6hr Super D Enduro - an old woman in a young man's game

I didn’t quite get round to writing up my last day of my Vegas adventure before heading down south for my next adventure. Brief synopsis, the tracks were dry, I was tired, Corners had a punga stump that tried to cause my death by impalement on a fallen tree, B Rude Not 2 was awesome and so was Mad if you Don’t.  All in all Rotorua was brilliant and just the break we needed from Christchurch.

And after a brief trip home to snuggle the cat and wash a vast array of stinky mountain bike clothes it was into the car with me and down to Queenstown in the company of legendary hard man and epic ride enthusiast Oliver Whalley. The trip down to Q’town flew by as we discovered that we both liked to sing the guitar riffs of songs. Entering Q’town we got our boy racer trousers on and got the bass pumping and the windows down.  I got in touch will my inner teenager by hanging out with someone over ten years younger than me.

Photo Caleb Smith: Ollie flying into second place

After dumping Ollie and installing myself in my dorm room at Pinewood it was straight down to Ferg Burger with my lovely Pinewood companions for a feed before a rather early night. Driving for 5.5hours is knackering. Luckily I had very considerate dorm mates and slept well, sneaking out in the early dawn hours for breakfast at Ferg Bakery, and preparing my gear for the day. A quick pedal through the school and we were soon setting up our site in a primo position and registering. I caught up with a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a while, which was great, but I also started to feel quite sick with nerves.

After talking to a number of people I got the feeling I had really bitten off more than I could chew and when I discovered we were starting in numerical order and I was number 22 it’s safe to say I was freaking out a bit. I chatted nervously with the guy I shared the gondola ride to the top with and then we were off. My plan was for a conservative, stay alive approach to the race, however adrenalin got the best of me and after about 2 minutes of riding I was coming in too fast to a steep rooty corner and heading straight over the bars onto my head. In front of a marshall. Which I suppose was a good thing, but was very embarrassing and I raced to reassure him I was alright and to clear the track. I let a number of riders pass and got back on my stead and immediately noticed that my helmet kept dropping over my eyes. Not good. In fact so not good that very soon after I was on my head again and beginning to think that this was the end of my race.

At this stage I was pretty sure I had a leeeeetttle concussion as I had a big wiggly blind line in my left eye and I was positive my helmet had seen better days. Not to mention a headache. I continued down the hill, the words of my colleague Bob warning me that I was going to axe myself in this race, floating around my head. (Turns out he’s one to talk, below is a photo of him following Le Race when adrenalin got the better of him in the final corner. He’s a much harder man than I, but he’ll never admit it, and still finished the race looking like a cross between a mugging victim and a mummy).

Oh Bob, why did you jinx yourself by worrying about my skills so much?

Into the first climb and I decided if I was still have vision problems or if my headache was worse than the slightly dull ache it was at that point when I got to the bottom I’d pull the pin. This thought made me feel sick and very disappointed in myself for being such a muppet. As people streamed past on the climb that seemed to go on forever I had time to adjust my helmet ensuring I could at least see better on the next downhill bits. The nice singletrack climb (yes I did think it was nice at this stage of the race) dropped into Hammy’s with a rather nasty tight rooty and hastily cut steep corner that I wasn’t alone in not being able to ride.

I eased down Hammy’s and into the weird messy little bit above Singletrack Sandwich then it was back into Hammy’s before a nasty poorly formed switch back climb which almost everyone was running or pushing. From there it was a nice drop into lower Singletrack Sandwich and out to a steep pinch up to a slow grassy section of corners that I just couldn’t find flow on. From there it was all pretty much downhill and by the bottom I knew I was going to keep going.

I had a brief stop at the pits to get the super amazing Jo to fix my bike as the front gear cable had become dislodged in one of my crashes and I was stuck in the little ring. While she did that I removed my visor from my helmet and got it fitting right again. Yes it did have a crack in it and yes, I probably should have stopped riding once I discovered that, but I just couldn’t face only having one lap next to my name.

Spot the crack

Up the gondola again and this time I had great flow on the track, no crashes or near misses, the climbing wasn’t  too bad and I was grinning again. I really enjoyed that second lap. Another short stop at the bottom to let Jo know I was ok and then back up again. Now I was really loving the steep sections in Thingamajig and couldn’t work out how I’d managed to crash so spectacularly. The climbs however were taking their toll. And pain I had felt from the crashes was completely obliterated by the screaming of my legs on the climb and I knew I needed to stop after this lap and eat something substantial.

Photo Caleb Smith - once more making me look like a talented rider rather than a concussed muppet

At the bottom I eased into a chair and hoed into an astoundingly good ham and cheese croissant and gulped some V. Then some sour snakes for dessert and I was off again. I was still loving the downhill stuff, but the uphill was really hurting and some of the freshly cut transitions from one track to another were becoming quite scary. I used a tree to brake once to stop from going over a bank after I corner I’d ridden easily earlier had started to blow out and I couldn’t find traction.

There was more walking on the uphill singletrack section, under the guise of being polite and letting the fast riders past, and I also took the opportunity to stop and help a young grom who was experiencing cramp for the first time and was rather distressed. After helping him stretch a bit I gave him a handful of snakes and was on my way again. On the way down the blown out stuff was getting more blown out and I was getting more fatigued. I looked at the time and realised that I could fit a couple more laps in, even if I had ten minute breaks in the pits to recharge.

At the bottom I settled back in my chair and started on my second ham and cheese croissant. As I sat talking to Jo and my other friends coming in for food my stomach began to get tight. As the others headed off for more laps I sat thinking about the near misses I’d had in the last lap, and weigh them against the fun I was having getting air in places I’d been too scared to earlier. If I’d gotten up and ridden to the gondola just then things might have been different, but I sat a little longer and the fear took firm hold of me.

I was riding with a cracked helmet. I was very very tired. I ached all over. I had pretty decent headache. These thoughts wound through my brain and I decided that was it. 4 laps was enough. I walked back through the timing tent and turned my transponder in.

The rest of the afternoon was awesome, just hanging out, talking to cool peeps, cheering my amazing friend Michelle who was also soloing it and was just a machine. I dished out snakes to people in need and cheered for skids. It was great.

Photo Caleb Smith - Michelle showing her awesome steez and just generally blowing my mind

Later that evening I stood on the step of a podium for the first, and probably only time in my life. I’d got third in the hotly contested Veteran Woman’s solo section and I felt great as people clapped and I was handed a great pair of Specialized gloves as a prize. It was an awesome fun scary race that challenged me more than any other event I’ve ever done. And it wasn’t until the next day on the drive home (where I found an amazing pump track in Omarama, but only had legs for one feeble lap) that the regret hit and I wished I’d gone out for at least one more lap. You see I may have got third in my category, but I also got DFL and that kinda sucks. I’d like to say I’ll be back to do that race again, but with ongoing bouts of chronic fatigue I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put the training in to make it a less painful experience. But I’ve done it once and I’m rather proud of that.

Omarama pump track, worth stopping for

And here's my Bastian monster being cute outside.

Finding my lungs

Somewhere on the Longest Day Ride I dropped my lungs. Or it might have been the next day evacuating the airport during the earthquakes, maybe I left them on the floor when I tried to crawl under a chair because I thought the light fittings were going to bounce out of the ceiling and onto me. All I know is that since then I’ve been really struggling with having any lung capacity.

This was shown to me clearly when I ventured up Rapaki for the first time in a year. The geotechs and blasters have finished their work and the track is now officially open, although users are warned to “Stay away!” if they are uncomfortable with the ever present risk of rocks bouncing down on their noggins.  I chuckled to see my old friend Danger Officer Commander employing his mighty forearms to repel the deadly rocks and then headed up the track in the sun.

Rapaki is as it ever was, wide and smooth, although a couple of ruts have opened up and filled with deep gravel which could make descending slightly perilsome. As the hot sun beat down on me I was passed by a runner like I was standing still, which I almost was. I was really struggling. In fact I was going almost as slow as the first time I ever rode up Rapaki. My lack of breath was shown to me all to clearly when not too far from the top I had to stop! I just couldn’t catch my breath. Not good.
At the top I lay in the tussocks and enjoyed the stunning view while learning to breathe again. Finally I slowly drifted up the road and across the traverse and then down Sesame St and Dyers Rd. Back to bed with me after that ride.

Last Thursday my hubby and I took a day trip to Hanmer and I was hoping my lungs would be feeling much improved so I could enjoy the flowing tracks. Unfortunately this was not to be and at the halfway point of the climb up Mach 1 I was already struggling. Mach 1 was in mint condition and riding great so even though I wasn’t riding well I still loved it. We very naughtily decided to investigate the progress on reinstating Bigfoot. I ground slowly up the road while hubby took the more difficult option of heading up the Joliffe Track. At the carpark at the top hubby headed into the reinstated Fir Trail while I began the slow process of climbing the 17 switchbacks up Bigfoot.

This section of track hasn’t really been effected by the logging and was mint, although I found that I really struggled with right hand switchbacks and lost my front wheel twice resulting in tree-hugging to save myself. I had to stop a few times on the climb, which was no surprise and hubby caught up with me. Then the descent began. I should really title this naughty ride Blood, Sweat and Fears, because after sweating my way up to the top I was completely freaked out riding down.

Of course this was our own fault for riding a track that isn’t open and ready to be riding yet. With the trees gone and the sharp stones the lie beneath the surface exposed and loose it was nerve jangling riding down. The track is narrower and falls away quickly down the steep banks and what were once fun grippy corners now felt like loose death traps. Finally I came to grief in a steep tight turn where my bike got into the loose stuff and I just couldn’t get it to turn. Skin on knees be gone! After this I ended up walking a couple more of the corners and decided that I probably deserved to lose some skin for riding a closed track. BAD GIRL!

After this we headed up Detox which was in great condition, but I’d lost my bottle and failed to ride the little rock drop. By the bottom I was spent and riding like a complete muppet so I headed back to the car while hubby went out to ride Red Rocks, Swoop, Swamp Track and Yankee Zypher. He came back to the car with bleeding forearms after being attacked by brambles on the more over grown tracks.

So not my best ride in Hanmer and I was feeling a little dejected about my lack of fitness after this adventure. I was also feeling intense burning pain when I applied the liquid plaster to my grazes. Wow that stuff hurts!

Freshly cleaned graze looks fairly minor

Two days later is looking pretty rough and is still owie

So I was a little apprehensive about heading to Living Springs yesterday. The 4wd track climb here is not my friend, I’ve only managed to ride up it a few times and usually I’m ready to pass out by the top. Yesterday I actually rode up it with relative ease. I say relative because to a normal fit person it would have looked like a struggle, but for me it was really good. We sifted around the rest of the tracks, my lovely friend Michelle showing her friend how to ride the lovely tight corners of Zanes. I had my flow on and it was a brilliant ride. But the end of the lap I was feeling so confident we decided to take a look at the Canyon Drop. A very steep pinch climb leads you into a big rollover down a rock into a canyon (surprisingly enough).

As I rolled in to have a look at it I lost my bottle, that thing is steep and a long way down. The lovely Michelle showed me how it was done and then I was rolling in and committed. WEeeeeeee! My forks bottomed out as I hit the bottom and then I was safely zooming out. Awesome.

After that we drove up to Brake Free and sessioned that for a while and I’ve start to get some confidence over jumps again. Then in a fit a madness I decided I wanted to ride down Sesame St and bike back up the hideous steep 4wd track. I was pretty impressed that I managed to ride most of it and only lost my front wheel once! Then an out and back along the Traverse and I was grinning ear to ear. By far the best ride I’ve had in ages. I was really flowing well and rode the Traverse cleaner than I ever have before.  I’m really looking forward to heading back down for more time on the Queenstown tracks this week. Come on fitness, I know you’re there somewhere!

It’s been a looong time

Hellooooooooo, is there anyone out there? I’m back! I know I’ve been terrible neglecting my blog for so long. Things have been interesting. I now have a whole new and non-paying career, as a writer. Yes, I know, surely that would mean more blog updates, not less? Well, it was a bit of difficult transition, but normal service will now resume.

A quick catch up. Before Christmas, I was getting very excited about the Novices and Has-beens downhill race that Gravity Canterbury was running. I even got some very cool spokey dokeys and googles for the occasion. Unfortunately 2 days before the race I clipped one of the narrow gates at the bottom of Vic Park and smashed into the ground. Hard. And things went POP! Luckily I hadn’t broken anything, but I had sprained various ribs and things in my chest and neck region so once more riding was not looking good for Christmas. This is becoming a very bad habit. After a few days of lying about trying to heal and ingesting lots of painkillers we headed down to Alexandra.



I was still entertaining thoughts of racing at Bannockburn on the 30th of December, but a little 26km ride on the river track on Christmas morning put pay to that idea. Too owie! We did manage to do a bit of riding in Central. A very cool jaunt up Lake Roxburgh on fun and techy singletrack.



A cruise around Conroys Dam and a play at the vey cool BMX track in Alex, which unfortunately resulted in very sore ribs for me again. I just couldn’t help myself and hit some rollers a bit fast and, well, things went a bit pear shaped meaning I had to absorb a lot of energy with my front forks and arms. Muppet. Since returning to sunny (hah!) Christchurch I’ve been taking it pretty easy with some roadie rides and singlespeed blasts to get my chest back in working order. My fitness is not very fantastic, as a 36 minute lap of the 3.5km loop of Living Springs showed me. Shame! However I do have plans for this year. And they are a bit different from the last couple of years.

Since the Moa Hunt, I’ve kind of lost my racing buzz. I think I’ll still do some races and very much hope to do the Singlespeed Champs in Queenstown, but my focus at this stage is doing a cycle tour of the West Coast. I plan to ride from Greymouth to Wanaka by myself, unsupported. I’ve got myself the loan of a touring bike and some panniers. I’ve got lots of advice from friends and I’m more excited about this than any of the other riding I’ve been doing. It’s a very long way, 458ish kilometres, with some big BIG climbs, however it is through some of the most beautiful countryside NZ has to offer. I’m giving myself a generous 14 days to accomplish my mission, which should give me plenty of time to spare. Now I just need to start assembling my travelling kit and start practicing riding a heavily laden bike. Fun times.

The promised video

As promised yesterday, here is the video of my new hucking powers. It isn't very big, but with the addition of an appropriate soundtrack it is very amusing. Well to me anyway.




In further news I went shuttling for the first time this year yesterday and it was good. When a friend says you have to come shuttling with her because she's just got a new bike and it's the hottest thing around roadie training gets thrown out the window. Shuttling was brilliant and while I was really nervous on the first run I was fully grinning at the bottom. The second run was even better and we rode a track I've never ridden before called Cool Runnings. I can't wait to do more shuttles, once I've finished all this training for the Molesworth.

I'm ready for my close-up Ms Hucker

As promised yesterday, here is a selection of the photo's from Saturday. There were heaps of photos of me grinning insanely while everyone else looked Very Serious, but I haven't included those here, the chipmunk cheeks are just too embarrassing.

First attempt at the wall ride. Scary, but fun

Scatter shows me how its done

Rita show me how its not done!

Huck it au!

Natural born poser!

Look, my wheels are off the ground.

The charge of the Hucker army

I love berms

Martha Hucker reprasentz

Who bought the karate kid?

As you can see we had a great day, thanks Anne and Martha!

Martha Hucker radtastic photoshoot and huck-fest

As there are more and more sunny days the riding in the Port Hills just gets better and better. On Thursday after work I headed up to Flying Nunn. I knew I was participating in the “Martha Hucker radtastic photoshoot and huck-fest” on Saturday and I was feeling pretty intimidated by this. Martha Hucker is a brilliant website featuring the world’s best downhill and freeriding chicks. So when Martha asked a load of us to get together to model her new t-shirts I couldn’t say no. So I headed up to the Nunn to get my confidence up and to tackle the corner that’s been my nemesis once and for all. It was a perfect day for riding, the track was dry, but not dusty, the sun was shining brightly and the Nunn was sheltered enough to protect from the howling wind. I wanted to get used to riding with my seat waaaaay down. I’d discovered that dropping my seat right down felt really weird and threw me slightly off balance. I found the whole not being able to sit down thing a pain, too much cross-country seat up the jacksy!

Three clean, fast and fun runs of the Nunn and I was over the moon. I nailed the rocky corner that I hate every time. Sometimes it’s all about confidence, the confidence to go a little bit faster and trust to bike, and on the Nunn this is really the case. I was so stoked and was feeling a bit happier about the photoshoot on Saturday.

Saturday was perfect. Hot, still and sunny. Michelle picked me up and then we grabbed and Anna and we headed up to Brake-free. Yep, the place where I broke my arm. This would be my first attempt at really jumping again and it would be fair to say I was pretty nervous. Especially about riding with people who really knew what they were doing. My first run and I just rolled everything, but pumped through all the berms. The bike felt good and my next run I started getting a weee bit of air. Each run was better and better and while I wasn’t getting big air I wasn’t casing everything and didn’t feel like I was making a fool of myself. We even attracted quite an audience. After all, it’s not every day you see 6 chicks in matching t-shirts hitting jumps with a photographer. Very funny.

After Brake-free we headed down Sesame St. With the seat down I found I was able to go much, much faster through the corners and then I hit the wall ride. I was right outside my comfort zone and kind of mucked it up, but my bike did its job and I was fine. I hit it again, slightly better, but still messy and then the fear grabbed me and I decided that I wouldn’t push my luck any further with the wall. With so many people watching, we’d got more audience at the wall, I just wasn’t keen on hurting myself.

We continue down and hit the big jump at the bottom called B-Line. I’ve never tried to hit anything as big as that and I was pretty rubbish at it. Need more brave! I gave it a couple of goes, but just wasn’t feeling confident so let everyone else show me how it was really done. Then more photo-posing silliness and it was over. We pushed back up to the top and headed to pub. Wedges and beer all round and we were very happy girls. Back to my place for coffees and utter silliness. V-10 tries to eat road bike, brilliant fun.

I’ll post up some photo’s of the day once we get them from the photographer.

Today was a spin to Rapaki, up it and then across the Traverse and for the first time ever I cleaned the whole thing without taking the nana lines. Yes!!! Then a run of Brake-free and down Sesame St. Both felt not-so-good on the cross country bike and then I my lovely husband showed me how to hit B-line. As amazing as it is riding with the girls, and it is amazingly fun and the best way to learn, riding with my husband is the best. Doing the thing I love most with the man I love most. Win!!

Thwarted!

After the best forgotten tragedy of last Wednesday’s night race I was determined this week to improve. I developed a plan so cunning, and for bonus points, enjoyable, that my feeble legs and lungs were sure to benefit from it. As I type this and look out the window at the southerly rain lashing the trees and glance at the Metservice website to see that the temperature with wind chill is a toasty -1°C it’s hard to remember that only 6 days ago it was sunny and a toasty 21°C. Luckily this beautiful weather was not squandered and I hit the hills with scatter for a bit of hill climbing practice.

I chose the divine and newly renovated Flying Nun trail as my exercise ground. The ride up the 4wd track, down the swoopy flowing Nun and back round the road is a nice 3km loop with just over 100m of climbing. Perfect. I will admit I was nervous on my first run, really nervous. This track is fast and flowing, with some brilliant rocky technical sections, jumps, bermed corners and wooden structures. I’ve ridden it before, but this would be a challenge for my confidence. I was shaking like a leaf the whole way down, but also grinning like a small child who’s had way too much raspberry jungle juice. It was fantastic. I walked a big section, but the rest was sweet and confidence building. Best of all my elbow was no issue at all.

I really concentrated on my pedalling back up the road and then up the hill. I pushed it, this was training for the race on Wednesday after all. It hurt, but it hurt good, which was puzzling as I hate climbing. The 2nd run down was even better. Nerves gone, flowing down the hill and hitting all the bits I’d walked the first time with the exception of 1 rock bridge and rocky corner exit that were messing with my mind. Fantastic. Back up the road, maintaining good speed and gasping at the top. Then down again. Oh yes, so good, faster, faster, oops a bit too fast, easy tiger. I nearly stacked into the bank after coming flying out of a corner a bit faster than I should have. Sussed out lines on the 2 sections that were messing with me, thanks to scatter, but decided I was being a bit muppety to ride them then and there. They’ll be there next time and I know exactly what to do now. Then back up the road a final time. Still had good constant speed, but my legs were really feeling it and by the time I got back to the car I knew that they were done. Even so I was still tempted for one more run down again, how could you not be, its sooo good, but common-sense prevailed and I headed home.

The next day I had even more leg hammering planned with a ride round the race track on my singlespeed. I was surprised that my legs were feeling pretty good after the hill climbing of the previous day. It was sunny and I was spinning madly. It was a brilliant ride with great company, but by the end my legs were toast, just as I planned.

With these fantastic rides under my belt I was looking forward to this week’s race. I was determined to conquer Tip Hill and finish strongly. Nothing was going to stop me. Except an email from the race organisers cancelling the race because of the appalling weather. Bugger. So instead of a night blasting around the forest in the cold I had a night on the couch under a blanket with the fire blazing. I guess tonight I’d better get that horrible bloody trainer out and give my legs the workout they didn’t get last night. Sigh.

PS. Issue 32 of Spoke Magazine is in the shops now, go get it, and read my first ever published article, on Christchurch’s Singlespeed club.

A stock-take for Easter

For many many years Easter has been a bit of a non-event for me in the traditional scoffing of stupid amounts of chocolate bunnies and eggs way. This is because of an initial traumatic Easter experience when I was about 6 and then a conclusively horrific Cadbury’s factory incident in 5th Form (when I was 15 for those of you who don’t understand old school). This Incident involved a bus load of 15 year olds let loose in the reject egg room and told we could eat as much as we liked, but couldn’t take any chocolate out of the room with us. Add to this a 3 hour bus ride on very windy roads and I think you can guess the result. This one Incident scarred my tastebuds and stomach so comprehensively that to this very day I can’t eat Cadbury’s chocolate. In fact until last year I didn’t eat chocolate very often at all. Say once or twice a year! “My god, that’s unnatural!” I hear you say. Well maybe. But since marrying my beloved husband that has changed. He is a lolly monster and is capable of ingesting amounts of sweets and chocolates that would make mere mortals vomit. Copiously. Because of this there are often chocolates in the house. Early on in the relationship this was fine. I didn’t like chocolate after all. And then came the fateful day when the block of Whittakers Dark Chococlate with Orange came into the house. It even smelt good. It all came crumbling down. Over fifteen years of freedom from the tyranny of chocolate undone by that delicious dark goodness. Still I tried to tell myself that I still didn’t like chocolate, but there is no going back. So this Easter has been the first in many years when I have enjoyed the ample supply of chocolate eggs and bunnies that I’ve been missing out on. With this high calorie chocolate diet I decided it was important to do some biking and to really try and work out where I’m at now, both confidence and fitness wise.

My first goal, a hill climb. I haven’t been on a hill since I broke my elbow so I was feeling quite apprehensive. I decided on Rapaki as I knew it was freshly graded and should be a nice smooth start for someone as unfit as me. My goal was to get to the top, and hopefully only stop once or twice. Admittedly we cheated a bit by parking halfway up Rapaki Rd. Still I dropped into my granny ring and spun up and things felt pretty good. OK. This will be doable. I was a little concerned about the burning in my thighs by the first cattlestop, but decided that was just my lazy legs trying to get out of it. The 4wd track was S-M-O-O-T-H, no bumps whatsoever. This did mean there was a new hazard to be avoided. In addition to the usual runners and walkers there were now a large number of tiny dogs. Riding near tiny dogs is always slightly worrying as you never know what they’re going to do, and when you’re crawling up a hill at 4.5kph there’s not much you can do to avoid falling off if they take it into their crazy little heads to run under your wheels. Fortunately there were no small dog acting crazy situations and I spun up to where the climb plateaus out feeling really surprisingly good.

In fact I was feeling so good I re-evaluated of my goals for the ride. Now I wanted to get to the top without stopping and get there in under 45 minutes. My fastest recorded time up there last year was 32min 35sec so that seemed a realistic goal. Also the first few times I’d gone up there it took over 50 mins so it would be good to be better than that. Down the wee descent before the big final climb and I headed to the only rough bits on the track just to see how the bike felt with a bit of speed over the rough stuff. It felt pretty good. A bit weird, but good. Then I was into the last bit of the climb. Bleurgh. I wasn’t really up to chatting with my ever patient husband who had cruised up with me to this point so I told him to go for it and I’d spin up as best I could. And I was very pleasantly surprised with how well it went. In fact with the end in sight I decided I wanted to get to the top in under 42 mins and put a burst of speed on! I made it to the top in 42mins and 4secs (but that included some time on the road) and was stoked. I was definitely puffed, but I felt really good and for a first ride up a hill it couldn’t have gone better. Then came the descent. Oh yes, it was good. I was even popping little hucks of the few rocks in the track. It felt so good to go fast again. I felt balanced on the bike and completely in control. It made me want to head back to Vic Park and play on Sesame St, but common sense will prevail and I will wait till I’m stronger.

Easter goal number one – hill climb. Check

My other goal was endurance. I’m definitely doing the recreational race at Mt Somer’s next weekend. Its 20kms long and the furthest I’ve managed to ride so far is 16km on the road and 13km on the dirt. I wanted to make sure I could actually still ride 20km. So hubby and I headed to the sandpit for 2 laps. Last time I was there I couldn’t even do a full lap of the inner loop so doing over twice that was going to be a challenge. Hubby set off on his singlespeed with the agreement that he’d ride with me when he lapped me. I tried to start more conservatively than my usual all or nothing starts that leave me gasping after one small section. I sort of managed it. I’m definitely getting the hang of my new arm position and felt more balanced on the bike and was able to push the bike through the corners more. Also I did a few more jumps and they all went well.

I feel an aside is important here, just to reassure those of you who are currently reading this and thinking I’m insane to be doing any sort of jump after Christmas. Well, the “jumps” in Bottlelake are very very small, the kind of thing you’d be happy let your small child play on. The ones I broke my elbow on were proper, bigger jumps that required some skill (which I obviously didn’t have) to do well. I will not be trying to do that sort of jumping in the near future, please be reassured.

Where was I? Oh yes, little jumps. The little jumps actually felt better than they had before my crash. I felt really balanced and loose on the bike and seemed to hit them perfectly. This did my confidence the world of good. By the end of the first lap, yes I managed to do a whole lap, I was hurting, particularly in the legs. I decided that I might have to do a reduced length second lap, but I’d see when hubby caught up (which should be soon) before deciding. I was using my gears a lot more in the second lap, but I kept going and even managed to get up the nasty nasty pinch in the middle (just) and just kept going. No short lap for me. I came here to do 2 laps and I would do 2 laps. By the end my legs felt completely spent, but I did it. 26kms and my hubby didn’t lap me. He did manage to do 3 laps in only a little more time than it took me to do 2, but hey, I’ve got a broken arm. Despite feeling physically ill I was stoked to have ridden more than double the distance I managed last time and now feel quite happy that I can at least complete the race next weekend before the prize giving starts.

Easter goal number two – endurance. Check

All in all, a very satisfying regaining of much confidence. Now I’ve just got to get my outfit for the race sewed up and it’ll be all go for next Sunday. I can’t wait.

The Longing

My dear readers (all 3 of you), I am feeling dispirited. I have been to the hospital this morning to see how my bones are healing and while they are healing extremely well it will be 6 MORE WEEKS before I can ride a bike outside. This is terrible news.
Riding on a wind trainer when it is hot is awful and to be honest I really can’t be bothered with it. I get little or no enjoyment from it, more a grim sense of satisfaction that I’ve done my duty. I miss the pleasure of being out in the countryside, up on the hills, in the fresh air and sunshine. I miss hanging out with my mates talking for hours about how great our bikes are, what a great ride that was, I can’t believe I finally nailed that section. I miss shuttling, flowing down the hill, being really scared and excited, pushing my boundaries. I miss cleaning my bike after a long dusty ride. I miss whizzing through trees and doing little hucks. I miss riding with my lovely husband and pushing hard to keep up. I miss the solitude that isn’t lonely cause you’re with your bike and that’s all you need. I miss adrenaline and endorphins. I miss being muddy and dusty and sweaty. I miss the speed.
I miss the intangibles as well. I long to be on my bikes, I feel like I’m missing out. Like I’m that kid that doesn’t get picked to play and watches from the sidelines while everyone else is laughing and having fun. Every day its sunny I know people are out riding their bikes and I’m not. I’ve endured a winter of riding on the road, in the rain, against the wind, in the dark. This summer was meant to be my reward.
I’ve been trying to get my head around 6 more weeks of feeling like this and I just can’t. It Is Not Possible To NOT Ride For Six More Weeks. Unfortunately I don’t know what to do to overcome this. More Calcium tablets (I have been a bit slack in taking them)? More Panadol and more exercises? More wind trainer rides (I don’t know if I can). Right now I’d just like cake, lots and lots of cake. Fortunately I don’t have any cake (or cake like treats) available and I can’t bake to save my life so at least I shouldn’t end up the size of a whale. Well at least not a Blue Whale. Maybe a Minke Whale, or a Narwhal. That’d be cool, kind of like the unicorn of the sea….
Oops I digress. I’ve just checked my calendar and if the doc’s say I can ride on the 23rd of March I’ve still got a good 3 weeks to train for the Mt Somers race. For that to be a realistic goal I really need to get motivated about my bloody trainer again. So how do I do this? I’ve tried TV and I’ve tried training DVD’s. I’ve got a fan set up, but when it’s above 30 it doesn’t seem to help. Gah!
Anyway, thank you all for indulging my self-piteous whine (oh, my favourite shoe shop has also closed so that’s made me really grumpy also). I promise that it will be the last one for a while. I’m off to look at the biscuits in the tearoom.

Broken

Saturday the 27th of December and Pete and I decided it was time to go for a big ride from Vic Park to Godley Head and back, taking in lots of lovely Port Hills single track. This was not to be. The ride started innocuously enough with sandwiches at Break Free and a wee play. Then the ride ended. I’m not going to go into detail about the silly thing I did. Let’s just say it involved too much speed. A massive endo, and a right arm flung out to protect my face. And protect it it did. However when I looked down at my arm my elbow was on the wrong side of my arm! NOT GOOD AT ALL! We rang 111 but decided it was going to take too long so hung up on them and decided to walk up to the car. A lovely couple helped us with the bikes while I staggered up the hill, protectively clutching my arm to my body. I was surprised at the lack of pain, my brief glimpse had told me things were bad and I was feeling pretty scared off the pain I was sure I’d be in. Good old fashioned adrenalin got me up the hill to the car and I managed to bludge a couple of uber panadol from some very nice French tourists who looked like they were going to be sick when I showed them my elbow. I downed 1 and then I was in the car on the way to the emergency room. Very much hoping for a quiet day at the hospital. Pete did an absolutely amazing job driving me down the hill, the perfect mix of speed and smoothness. We got to the hospital and found a park in 10 agonising minutes. From there everything happened quickly and I was filled up with pain relief and sent for x-rays. At this point I didn’t think I’d broken anything and had just dislocated my elbow (which thankfully had gone back into place by itself). I was wrong. Readers with a delicate disposition, skip this next paragraph, just know it was a messy complicated break.
What had actually happened as I flung my arm out to protect my face was I had taken the full impact of my weight and speed on my right arm only. My ulna slammed into the base of my hummerus, splintering a large wedge out of it and chipping a disc about the size of an old 50c piece completely off the base. The result of this was my ulna dislocating out of the elbow joint giving the impression my elbow was on the wrong side. Bleurgh!!!


I didn’t know all this at the time and was quite disconcerted when the talk of surgery came up when my cast was being put on. As an aside, NOS is fantastic, so much fun!!! Finally the very nice Dr (whose name I can’t remember) told me what was going on and that I’d need some screws and a plate to reattached the bits that had broken off. Not good news. Unfortunately my surgery couldn’t be done till Monday because of a bad motorcycle accidents taking up the hospital’s capacity.


With cast on and plenty of good drugs in my system I was sent up stairs. There were a number of nice old ladies with broken legs in my room, but I wasn’t very good at making conversation and slept. The next day the Dr came to see me and I went for a CT scan, which was really cool. The good news came later that the break wasn’t quite as bad as the docs thought it might be, and surgery was booked for the next day. I was second on the list for surgery on the 29th and feeling very hungry by 2pm when they wheeled me into the operating theatre. The operation took 3hours and was a bit more difficult than they anticipated, was very successful. I now have some lovely screws and a metal plate holding all the bits together. It turns out that the bit that was broken completely off had the main ligament that holds the elbow together attached to it so I was really lucky not to break that ligament. They kept me unconscious for an extra hour as there were some difficulties getting my pain under control and it wasn’t until 8pm when I was back on the ward.
I actually had the best night’s sleep of all my nights in the hospital that night, even though they had to take my blood pressure ever 2 hours. The pcm machine was all good and I was in a pretty comfortable morphine cloud of happiness. That all came to an end the next morning when my useless vein closed down and I had to get a new lure put in. That afternoon they took my cast off and put my new robo-arm on which initially felt pretty good. Unfortunately as the day worn on it slipped down and when the nurse adjusted it it was pushing on my suture and twisting my arm. After the pain got really bad I got the nurse to adjust it and unfortunately the only thing she could do was loosen it off. This meant my arm was unsupported all night and I was in agony. I survived the night and the man from the orthotics came and adjusted my brace and bent the metal into the right shape. I was determined not to spend another night in hospital after this. I didn’t want to wake up in 2009 in that bloody hospital bed. I was assured I could go home once the doc checked me out, but he wasn’t going to be available until 5pm. Pete scored a wheelchair and whisked me down to the river. It was great lying there for an hour and even better getting to see Michelle. Finally at 8pm they let me out and last night I slept the whole night through without waking up once.
So I have a bit of a task ahead me. I’ll be in this lovely braced for at least 4 weeks and off the bikes for at least 12. That means the whole summer gone and no races till winter. SHIT. I’ve already started to plan how to keep my fitness and my sanity. There will have to be lots of walking, gyming and stationary biking I think. I’m looking at this as a big challenge. I’m back to the doc on the 12th of January so it will be interesting to find out what the prognosis is then. Any great ideas for training off the bikes that doesn’t involve my right arm would be gratefully accepted.

Skillz – Shuttles Rock

Shuttles up Vic Park again last night with scatter. (I really should get a photo of me in my fullface and pads for here). I haven’t been on the bike since the Hammerhead, but it has a new derailleur hanger since my crashes at the weekend and I put its big fat tyres on. We managed to make the 4:40pm shuttle this time and headed down Brake-Free, Seasame St, Dazzas, Brents, Bridges and out. As scatter is faster than me I picked my own lines through Brents and ended up riding the 3 drops (no worries) in the top half at low speed. Yay. On Bridges however I took the wrong line and ended up at the top looking down a wall of death. After a brief wave to scatter in the distance I daintily walked down, which was bloody difficult. We missed out on getting on the next shuttle but scored a ride with some nice boys back to the top. This time no mucking about, straight down Seasame St (not the best lines from me this time), Dazzas (nice flow), Brents (nana lines all the way), Bridges (ahhhh, you turn right there) and then I rode Double Drop for the first time (couldn’t be bothered getting off and pushing my bike down). WOW! That was scary but soooooooooooo fun. Blast down the 4wd track doing hucks and catch the next shuttle.
Back up the top and nice to get into the fresh air (it was a bit stinky in the bus on this run) and we decided to session Brake Free and practise our jumping skills. Wee, fun, but really tiring. Scatter showed me how to do the first double and I got it. Yeah!!! I also managed to hit a couple of the big tabletop jumps perfectly. Yes, yes, yes. It was actually bloody hard work just doing laps of this small track but I really felt like I was making huge progress, thanks scatter.
Then it was time to head down. I nailed Seasame St this time and managed to keep up with scatter most of the way down, a first. Then Dazzas (fast, fast, fast) and into Brents (nana lines again, silly I’m definitely riding the top drops next time) and Bridges. I knew the lines this time and then Double Drop, where I nearly had a whoopsie, but my new found skills saved me.
It was definitely the best ride I’ve had, which is saying something because I’ve been loving being on the bike at the moment. I feel like my skills, well my downhill skillz, are better than they’ve ever been and I just need to work on my fitness to get my up and across skills up there as well. I would highly recommend shuttling to anyone who wants to get a bit more confidence into their descending. Riding the same bits of track over and over in a short space of time without the oxygen debt of climbing really gives you a great sense of how the bike moves, what lines to hit and how fast (or much faster) you can go.

I guess its back to the hills for me. I should also try and find the motivation to do more roadie work, but my bouncy bike is just so much more fun. I think shuttling will definitely have to be a semi-regular thing though, its just so good.

Dangerously Addictive

When I first started mountain biking I honestly thought I would never ever want to ride Downhill, down hills was fine, but Downhill is insane. Recently I’ve been rethinking that a wee bit and after going and watching a DH race on Sunday I thought I’d like to at least try and ride the tracks they were using in the race. My how things change.
Three of us headed to Vic Park after work yesterday to suss out some easy and slightly more difficult tracks for a prospective women’s only event next year. Southstar are running a shuttle service in Vic Park now so that made organising our little expedition much easier. Michelle and Liv were both keen and both much, much more experienced than me (Michelle used to race downhill and Liv still does at elite level), so I knew I was in good hands.
Oh. My. God. It was sooooo much fun. We started off on the new track Seasame Street. It is so sweet, beautiful bermed corners, crazy gap jumps and step downs for the talented on big bikes, nana lines for the less brave, wee jumps and big jumps and just a whole lot of fast fun. Then onto Dazzas, again lovely berms, but with some roots and rocks and interesting lines. From there we did Brents which was a bit trickier, more drop offs, big roots and gnarly corners, but I managed to ride most of it and then on down the 4wd track grinning and doing wee hucks over the speed bumps. We just missed the next shuttle pick up so there was some sitting round, talking bikes and shite and generally chilling. Next run started in Brake Free, lots of table tops for practising jumping and berms, then Seasame Street again (how could we not), Dazzas again, then a line I think is called Ponos (please correct me if I’m wrong) that was pretty rocky with some exciting blind corners that I walked and some steep sections, then a bit I don’t know the name of, but I’ve ridden it a few times through some rooty stuff and then back down the 4wd track.
I think we’re getting a fairly good idea of some tracks to put together, but we’ve decided that Wednesday night shuttles should be a regular occurrence so we’ll have another run next week and get a better idea. I might also go for a walk through the park with my camera at the weekend and take some pics of the various tracks.
The 2 runs were so much fun and I rode things I never thought I would, let alone find them to be relatively easy. I can’t wait to go back and do some more, but I think I need to sort myself out with some googles because the dust was horrid. Some proper downhill shorts would also be good so I might have to pay a wee visit to Grind as they have a great range of women’s clothes.

Skillz Practise

A bit of a change of pace today. Last night I went for a short ride up the Crocodile. Managed to get halfway up before I was lying on the side of the track panting and dying. Turns out I was a bit tired. My climbing up the tight turns was pretty good, my descent down the nasty rutty steep section was great and my return down the switchbacks was really good too, thanks Vegas. I have to say though, after the wide flowing trails of Rotorua, man, the track seemed narrow. I played the whole way home, jumping off gutters and practising pumping. Once home I decided to try doing wheelies on the back lawn. That didn’t go very well. And because of that my lovely husband and I headed over to Bottlelake to play in the skills area for a while today.
Things started off well with me riding the whole length of the easiest low skinny and heading up the see-saw for the first time. Things quickly went wrong from there. This see-saw took longer to tip than I expected and I didn’t have enough speed and did a fairly ungraceful dismount from my bike and the see-saw, unfortunately whacking my knee on the way down and getting myself a nice lump and bruise. This didn’t deter me and on my second attempt I was successful and got all the way across the see-saw. When my next attempt again ended with me jumping off the bike I decided it was time to start learning how to do wheelies. Pete was fantastic at showing me what to do, extremely patient and didn’t laugh too much at my pathetic attempts. After many many many goes I was getting my front wheel 5 or 6 inches off the ground regularly, I know, I’ll never be a styling trick rider at this rate. After that we moved onto skids. Weeeeee. That was fun. Soon I had my back wheel sliding back and forward across the “grass” and I was getting the hang of doing a big skid to come to a halt with my foot down. Nice.

A bit more playing on the skinnies and then Pete went off to practise jumping. He got pretty good at the table top by the end. I gave it a couple of goes, but on the hardtail it wasn’t really much fun. Instead I went for a very quick blast in the forest. I focussed on keeping my upper body low over the handlebars and I flew round. I also did a couple of very good hucks in the middle of the forest. It was fun. Back at the skills area I videoed Pete doing some more jumps and did a bit more skinnies riding, including the high one that Pete doesn’t like me riding, and we headed home before the weather turned nasty. It was a really fun wee ride and just what I needed after a lot of roadie riding during the week. I’ll be heading off on a long roadie ride tomorrow morning, my last big ride before the Molesworth Muster. I’m really looking forward to it and I’m looking forward to having a wee break from riding after it (only a couple of days).