Monikie Midweek duathlon series Rnd 3

the series finished last night with a final 5k run 20k cycle

as usual my run was sub par compared to the others and i was well down on the others.

[Me running like a spazzy]
good transition followed by me dropping my bottle and it bursting over the road led to me going out without fluid

a very windy road ride let me use my riding strength to my advantage and claw back about 10 places on the bike to finish 8th

this allowed me to finish 4th over all in the senior catagory.

Not bad for someone who runs like a spazzy taking a siezure!

Jayne came 2nd over all in the senior females so very very well done to her.

[Jayne running in the wooded section]

good efforts all round

10 at kirroughtree

Teamed up with Mark Smith from ABCCC to compete here in the team "young whippersnappers" , due to my back not being fully recovered from the pounding it took at mountain mayhem three weeks ago

Traveled down on the friday night with Neil and Mike of ABCCC team "old whippersnappers" and did a slow practice lap where i earnt the nick name bugs...as in bugs bunny as no one else could see and i was riding like it was daylight

Mark was warned i was taking this as speed training for the SXC and that i would be giving it 100% every lap....so i did that

on the first lap me and an RAFCC rider stuck behind the pace car and ended up miles infront of the pack, i eased off slightly feeling the pace a little too quick for me.

I course its self was fooking ace the singletrack was in abundance and this allowed me to maintain a good placing through to the finish of the first lap where i came in third

handed over to mark with a swift change over in the pits.

Mark punctured. He tryed to straight line a corner that had a ditch in it lined with rocks.
swift change for him though and his use of C02 carts saw not too much time lost

the rest of the race saw us fighting to regain this time with the laps staying consistantly about 50-55 all day

we finished in 6th place in pairs

Mike and Neil finished 40mins down and took first place vets and 12th place over all (not bad given mine and marks combined ages (22 + 18) dont even make up half their teams age)

good event again by the no fuss team. and good scran by carolines kitchen

ABC midweek league round 7

this took place on tuesday in the form of a 26 mile APR round craichie

the groups were john on his own 3 mins then mark and steph then 3mins then mike and colin followed by myself , euan and neil at a further 3 mins

euan started like a steam train and just hauled all the way round , my GPS recorded an average of 39kph for the race ! me and euan dropped neil on the second sharp climb. dont think his chest was agreeing with the effort, much like mine at the first apr trying to keep up with euan.

we continued round passing people and eventually picked up mike milne. We continued round and came to the final climb, both Euan and Mike would outsprint me on the flat to the finish so i made a play on the climb but went slightly to early and was caught out by a false crest and really cramped badly. Finished in third though which im happy enough with , just to finish in the front pack is good enough for me at this as i hate pack racing on the roads ...to many tactics

Round 7: Craichie 25.5 mile APRDate: 8 July 2008 Name Points
1 Euan Ritchie 30
1 Mike Milne 30
3 Terry Davidson 26
4 Mark Smith 24
5 Stef Delaney 22
6 Colin Nicol 20
7 John Dougherty 18
8 Neil Raitt DNF

return to new zealand

thats it , no turning back now ! booked 2 flights to new zealand leaving the 17th of november and returning the 24th of march !

plan to land in chirstchurch , collect a pair of bikes as close to below as possible from a local shop whom ive yet to contact

ride down to see friends in invercargill , ride up the west coast to milford sound , then round to queenstown for xmas and up to wanaka for new year , continue up the west coast to nelson and picton. ferry over to wellington and ride up the center of north island to hamilton. taking in taupo and rotorua if we have time.

looking forward to it. not a cheap "holiday" by any stretch! but itll be great

just need to get "packed" and sort out some luggage ....got pannier but i think ill need more than 36 litres that i do tours here with .....

thanks to the guys on singletrackworld.co.uk and VORB.co.nz for helping me out with stuff , shop recomendations and bike recomendations.

ABC midweek league Rnd 6

As you may notice i havnt been doing all the round of the summer series. round 3 i was on holiday and feeling rough after Fyrish SXC and then round 5 was recovering from Mayhem.

Ive had a week roughly off the bike completely and wondered just how things would go last night. it was hard to get going at a pace i wasnt going to burn out at. one min i knew i was going too fast the next i was going too slow. made some silly errors involving gear choices.

Ive only ever ridden the course at glamis on my Duo(29:42) with an 11:34 rear block but i still had my mayhem gears on in the form of an alivio triple (22:32:44) and an 11:32 rear block which meant i had to use different gears for climbing ...or so i thought . turns out its just as easy to climb(those climbs) in 44:32 as it is in 42:34.

apart from getting lost on the first lap the race was pretty uneventful. took the front on the start straight and held it till the end with mark smith making a couple of threatening speed bursts and catching me up on the start finish straight.

woulda been a much faster race if the Mikes had been there. i was lapping 12 min laps and with them 10.30 laps is normal. but not totally unfeisable for me i wasnt pushing 100% once i got out in front so definantly room to push harder! im sure they will be there next time , 2 days after the Fort William SXC

Round 6: Glamis MTB XC (5 Laps)
Date: 1 July 2008
Name Time Points
1 Terry Davidson 1:00:56 30
2 Mark Smith 01:02:40 28
3 Colin Nicol 01:08:55 26
4 Neil Raitt 01:01:01 (-1 Lap) 24
5 Hamish Lean DNF

summer series round 2

[me running along back straight]
i seem to be racing 2 or 3 times a week at the moment . i have no time to do owt else. not even unpacked car from mayhem ! !!!

so tonight saw round 2 of the summer series duathlon , same format as last time 5k run 20k cycle

i ran the correct way this time , course marked much better.

how ever i felt crap on both the run and the bike just fatigue from the weekend , some of the other guys asked why i was slower this time. they couldnt believe one could ride a bike for a full 24 hours ......then do what i did 3 days later

finished in around about 8th place , right behind cooper , some 2 mins off pace though , i shoulda been able to make that up on the bike against him !

perhaps if i actually do some run training !
[at start line with steve]
anyway time for some rest now , got a day off work tomorrow for some RnR and car emptying. need to recover , ive been eating packets of things .... not packets of crisps , but packets of packets of crisps .....6 packs at a time and bottles of things ....2litre bottles of them ...packets of hobnobs at once. whole tins of potatoes and half a loaf of toast for breakfast. just been so so hungry.

Mountain Mayhem

[the start , not sure where this came from but roys rides is to be credited for it ]



After my diabolical attempt at a 24 solo at relentless i had to finish this one.

that became my mantra , along with MUST BEAT RICH/CHAR/SASCHA and ive driven 500 miles here im not quitting

[the morning looking good , courtesy of www.shooterz.co.uk]

so i put in a quick first lap to get out of the queues , and an ok second lap and just kept it going. initially pitting every 2 laps for more fluid and some gels. after the lights went on at 8 it got wet and pitting everylap to andy and gordos joyous faces looking at the state of my bike that they had to clean to keep me going. so the routine became , Ride , hop off get it cleaned , eat sugar , drink sugar , ride and repeat

course was good , kept changing and was challenging on every lap esp in the wet


atmosphere was good , everyone was friendly except some members of a team riding in orange. i believe they got there comuppance though.

6th for Dave Powell
11th for me
22nd for Rich Seipp

in the female

9th for Char and 1st singlespeed for Sascha

respectable weekend all round