The Xmas break report

I am not long back from a pretty awesome holiday in Nelson and Marlborough. I was lucky enough to get shown the amazing trails that the locals have over there.

On boxing day, ex Wellingtonians Gazza and Susie Milbanke-Wood invited me along with a group of their buddies to do an ascent of Fringe Hill. Its about 800 metres in height I think, and seems to be the start of many good rides. At the top it was out with the scorched Almonds, chrissie cake and and all the goodies. Very civilised.

All was going well until my "Cuz" (who we actually met going in the opposite direction and joined our ride) showed me a short-cut down the hill... You remember that big storm that hit Nelson 18 months ago?
It knocked down trees that had been standing for over 100 years. Well those trees are still all over the trails.
To cut a long story short, I ripped off my drop-out and had to free-wheel down the hill minus chain and rear derailer.

Luckily for me I had the direct dial to the Stylianou Mansion on my bat-fone and by the end of the day had the entire NZ supply of Santa Cruz Superlight drop-outs in my hot little hand.

The next day, once again, purely by chance I came across Cuz, this time in the company of "Coppermine Classic" organiser James Hufflet. Where were they going?
To pre-ride the Coppermine of course! As Stylie was at home sick he was spared the job of showing me around the course as earlier promised.

I didnt notice at the start but both Paul (Cuz) and James were riding big-hit bikes with 2.3 wide tyres... I was on my superlight with my Brevet Aero-bars on! DOH!

The first descent of the Coppermine, from the top of the Fringe hill is the best part, ride able rooty drop-offs among the Beech trees, quite beautiful, but I am sure a handful in the wet. The next part was also very nice, taking in parts of the Dun Mountain Walkway. There were lots of new trails being built up there, but the one bit that I didnt care for too much consisted of nasty bowling ball sized boulders in a stream bed. I suspect that this is the "signature" of the Coppermine, but I have heard its being cut from the offical Coppermine course this year. No complaints from me but the local hardcore will not be happy.

The next day I was out again with Paul and James and we took in some pretty amazing trails from the entrance to Hira Forest, Kaka, Rimu, R&R, and supple-jack trails, to name a few of them. All of them real fun and some quite demanding singletrack in my book. They were dropping me easily in the descents as I was lacking in confidence on this style of track. Its not the groomed trails that you get in R-vegas or Makara, and after 3 days on the trot, I was also missing a fair bit of skin.
The weather was very hot in the evenings in Nelson but thankfully it was quite overcast during the days. Under the canopy of the exotic forest it was so dark at times that I nearly needed lights to see.

One day I snuck out to take in a piece of the Brevet course through the Wairoa Gorge road and Pig Valley, probably about 70/30 Tarseal to gravel.

On new years eve I ran into another ex Wellingtonian (Dave) when we stumbled across his bar while waiting for Minuit http://www.minuit.co.nz/ to play at the Catherdal steps. Dave was up for a ride at 11am the next day, despite only getting home at 4am. We re-rode R&R where I didnt dab, or crash at all, and did a whole bunch more trails.. Chings Highway, Tuckers Road... and many more that I have forgotten. What a blast.

Next up was a trip over the Maungatpu saddle to Pelorus and onto Moetapu Bay where some more Welly friends have a bach (hang a left at Linkwater). I was able to ride some of the Brevet course in reverse. It was very foggy going over the hill with a very light rain. I tried out my new breathable rain jacket which worked well. There were a couple of short walks on the ascent where the surface was steep and loose. I stopped for some photos at Murderers Rock and when I eventually got to Blenheim a few days later I read up all about the murders. It was a pretty gruesome affair in ever way, the murders, the executions etc and would it would be hard to find a similar event in NZ's history that would have had such a profound effect.

No sooner had we got to Moetapu Bay than our host Greg had organised a family ride, and the next day dropped myself, Alan and Ollie off at Punga Cove so that we could ride the Queen Charlotte Walkway to Te Mahia. Awesome! Its not the cruisey family ride I was led to beleive. Lots of straight up and straight down. I am not sure I agree with it being a mixed use track either. Walkers must get pretty annoyed at MTBers barrelling down the track all the time. We got to te Mahia just as it started to rain so it was very well timed.
We later drove into Blenheim and amused ourselves by PYOing 10kgs of cherries...

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Marco's new rig

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Originally uploaded by boogerbooger

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Look ma! No fork!

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Originally uploaded by boogerbooger

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Green is the theme

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Originally uploaded by boogerbooger

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Its not easy being green....

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Originally uploaded by boogerbooger

Marcos new wheels

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Gryphon, Monster-cross!

This is Team "Go Vegan" 's new set of wheels. I had a quick tootle on it yesterday and was very impressed with how fast it rolled. It should be real good on those miles of tar-seal and gravel. Its a road-bar specific machine with "non-shock-ready" geometry.

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Wild Supermotard styles!

No stone is left unturned while checking for the ultimate Brevet machine..... It was a bit lacking in speed on the Liverton road TT circuit last night.. I dont think I was able to get the neccesary cadence out of the fat wheels.
A measely 36km/h.

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Before and after

Before Jenny Craig tyre diet.




Ejector seat button....

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Moving into the bigger ring

A good use for my original Tune spider - 24-34-46 !









Some more shots of Aero-bars for the many aero-bar fans out there.

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Monday morning commute

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Wheel sucking roadie dog

The final round of the PNP MTB series was back at Makara Peak MTB park. Some awesome trails, but all looping all over the show and real hard to navigate without local knowledge. Most of the big guns had turned up in the crusties class (40 years +) except for Simon Kennett and Rob Kilvington. I think it was very close in points between Karl Ratahi and Brett Irving for the overall series, so Karl was amped.

The gun went off and the under 19, senior men and 40 plus were all off together. My protoge Tom Bradshaw just took off like it was a short course race with a couple of other 17 year olds in tow. Half expecting them to blow up with youthful exuberance I jumped on their tails to put time and riders between me and my competition on trails I was not overly familiar with.

After about 5 minutes Karl caught me from behind. I shadowed him for the first part until we came out of a trail and confronted with the alphabet soup signage at the first major turn, he went the wrong way. I yelled out and he was back on my tail until I let him through again as he was clearly riding the techie stuff faster than I was.

At some point we came out of the single track onto some wide open 4wd and a look behind saw the omenous vision of Geoff Knotman on his new carbon forked single speed 29er, grinding up the track behind me as he wrestled his crazy gear. He has great starting speed and had put some time on the other crusties. Karl and I worked together a little, but he was not holding back at all and eventually pulled away up the 4wd climb.

Into the first bit of single track I missed the turn and a senior got in front of me, slowing me down a bit on the reverse Aratahi trail. I attacked him once out of the single track and never saw him again. Next up was into the Leaping Lizard descent with its high-speed whoops, and the best part, the rough rutted Lower Leaping Lizard which comes out onto the Possum Bait trail. This was followed by a series of ultra-tight switch-back climbs that can only be ridden with 100% concentration. I only muffed one of them. I had no idea how far ahead Karl was, but we still had a long way to go.

The trails just went on and on. There was a lot of climbing on tight rough rocky trail, but thankfully, very few back-markers in the way. After that and it was into some wind-blown and open descents. I made a 50-50 call on an unmarked corner. It was the right call and eventually I was back onto a very open climb to the park summit.

A big descent came after this, and it was a long time between track markers, so when I came across two, pointing in opposite directions, on opposite sides of the trail I wasnt sure if I was lost or what the story was. I stopped for a while and eventually saw Clive Bennett grinding up the hill from the opposite direction, and asked him which way. Clive put me straight and it was race on again. Jonty Ritchey who was racing elite caught me from behind and we shot out onto the tarseal of Makara road for a bit. We then hung a left for a 6 minute granny gear climb up a piece of 4wd. This was Jontys 2nd ascent and I was only doing the one so I managed to sneak past him at about half way through the climb. Out onto Varleys or Zacks track, not sure which, and the gale-force wind was playing havoc on our fastly diminishing single-track skills.

Jonty passed me back and disappeared down the Ridgeline trail in front of me. I couldnt see any of my fellow crustys around me so just tried to hold my gap on unfamiliar trails. 5 mintues later and I came out of the single track.... there was no signage to tell me which way to go!

I was getting pretty frustrated at this point as I knew my less than stellar skills would have seen my gap on 3rd place close. Sure enough. As I waited 3rd place rider Brett Irving on his Niner 29er rolled up and knew exactly where to go! Left down Live-wires! I sat on Bretts wheel, as much as I could on the descent and we eventually burst out onto the tarseal.

I was feeling a bit gutted at having lost 2nd place so I basically sat on Bretts wheel for the next 1km and pulled out at the last second to sprint him like a roadie dog! We rolled into the finish and the next 2 or 3 guys were all in on the same minute. That was some seriously close racing.

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Choppers, wetas and lots of grass

WOW. Round 4 of the PNP MTB series in
Belmont was pretty intense. I was itching to get my own back on the Wellington crusties who spank me around Makara, as I rarely ride there. Being a Belmont resident, local knowledge was my not too secret weapon! Having the "knowledge" meant that I knew I had to be first into the Danzig track, as there are NO passing lanes and if anyone falls in front of you, you lose valuable time.

I have never been shy on going for the hole-shot so I selected the appropriate gear and tried to imagine I was back on the velodrome doing a 3km pursuit. It worked. Into the first turn and I was already in first place, then we dropped around behind the shearers quarters and heading for the left hand gravelly turn.. Splat!! I lost the front wheel, and went gravel surfing, but before you could say "oh my golly" I was back on, and in the next 20 meters had retaken the lead and crested the rise and into the single track in 1st slot. Plan 1 was a sucess... Now on to plan 2... Hmmm... I didnt have a plan 2...

Rob Kilvington was on my tail and obviously cruising. We slowly put time on the chasing trio of Brett Irving, Karl Ratahi and Matt Farrar. Rob took off just before the top of Danzig and rode off into the sunset never to be seen again.

I just put my head down and just rode it like I stole it. Knowing what was coming up was an advantage, but not the technical kind of advantage like you get at Makara, more of a mental advantage, knowing when the gradient was goingto change etc. The other guys seemed to be making time on me on the descents somewhere through the kilmister block, but were losing it on the climbs. Awesome.

Last time up through the Pony Club I punctured after the last stream crossing and that was that. 2nd place gone. I had tried to go tubeless with my rear the previous night, but gave up when I couldn't air up the tyre. Bugger. I felt as deflated as my tyre. I aired up again with a new tube and co2 and took off just as Matt Farrar caught me, he too had also punctured early on.

The manic pace was taking its toll, I was already starting to cramp each time I jumped over a stile, and there seemed to be heaps of them! I fell into the old trap of over-doing it after my "puncture-rest". I dropped Matt but I think he was spurred on maybe 5 mins later when Michael Thomson came up behind him and woke him up. Both of them shot past me somewhere along the old coach track and the best I could do was keep Michael in sight on the Danzig descents. I grovelled in at about 6th spot I think, feeling a bit gutted, but I enjoyed it while it lasted. We were really going hard for a long time. Too long!
Andy Woodwarks photos here.
Nigel Sanders photos.
I take blurry fotos.

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