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RAD! Hats!
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Bicycles, Beats & Life
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Crisp, winter days - cant beat them for a bit of a ride! After the roadie ride was done I shot home for some bacon and eggs then drove to Hamilton to meet up with Mark Vincett and Sheldon Gorter for a ride around Pukete park to check out the proposed course for the upcoming Hamilton round of the NZ Cyclocross series. The course is looking good and it’s fair to say the race will be a good (but tough!) one. I managed to to take a good stack at speed on some slimy clay putting a hole in my knee and ending up with some solid bruising on my shin - the bike was ok though fortunately! Having banked 5 hours on the bike on Saturday I was pretty stoked, then woke on Sunday sick AGAIN!! |
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Lesson Learned - The Hard Way! With my workload not too huge at the moment, I figured an afternoon in the bush in Rotorua could be in order so booked Thursday afternoon off and put the word out to see who was keen for a skid. Unfortunately all my regular ‘mid-week’ riding buddies couldn’t make it so I opted for a solo mission - no biggie. The weather was playing all the right cards and I was amped to get out and check some of the trails recently reformed after logging had decimated the areas where they sit. With my trail bike hanging on the wall in the garage in need of re-assembling I was banished to the XC rig, not bad but the trail bike with some extra bounce would have been a bit more fun. Leaving the main carpark I headed up the gravel roads to Gunna-Gotta„ into Katorie Jumps, over to Tickler, up there, up direct road, shot across to Frontal Lobotomy, up there, up a bit more to the top of the hill and into Tawa - the trail I was really looking forward to riding again. I remember the top of the trail being really fun, a little wet and slippy but super fun all the same. Somewhere around here things went pear shaped. I remember smacking into a tree with my right shoulder, realizing I was going down I grabbed the tree which promptly broke off, sending me headfirst backwards down the trail. Lights out. Im not 100% sure what happened from there, I remember trying to figure out if I should go up or down the track to get back out to the road, then a big blank spot and all of a sudden Im half way down hill road where I rang Gemma to find out if she knew I was out riding and to tell her Id had a stack, then blank until Im at the bottom of the hill, heading out on the road to the car parked at the main carpark. Ringing Gemma back once I reached the carpark she was adamant that I should be ringing an ambulance to take me in to be checked out, so what did I do? Drove myself to the Hospital! After filling in my ACC form (not sure how I managed that as I don’t remember doing most of it!) I was shuffled into see a nurse and promptly had a ‘Collar’ slapped on me and laid flat on a bed just incase the pain in my neck proved to be a bit more serious. My jaw had taken a decent hit too and the joint was very painful so with the collar pushing up on it I was in a decent amount of pain. Fortunately I didn’t have to wait too long to be seen and was told Id be in for about 4 hours for observation to make sure there were no serious effects from smacking my head, Id also be having a few x-rays to ensure nothing was broken in my shoulder or neck. My helmet did its job and was compressed and cracked all over the back half, proving it must have been quite a decent hit! (the pic doesn’t really do it justice) Fortunately after some uncomfortable times in Xray the Doc’s determined there was nothing serious happening, just a lot of bruising and what would be a headache for a couple of days. Gemma and her Mum came and collected me and after a bit more ‘observation’ we were off home. Ive ridden mountain bikes now for almost 20 years and never had this sort of thing happen (Ive knocked myself out a few times but never alone) and it was certainly a reality check and eye opener to just how easily and quickly things could turn to custard even if you’re not pushing the pace and literally out cruising. With no-one around, if matters had been a bit more serious I could have been stuck out there laying on my back for possibly up to a day, or at least until someone decided to ride down Tawa again. So I won’t be riding solo out the back of the forest any more, that for sure! |
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Thursday arvo skip out of work and smash some k’s with my buddy Sheldon then hooked up with the ‘Duck road’ bunch for a night time hustle. Good ride and good to bank some decent k’s during the week! Pic: Cookie time and Moro stop. |
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Moonrider pt 2. The second half of the Moonride turned from ‘fun and games with Ken’ to ‘pain and suffering alone in the bush’. Coming into the 4th hour, Ken stopped for a bike change (thats Pro!) and I stopped for a jam sandwich and a drink. Ken was up and away and quickly gapped out on me, ends up he was running a much lower gear than he was on his previous bike or that I was running. With the mud drying up a bit it became squishy and like modelling clay, meaning the lower gear was handy to spin through the squish while I blew my legs trying to. The last 3 hours of my race also was pretty comical, my lines were getting pretty sketchy and I was getting loose way more than I should of, most of the time I simply laughed and plodded on but a few times there was certainly near bike throwing, and numerous times I would have liked to pull off my lap, hop in the car and head home! Interesting things were muttered to me while out on course too… “Bro, how does a 10 speed go around here?” “A road bike? aren’t you scared it will break” “Cross bike, solo? You’re mad!” it was all pretty funny at the time. Rolling through what was my final lap at 5hrs and 40mins roughly I figured it wasn’t worth heading out for one more as chances are I wouldn’t get it completed by the 6hr cut off so I pulled aside after the finish line and sat down to a solid litre of cola and some snacks, content that Id probably finished somewhere in the top 15 or so. Ends up I finished 5th, a few minutes back from Ken in 4th who was the fastest cross bike on course. A great day, lots of complaints went around about the new venue for the race and how stink the course was. I agree a little but the bonus of a mainly double track / 4wd road is that there was passing everywhere, this is usually the big problem with the Moonride, lack of passing. Sure it’s a pitty it rained solid for a few days prior to the event but the course would have been boring without a bit of slippery goodness to contend with! A couple of notes on riding the cross bike in this sort of event- Quick thanks to Tony at Masi, Ken for hooking me up the tires a while back and the T7 guys for letting me creep in on their pit area. |
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PT 1. Pic at top - Ken leading me around somewhere around 2.5 hrs in the same order we finished in. Thank goodness thats done, roll on the next one! The 2012 Cateye Moonride went off with a squish (of mud) and a slop (also of mud) on Saturday for me as I opted to ride the 6 hour solo race, on my Cross bike. Leaving home at 6am on the dot isn’t my idea of fun thats for sure! A quick and easy trip from Te Awamutu to the Mamakus and I was at the venue easy as. I blagged a corner at the T7 cabins, did some lurking around and checked out Tui Ridge, the new venue - which looked pretty good! A quick change into the spandex and I was ready to roll out. Having done no specific prep for the event and having had a pretty hard week on the bike (first week back after being sick) I didnt really have any expectations of what to expect so I jumped in the mosh at the start line about 10 rows back and hoped for the best. Boom we were off, straight down a fast gravel road, around a car and back up the road again, good in theory, bad in practise as the organisers hadnt put any sort of barrier between the downstream and upstream riders. A few collisions occured but from what I hear noone was too bad of. I figured the situation pretty quick and shot up the hard left of the road on the verge moving up the bunch until I spotted Ken Feist (on a Cross bike too) just ahead and I rode into the bush alongside him. Ken and I had a good laugh for the first three hours, not taking things too seriously, seeing how far up the muddy climbs we could get, talking in fake Belgian accents and generally larking around wasting way too much energy (at that point I had no idea we were actually anywhere near the pointy end of the race)……. To be continued….. |
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I’m sick, it’s dark and cold but need some exercise! #rollerlife #instawhileridingissketchy (Taken with instagram) |
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Laced up, glued up and ready for #cyclocross season to start. 7 weeks till round 1. (Taken with instagram) |
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