.com/2011/03/karapoti-swimming-race.html

Ken Feist
Hardcore CXer - Brutal, free-ride even, no, those are not arm-warmers!
http://kenfeistcx.com/2011/03/05/murphys-law/

Alex Revell
A new 29er for Yeti's Yeti.
http://yeti.blackseal.co.nz/wordpress/?cat=13

Stu Houltham
National Champ, more than once.
http://stuarthoultham.blogspot.com/2011/03/karapoti-classic.html

Wayne Hiscock
World Famous in Upper Hutt.
http://hiskeysblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/wet-and-muddy-karapoti.html

Calum Chamberlain
Was studying seismology in the shakey isles. Timing is everything.
http://calumchamberlaincyclist.blogspot.com/2011/03/karapoti-famous-last-words.html

This blog!
http://jeffsbike.blogspot.com/2011/03/karapoti-2011.html

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Undie 500 - part 3

The undie 500 concept comes from a guy I met at my brother in law's in Nelson, he was into vintage moto-cross, and these people he knew were doing a "fire-roads" kind of a trek on these old motorbikes. They had to be worth under $500 though. It seemed like a lot of low-key fun.

To finish off my build I had to dig deep into the junk pile. An old cyclo-cross tire (ex-brevet) from Matt looks awesome on the front. The right hand brake lever is a v-brake compatible one given to me by Geoff some time ago. Geoff is a rather tall guy at my work who specialises in riding weird bikes that look like growths out of his bum. The left brake is an old one off the Geoffrey Butler that Hughy Mcparland gave me many years back. I had a choice of crap rear brakes so went with the shimano 105 over the Campy Record as I think the 105 has more tyre clearance.  I am pretty limited with what I can do there I think.

The rear wheel, or at least the hub, is an old shimano 600 that Matt threw out about 12 years ago. The front is an old style Durace... most likely from our old work-mate Sam Raphel's bike, which Matts still owns. The rear cluster is an old partly worn MTB 8 speed 11-32 which is meshing beautifully with the rustly old chain.

The rear derailleur is an old Durace one which has no problems at all with the ratios. I think I got that off Kirky a long time ago. The old shifters are running friction and feel great, but its just a bit un-nerving to take your hands off bars to shift when they are so wide, and you can accidently bump them on the way back up!

The Campy cranks are 53-42, so a bit tall for Danzig, so I have a 53-39 shimano at home that I could try. The seat is a Fizik that Paul Lewin gave me - not the worlds most comfy seat. The seat-post is an old heavy alloy jobby from something thrown out.

It had its maiden voyage to work via Hill Road - Belmont Road and Moonshine this morning. The verdict? It descended really well. The bars were awesome and it fair screamed along the road of course. If I had more time I would have taken the river trail. Any suggestions for a low profile but fatter rear trye welcomed - current one is just a 25mm Armadillo.

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Undie 500 - part 2

A new fork with canti bosses on it. Courtesy of Bruce at Adventure Cycles in Auckland. $ 45. I have some old vee brakes lying around too. Ex Kashi I think.

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Undie 500 - part 1

Goal: to build a fun dunger out of old stuff lying about for under $500. This frame was from skip outside lower hutt Avanti shop some years back. Old campy cranks thrown out by grass hopper.

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Karapoti 2011

Well, the Karapoti pulled its usual stunt, with weeks of very dry weather in the lead-up, and the usual turn for the worse in the last week. Fortunately mud is to Karapoti as ice is to eskimo's and the mud on tap on saturday was in one of its better forms. Wet and thin! As long as it kept raining lightly, there was no chance that it would dry and turn into the chain-sucking sticky mud we all hate.

Anyway, the gun went off - the flow in the river was strong, and seconds later I was fully submerged directly in front of the offical press photographer. Brilliant. I was less worried about drowning than I was about the bearings in my hubs and bottom bracket - the electronic key to Matts VW only popped into my mind later. Hopefully it would be well sealed in its plastic bag. A minute later I was on the tarseal wondering where my old starting speed was. It was official, I was as flat as a turd, best I let the race dictate to me, rather than kill myself and not make it through.

A few bunches of riders slowly passed me and eventually I saw both Trevor Woodward and Barryn on the side of the Gorge with punctures. I am not sure what happened there, no one has more sub-3 hour rides at Karapoti than Trev so it must have been a freak accident. You dont take risks on tyres at the poti thats for sure.

I ended up having some great dices up Deadwood with Gary Moller who has been having some great form this year for such an old bugger. I think for me it was often more efficient to run some bits rather than blow-up trying to ride every little dodgy bit.

One particular piece of track after deadwood was impressive with a small water-fall rolling down it. I stopped at the top of the Rock Garden for a gel just into time to see Gary Moller and Steve Owens from Wainuiomata go through. Awesome I thought, Steve has way better skills than me so I thought I could follow his lines. It was a pychological victory for me when he balked at the first big drop-off and I went hard right to fly past. Wahoo! Almost immediately I caught about 6 guys floundering away down the rock garden, and as they were devoid of momentum I was able to sneak past most of them.  

My plans to nail it (running) up the slippery Devils Staircase didnt come to much as there is pretty much nowhere to pass – until you get to the offical passing lanes : ) I managed to pick off another 6 or so riders before the top, where I stopped for a quick lube of the chain. No one passed me here.

At different points along the big Ring Boulevard I saw several people with punctures, one was Revolution Cycle's Jonty Ritchie and another was Oliver Whalley - Kiwi Brevet winner and room-mate from last years Singlespeed Worlds. After talking to Ollie later he admitted to using some very light weight tires. Bad move. My ghetto tubeless were going mint. A rather porky Nevegal on the front and a Larsen TT on the back, but no punctures or dodgy moments. Ollie is an engineer and will be involved in getting his home town of Christchurch back up and running, and his house, by the look of his blog : (

Somewhere down the Boulevard Trevor Woodward caught me and apologised for riding like a nana as he didnt have a spare tube. I managed to keep him in sight until the bottom of Dopers. From there to the finish he took 4 minutes out of me. I was in damage control mode up Dopers but not seeing stars so that was good. The descent down the other side was one of my better ones but the noise from my brakes was horrific. I think I was already braking on metal by then.  

Steven Owens beating me to the line - Photo shamelessly stolen from Oli  http://oli-roadworks.blogspot.com/

The Gorge just seemed to go on and on, and the puddles were sapping the life out of me. I got the fright of my life when Geoff Notman, who is at least my age, bombed past me on his rigid 29er singlespeed and rode straight throught that last stream cutting without even having to jump off. Amazing. I watched him up ahead, spinning like a nutter as we got onto the tarseal - looking over his shoulder to see If I was going to catch him and he could hitch a ride. He neednt have worried, I was toast. He ended up winning the single speed class and got the World Champ's (Garth Weinberg) scalp in the process. Legend. 2 hours 55.

The best thing about Karapoti is catching up with old friends. My old buddy, two times world masters 70+ pursuit champion, Garry Humpherson was there supporting his son Rex who still holds an age group record (2.35.04 - M1). Rex was on the podium again. It looked like there was a Cycle Services Reunion going on with all the purple tops around the place.

Speaking of records, my old protoge (Jordan Blake's) junior record (2.26.18) was in threat from phenom Anton Cooper who sprinted through the river to take the slenderist win from Dirk Peters. If its a dry year and Anton is still a junior then its up for grabs I reckon. It's hard to predict what will happen with a junior though as a lot can change in a few years. He really does look like the real deal though - he is out-lapping all the pro-elite riders in NZ currently.

My current protoge Tom Bradshaw came 2^nd to Anton at the Nationals this year but as he's started at Uni in Dunners he couldnt make it up to the poti. I got to race his dad - Ant Bradshaw, and barely sneaked home in front of him. A good result for Ant, 2nd to Arkie and 2nd in the MTB nationals a few weeks back. 

I am not 50 til October so under the Karapoti rules I had to race the younguns (40-49) where I finished 6th. I was pretty happy given that I have been training for the Xterra off road triathlon. Look out for me – the only twit doing breast-stroke!

I always think its great when you don't have any excuses. My bike was flawless. (Santa Cruz Superlight). It was my first Karapoti with discs and full suspension. I didn't crash, I didnt blow (completely). Mission accomplished !

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