National Club Championships

National club champs took place last week and it turned out to be some very good racing with a lot of local Nelson riders doing very well.

My race was on Friday at Midday and strait away attacks went down and i managed ride across to another group of riders that had a couple of strong guys in there. We still had 1min 30 to the 3 leaders on the road so we knuckled down and got on with the chase we had been reducing the gap when we heard from the side of the road t sit up and wait foe 3 more guys to come across and help with the work load. Once the catch was made on the front guys it was back to square one and a few guys thought it was time to have a rest. (which wasn't really that pleasing when they ended up getting in the medals!!) but thats their decision. A few of the break away dropped off over the next few laps until it was left to 6 riders in the lead group and when the attacks started to go on the last lap all the other laps started to hit me and i had no venom in the legs on the final climb. so ended up 5th.

Just got back from the Yunca junior tour of southland. i am pleased to be back because the riding conditions in southland are less than ideal. Any way i got 6th overall in the u19 and was felling really good the whole tour with the wind, rain, hail and some snow maybe.

The tour panned out like this.

Day 1 was just a prologue where i got 10th which i was pleased with because i haven't been doing any thing like that. next day was to stages both around 80 km long i broke away in stage 1 to get some time back but got caught with probably only 15km to go so was pretty gutted.

next stage more bad weather hit and i was survival mode with a few attacks nothing stuck because conditions where so bad. so i rolled in with bunch time.

Day 3

was the crit early in the morning and i sat in the bunch and rested up and then with a couple of minutes to go rode off the front and took the stage.

in the afternoon was another 80km stage and i attacked soon after the start and got a good gap then a couple of riders came across and just after the first hill climb Michael Vink and Tom Hubbard came across from the peleton and this was when i thought we where away and this would move me up on GC but some how the bunch caught us after some dodgey bunch motor pacing and things like that!! but i don't know the full story so can't real say much.

So all in all a good warm up to the real thing in november!

i would like to quickly thank Village Cycles for sorting out my bike and Chris Nichlson for all the advice and Hugh Macmillian for all the help down south cheers.

2009 World Mountain bike champs wrap

After a driving back from christchurch today i have had a chance to reflect on this years worlds.

Canberra Lead Up.

We took the van down from sydney on the long boring drive down to canberra. We got to the Canberra motor village to meet up with some of the team that had already been in camp a while.

The next day we went out to the track and it was raining hard and very cold i was frezzing and had 4 or 5 layers on. i rode a couple of laps and struggled up the climb with all the rocks and A-lines being difficult to do the first time you try them. i got to the top of the climb to the dreaded hammer head and saw several people come down hard on the rocks bellow. i had already decided not to ride the hammer head that day because it was raining but did it on my second lap with no real troubles at all. 

After a few more days of training i had the course sorted and all my lines fixed in my head. 

Day 1 racing was the u19 woman and u23 woman. i chose to stay away from the track and just go for an hour on tracks and roads around the camp. 

U19 race 

Got up had an apple and then my usual breakfast and then took my gear to the van with plenty of time to spare we got to the track and chilled out the i did a good 50min warm up on the rollers. and headed up to the start line. the race start wasn't that fast but the rode was wide and crashes started happening once we got around the first corner i got tangled up in two crashes and ended up being along way back into the first single track from then on it was fast pushing all the way to the hammer head and down the hammer head. there where a few more crashes in front of me to slow me down but apart from that i had no other troubles. the rest of the race i struggled on the climbs and couldn't get going as well as i had been earlier in the year. i ended up 60th 1 lap down and felt that if i had a better start i might have gone better but apart from that no crashes so not to bad.

Day 3 and day 4 and all the rest

After my race i could see how the big boys roll!! first up on Friday was the u23 race with race favourite Burry Sandler clearing out from the rest and showing why he has been getting top 10's in the world cups this year. best of the kiwis was Carl Jones who rode out of a poor start to work through the field for a good result.

Saturday was the Elite XC with racing being very close and the Mens race coming down to a sprint finish between olympic gold medalist Julian Absalon and last years u23 gold medalist Nino Shurcter. with the younger Nino have to much speed in the last kilometer of racing.

Sunday was the the biggest day for the Downhill side of the event with the juniors in the morning with team mate Brook Macdonald taking the Gold medal and a well earned Rainbow jersey. And the Elite men also doing well with Justin Leov in 8th place.

Finally i would like to thank all the support crew in Australia for all the effort that went into organising the whole thing. And i would also like to thank my sponsor that have help me along the way- village cycles, ibis cycles.

photos to come  

Joel's scewers. 

Cheers 

the new ibis tranny

the bike i used in switzerland!!

South Island Secondary School MTB champs 08

Just a quick update on the S and g race on August 22nd. felt flat from the weeks training but still wanted to have a good ride. Dave went up the road and a let him sit up there knowing that he would blow up and i started getting worried when they got out of sight and we where picking up the pace. but it turns out that Dave and Thomas Ashley went the wrong way. So they rejoin the peleton from from behind and by this stage i was starting to fell crap and sat on the back just wanting to get to the finish. So ended up rolling in with the bunch.

And well down to Thomas Hodge for a well timed break near the end to sneak the win.

Worlds 09

Just got my new Ibis Tranny 

It is very light and stiff, so hopefully goes good in canberra next week!!