Cheviot Hills Challenge – More fun than you can poke a stick at!

And you can poke a stick at an enormous amount of fun. Oh, I’m getting sidetracked already, onto more important matters. I’d like to start my post on the race yesterday by admitting I got DFL, which was quite disappointing when I learned of it at 6:35am this morning after a night of sleep that was continually interrupted by my new alien baby. However, as is so often the case, the black and white results print out doesn’t actually tell much about my race. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the BEST race I have ever done!

I’ve been looking forward to this race since last year, and even more so since I got the Anthem, so I was slightly excitable on Sunday morning. Well, hyperactive would be an accurate description, and that was before the addition of V. We were off to Cheviot bright and early and accompanied by an energising mix of dirty drum and base and crazy System of a Down. It would have been the perfect pre-race journey, except my bladder decided that all the chair dancing was aggravating and informed my in no uncertain terms that a toilet was required urgently about 30kms from Cheviot. Luckily my iron will and self-control saw me through to the Cheviot Domain where I sprinted further than I’ve run in the last 10 years to get to the loos. Once the crisis was averted I realised that the sprint felt not too bad, for someone with a severe allergy to running, and that I feel strong for the race. It turned out that the sprint was to be all the warm up I’d get after much faffing and gossiping.

After an extremely detailed course description at the briefing we lined up at the start and 10 minutes later we were off. I was starting in the middle of the sport field and managed to hold the end of the pack well and then pass some people as the first climb levelled off. Unfortunately I got a stick caught in my wheel and had to stop and remove it and then I sprinted a bit to repass the woman I’d just passed before we got onto the first very short bit of singletrack and down onto the slippery off-camber grass descent. I was trapped behind a guy who was hard on his brakes and was worried he was going to go down and take me with him, so I whipped round the side and then passed a couple of other women at the gate. Unfortunately one of them lost it and her bike whipped round and took my back wheel out. I managed to slow a lot before hitting the deck and rolled for a bit. I gave my poor left knee a good whack on a rock and the top of it was instantly black. It hurt like a bugger, but I jumped back on my bike and zoomed down the rest of the hill and tried to get it moving. Up the next climb it hurt like crazy still, but I was determined. I was climbing well, but getting held up in the singletrack. Unfortunately I’d race past people on the singletrack and then they’d pass me on the pinch climbs and I’d get held up again on the descents. Finally on the last and steepest climb of the lap a guy stopped in front of me and I ended up walking the rest of the climb. This meant the women just in front of me finally got away from me and I was held up on the rest of the descents and couldn’t make it up.

Down on the flat the new bike really paid off and for the first time ever in a race I was in the big chain ring and absolutely flying. It was great. The first lap was over in about 29 minutes and I was feeling good. I eased up a little before the first climb of the 2nd lap and the elites started to stream past me. One of the outstanding things about this race is that everyone, and I do mean everyone, is super friendly. Everyone who passed me was really polite and many of them were really encouraging. Back up the first climb and a free run down the slippery paddock, blasting super fast, feathering the brakes through the sharp, loose corner at the gate and then brake free down to the road. Up into the trees again and it’s just stunningly beautiful. There are still leaves on the ground, but the sun light is streaming through the trees and there of pockets of daffodils springing up everywhere. The climbs aren’t on singletrack, but they’re all pretty steep and have plenty of roots and leaf-litter to keep you on your toes. What singletrack there is, is rooty and twisty and fun and mainly downhill. I love it and the Anthem does too, even with its rear suspension set to hard. Lap 2 is great and I’m grinning. I finish the second lap in 31 mins, but I know I’m starting to feel tired.

The third lap and the first climb hurts pretty bad and I’m not really attacking it hard anymore and cruise a bit when it flattens out before the descent. My knee is aching by the bottom, but I push hard on the next climb knowing it’s the last lap. I see a couple of elite mates of mine duelling it out behind me, but know I’m faster than them on the singletrack downhill so pin my ears back and pelt down the hill. They pass me effortlessly on the start of the next climb and I earn my self a hard smack on the butt for my mad-core downhill steez! Luckily it hurts enough to take my mind of my knee and I attack this climb. Down the other side and only that one nasty last climb to go. My legs are still going well, but the energy sapping wet leafy section out the back takes it out of me pretty badly. I head up the hill and catch my breath as I get off and push my bike up the last short bit of pinch. And then it’s all down hill. Woooooo hoooooo! I’m flying along and pass a couple of guys and then I’m pedalling hard down the paved walking track, through the trees and up to the road to the finish. I felt so strong and stoked coming across the finish line. After the first lap I set myself a goal of getting home in 1hr 38 and did my 3 laps in 1:35:41. I was over the moon. And it was so very cool crossing the line and having my very own team of cheerleaders waiting for me (I love you guys).

This was the first race I’ve ever felt in complete control in, able to attack the climbs instead of just struggling up them, battling to keep going forward. Last year I did 2 laps of this race in 1:20:19, so this year I’ve improved an enormous amount. This year I felt like I actually racing, rather than just participating and it felt so amazingly good even my alien baby knee, which seized up as soon as I got off the bike, couldn’t wipe the huge grin off my face. The Cheviot Hills course is the most fun I’ve raced on, it really is a privilege to be able to ride these tracks that are usually reserved for walking in such a lovely area.

After a quick change of top, I hobbled to the steak sandwich tent and got some food for me and my wonderful husband and then we chilled out on the freshly mown cricket ground and listened to mellow jazz in the sun and talked rubbish. It was fantastic relaxing with friends, meeting people who read this blog (such a strange thing to know people read it, and sorry to the guy on the orange and blue Kona, I didn’t get your name, I was in a bit of a pre-race brain-free moment). And then the moment I’d been waiting for all day, the lolly scramble! I was very well behaved and didn’t push any small children over, but did manage to secure my fair share of toffees. Yum! The prize giving saw our contingent of riders take home plenty of meat and wine and my lovely husband scored a spot prize. It was a brilliant day, which has left me hungry for more training and more racing. Once I’ve had some more sleep!

I’ve Done a Big Ride

With the help of friends and K Bars

Yesterday, with the help and support of friends, I achieved a long held goal. To bike from Kennedy’s Bush to Taylor’s Mistake and out to Sumner in one day. For me this is an epic ride. Sure I’ve biked further and I’ve ridden for longer and I’ve done more climbing, but not on technical, rocky tracks, some of which I’ve never been on before. It was hard, but it was fun and today I’m shattered, more so than I was last night.

Knowing that this was going to be a big day I started out conservatively and eased up Kennedy’s Bush. We had to stop just before the last climb and adjust my brakes which were misbehaving. I opted to skip the Nun, not wanting to blow out from the climbing and nervous of riding it on my cross country beast. I, of course, regretted this when everyone else came flying out grinning, but I had enjoyed the second half of the Nun so all was not lost.

After a water stop at the Kiwi we headed up the hill to the Traverse and it flowed so sweetly. The bike was handling well and even though I don’t ride the Traverse in that direction often it was brilliant. We opted to spin round the road to Castle Rock from here as none of us, especially me, were too keen on scaling Vernon or Witch Hill. I’ve never ridden Castle Rock before and it was fantastic. Rocky, but flowing, not too fast and but fast enough that you can glide over everything. I loved it, and it gave my newly strong arm muscles a really good work out. I zoomed over rocks and down little drops, flowed round switchback corners and powered up and over rocks on the climb out. By the end of it I was grinning madly, as usual, and felt like all the Nun repeats had taught me so much about bike handling over rocks. I was really surprised how not-scary it was on the short travel bike. I’ve definitely learnt a lot from riding with scatter about letting my body do some of the suspension work. I’m very lucky to have such talented and patient women to ride with!

From there it was a climb round the road to John Britten, another piece of track I’d never ridden. Unfortunately I was so excited by my great ride at Castle Rock that I didn’t realise I was actually bonking from lack of food. That was until I went over my bars on a relatively flat bit of track in John Britten. Of course I did this right in front of my poor husband who was very worried because the crash looked rather spectacular. I was fine, as I’d landed in a nice soft patch of thistles, but it was then I realised how wobbly I’d become. We inched our way to Greenwood and caught up with Scatter and Slim and I devoured a sandwich (roast chicken and parsnip FTW) and a bit of K-Bar that the wonderful Scatter had kindly given me.

After this brief fuel and chat stop we were off and I was like a new rider. I cleaned everything! I was riding more confidently than before and was able to pick good lines and lift my front wheel up things I couldn’t before. The Anthem is made for tracks like Greenwood Park and held its speed really well which allowed me to tackle all the bits that scared the bejesus out of me last time I was here. My arms got even more of a work out and it turns out my front forks did too. When we stopped at Evan’s Pass for an ice cream, (ICE CREAM!! The ice cream truck is coming!), I discovered I’d blown the seals in my right stanchion of my forks and oil was pissing out. Booo. Luckily it wasn’t the left or it would have been ride over with oil on my front disk. After an ice cream in the sun we headed up Godley and I did a fair bit of pushing in the first section. I was feeling pretty shattered by now, but was still able to ride a few of the rocky bits. Once it levelled out it was all good and we were zooming off grinning. At the bottom of this section Scatter and I sensibly elected to sift around the road, as our little legs were feeling the burn, while the boys were all tough and climbed the singletrack.

At the bottom of that section of singletrack some engineering works were required to prevent someone killing themselves on the cattlestop that had disintegrated and we met up with Rita, who was having flat tyre troubles.

Then it was onto the Anaconda. So very sweet and flowy. All the pain was worth it as we flew down. Unfortunately Rita’s tyre troubles were passed to Slim and he had to pause to replace his tube. The Anaconda was riding brilliantly and I was very happy indeed. At the bottom I lay on the grass smiling and trying not to think about the climb out of Taylors. We were pretty happy campers, laughing at the stupid lowered cars scrapping over the speed bumps. I was surprised how good I still felt and as we spun up the hill, it didn’t hurt quite the way I thought it was going to. Flying down the other side I got to bed my brakes in really well as the traffic was crawling along.

For me it was an epic ride. And it was a dusty ride. We were out for just over 6 hours, and for me that was 4 hours of riding. Although it was only 40kms for me, the others are harder than me and rode home while I scrounged a ride from Rita, it was 40 bloody hard kms. Last time I set out to do an abridged version of this ride I broke my arm, this time it was fantastic. I’ve got my first race of the season next weekend and I honestly think I’m fitter than I’ve ever been. I’ve got muscles where once there was only flab, I’ve got confidence on technical tracks and I’ve the right bike for the job (once I get the forks fixed). I’m so excited about this summer’s riding I can hardly contain it!

It’s On!!

Yep, just like Donkey Kong, it’s on. And by that I mean I am now preparing for my scheduled races for this year. It’s a nice calendar which mainly consists of events I’ve got scores to settle with. It starts out fun with the Cheviot Hills Challenge. Last year I managed to get pretty sick right before the race and down graded to recreational, this year I will be looking to finish in Sport. It’s a great wee race, well run and a great start to the season.

Then after that is the 6hr Blast at McLean’s Island. I did the 12hr last year in a team of 4, this year it looks like I’m going to do the 6 hour in a team of 2 (maybe 3?) but on singlespeeds. That will be interesting. Hopefully my knees will hold up.

From there I might do a new event for me, the Dusky Trail race in Twizel. This is only a maybe at the moment because it’s at Labour Weekend we might flag racing and head to Alex for a holiday with our bikes instead. We shall have to see.

Then another new race, but one I’m pretty excited about. I’m going to be part of a 4 or 5 up team for the Timaru 12hr race on the 31st of October. We’ve come up with an amusing theme, but I’m not going to let the cat out of the bag in case other teams poach our ideas (yes, I’m under this misconceived notion that people read this blog).

Then the big one. The Molesworth Muster. I really want to nail this race this year in under 5hrs. I’m hoping for around the 4.5hr mark, but it is a big ask. And to do it I’ve agreed to keeping a food diary to help me loose the excess weight that a summer lost to arm mending and then a cold wet winter have gifted me. The twist is I’ll be sharing my food diary with my friends so I will be really motivated to eat right. I’ve also been receiving lots of fantastic advice from some very inspiring athletes and I think I know what I need to do. They you shouldn’t try to lose weight and train at the same time, and they’re right, but I’ve never made things easy for myself.

After a rest from the Molesworth I’ll be heading back to the Moa Hunt, for a day of punishing climbing, but with my new super bike I’m looking forward to taking my time down at least half an hour. The next day is the most exciting day of the year, with Pearl Jam playing Christchurch. I cannot wait. I’ll be booking some annual leave to sleep on Monday.

Finally I’ll be back at the Hammerhead if its running. Hopefully I won’t leave any skin behind this time and I’ll handle all the climbing better. I’m so looking forward to these races with my new weapon, I know I’ll enjoy them more and my times will improve.

Just a final note: I highly recommend everyone get out and get the latest issue of Spoke (Issue 33). There are two extremely insightful and well written articles in there by yours truely (aren't I modest?!)

Learning lessons

It’s been a while between posts and yet again that’s because of my health. I’m really struggling to shake of this virus and its meaning I’m not really able to ride. My lungs are really clogged up and I’ve got an extremely nasty cough. To add to this work has been insanely busy and stressful and my sleep pattern is completely buggered. So I’ve been off the bike and haven’t been back to the gym. I’ve made an appointment to see my doctor later in the week, so hopefully we can come up with a plan.

I have taken some very wise advice and am resting up as much as I can, including having today and tomorrow off work. Such luxury. I’ve also had an extremely relaxing weekend. On Saturday my lovely husband and I went to the art gallery to see and participate in Scape. We spent the morning riding round the city centre on very cool

bikes. I loved it, but then I am a bit of an exhibitionist so really didn’t mind all the staring. Not so good for hubby, but he’s so wonderful that he put up with it. It was a gorgeous sunny day and was just the kind of thing I needed. I spent the rest of the afternoon upstairs in the sun snoozing.

Sunday I was a bit naughty. Pete and I had entered the Cheviot Hills Challenge a month ago and I really didn’t want to pull out because they might not run it again as it was a test run this year. I’d managed to change to the Recreational grade, so I only had 2 laps of the 7kms course to do. I’d also managed to talk a fellow Vorbette, scatter, into pootling along with me. Not that it really took any persuading at all. It was a gorgeous day and it turns out the course was fantastic. I definitely made the right choice being in Rec as there were plenty of technical hill climbs for my lungs to protest at, but it was wonderful. I’ll admit that at the end of the first lap I was feeling pretty bad and if scatter hadn’t been there I might have pulled the pin and finished right there. I didn’t though. Partly because I couldn’t stand the thought of not finishing something I’d started and secondly because the course was so much fun.

A lap consisted of a short ride up a gentle gravel road, slaloming between huge puddles, then right into the first climb up some slightly overgrown double track. This popped us out onto a fence-line single track with a blast down a paddock, a sharp right and a further blast across the front of hill on off-camber double track. Down the road for a short bit, up a very wet grassed field and back into the single track, climbing up through the trees. A very fast downhill down the other side, then back up through the trees up the steepest climb (I really struggled with my lungs on this one, even walking it was difficult to breath). Then a very cool narrow rooty technical descent into a really tight right hander, up a wee bit more and then a blast down out the trees and onto the access road. Out on the bridge on SH1 and then down a cool wee drop-off and out on to paddocks. Wet paddocks covered in long grass. These were the worst part of the race, it felt like climbing it was so hard to ride in and seemed to suck all the energy out of my legs. After surviving the death paddocks we whipped round the edge of the road, over another bridge and onto a lovely windy gravelled path with a great downish incline. Blasted down the path, a wee bit more single track through forest, up the other access road and that was a lap.

I did a bit of walking on the first lap. I had a wee voice in the back of my head reminding me not to break myself, to take it easy and look after my lungs. I probably rode 50-60% of the climbing though and I know I could have ridden it all if I was healthy. The descending was fantastic on the first lap. The course hadn’t be ripped up much by the Expert and Sport riders ahead of us, so there was plenty of grip and I loved the challenge of the narrow, rooty stuff. The second lap was a bit of a different story. I’m well aware my tires are not good in the mud (read: deadly), however I haven’t sorted myself out some good wet tyres and I really didn’t expect the course to be as wet as it was. So by the second lap the course and particularly the really tech rooty narrow downhill was getting quite slippy. Unfortunately I didn’t realise this until it was too late.

I was about halfway down the descent and remember briefly thinking “I wonder if that fence is electric?” when my front wheel let go on a root and I slid into the fence. I quickly discovered a large number of things in a very short space of time.

1. The fence was not electric (phew)

2. There were 2 guys right behind me that I didn’t know about. I discovered them when one of them fell into me.

3. Some how I’d managed to catch the top knuckle of my ring finger between my grip and the top wire of the fence and then fall onto the fence and get the wire caught underneath my brake lever.

4. I couldn’t get off the fence.

5. I couldn’t get my finger out from under the wire

6. Slowing having No. 8 wire working its way deeper and deeper into your finger hurts like hell and is quite scary.

The two guys behind me continued on and I struggle to save my finger. Luckily a marshall came to my rescue and untangled me. I had a black line across my knuckle and it hurt like hell, but I was ok. The marshall suggested I walk the rest of the descent and although I really didn’t want to, it was fun, I saw sense (and mud) and stumbled the rest of the way down. At the bottom I got back on and decided that if I did a bit of climbing up the next bit it would make my circulation work and take my mind of my throbbing finger. It worked a treat and by the next downhill I was flying along and actually feeling better than I had the whole race. scatter was long gone, I had been married to the fence for a few minutes after all, so I decided that I would actually try and ride the rest of the lap with some semblance of speed. I struggled through the death paddock, but the rest of the ride was good and I even managed to catch the other Rec women who I’d be duelling with up and down the hills till my tumble. My lovely husband passed me on his last sport lap with 200ms to go so that was cool. And having the loud cheering of scatter at the end was brilliant. All in all, a fantastic race.

Lessons I’ve learnt from it. Technical climbing is way more fun than slogging up a 4wd track. Having someone you know to race with is brilliant and makes an already enjoyable experience even more fun. Racing is still fun, even when you can’t go hard out. Having tyres that work in the wet is a good idea. And finally falling into a 6 line wire fences hurts more than falling into bushes, tussock, trees, gorse, dirt, mud and only slightly less than falling on pointy rocks. Once the race was over I discovered the array of fence marks on the left side of my body. The one halfway up my upper arm is doing a good impression of an armband tattoo, but in red and green, so at least I now know how I’d look with one of those!

It’s a lovely sunny day today and all I want to do is ride my bike. I’m really missing riding, but in the interests of my health I’m going to clean my bikes in the sun and read books instead. Most importantly lesson: listen to your body.