Skyline Gondola Queenstown – 5,000 metres of descent

It is raining outside, which is good for Central Otago because they really need it and good for me because I’m knackered. I’ve been making the most of my time down here and on Wednesday hit the BMX track. That thing is loooooong. But fun. And very good for the skills as I found out yesterday when I drove through to Queenstown to hit up the Gondola on Bob’s Peak which now takes mountain bikes.

Arriving at about 10:30 (the gondola opens to bikes at 10) I soon had my purple half day wrist band ($45) and was in line for the gondola with a lot of downhill bikes. My little anthem suddenly looked even smaller and I felt a little apprehensive about what I was letting myself in for. At the top I had a quick chat with the guy at the bike workshop (you can hire bikes from the top or bottom) and was on my way. First stop Hammy’s, the longest and easiest trail on the hill. I took it easy and tried to tune into my bike and by the halfway mark realised I was being an idiot with my seat still all the way up. After dropping it 5cm the second half flowed much better and I was looking forward to my second run of the track. Hammy’s has plenty of little jumps and rollers for pumping. The BMXing really paid off!

After a few more Hammy’s, with a bit of riding on the structures beside the track, I decided it was time to move onto Vertigo, a blue grade 3 track. This was brilliant. Because it’s a bit harder and perhaps because of the steep entry it doesn’t seem to get the traffic of Hammy’s and was in excellent condition. While Hammy’s has plenty of big bermed corners, a lot of them are loose and badly rutted as riders brake hard and they see a lot of traffic. On Vertigo most of the corners are smooth and super-fast and there are plenty of roots and little step down to challenge. There are some bigger jumps too, but all are rollable if you’re willing to drop your speed. I really need to work on my jumps as I managed a couple of exciting nose wheelies just before the descent to the halfway mark.

Hairpin turn on Hammys one side...

... gorgeous view on the other

From the halfway mark I dropped into Original, which has plenty of steep sections, rooty blown out bits and in the later sections big wheel eating braking bumps and loose ruts. Plenty of challenges for someone on a steep angled cross country bike and halfway down it my brakes were singing the “I’m freaking hot” song.

As usual the camera doesn't do justice to the steepness

Each run down the hill I got more confident and learn a bit more about carrying speed and hitting the right lines. I was even starting to get a bit of air in places, on purpose too. Riding up in the gondola was the perfect opportunity to eat, drink and stretch the fingers. And on a number of occasions, chat to fellow riders. On my final ride up the hill I was sharing the gondola with a local chick on a downhill bike. I’d been wanting to ride Singletrack Sandwich, but as it is a black diamond grade 5 trail I was a little apprehensive about heading down it on the Anthem. She told me it was just steel and narrow, with one rollable drop and I decided to give it a go.

Down Hammies to the halfway mark and then a wee rest to prepare myself. Entering Singletrack Sandwich you are slightly lulled into a false sense of security as it starts off level, twisting over roots, through trees. Then it drops. A lot. The first corner was really steep and badly rutted down the middle. I stopped to examine it before I rode it, found a line I liked and rode it no problem. The next corner was even steeper and super loose and powdery. It looked ok, but I soon discovered the my bike didn’t want to turn so I bailed gracefully and walked round it. I was glad I did because the drop was at the bottom of this corner and I don’t think my seat was down low enough to safely roll it. So I walked that too. Next time.

My little baby hanging out with the big kids

The rest of the track was fairly straight forward in comparison to those two corners. Lots of roots, ruts and narrow bits, but really fun and in no time I was back on Original and then whooshing onto Hammy’s for the last time.

Oh so good!

11 runs down the hill done and I had time for one more, but I was feeling pretty exhausted so I decided to call it a day while I was intact and headed into town for a gelato at Patagonia Chocolates.  Just as I was finishing my well-earned treat the rain came down so I timed that perfectly. On the drive home I realised I was still very hungry despite the huge ice cream as I couldn’t stop fantasising about Jimmy’s pies. A quick stop in Cromwell remedied that and soon I was back at Mum’s and lying on the couch exhausted.

I cannot wait to head back to Queenstown and do that again, but till then I think I need to get stronger hands and fitter legs and arms.  Riding down the equivalent of 1.5 Mt Cooks really takes it out of you.

Break’s over! To the hills!

Last week I rested and recovered from my 2 races at the weekend. To say I was feeling a bit spent on Monday morning would be to massively understate how terrible I felt. My whole body hurt, particularly my legs and my back. Luckily I had yoga that evening and that helped greatly, as did liberal application of Anit-flamme. Tuesday and Wednesday I just chilled and Thursday I had yoga again. After another fantastic and challenging class I was ready to get back on the bike and what better way to ease into it than to practise the short course track with Michelle. *

* Better ways could have included laps of McLeans or Bottlelake on the singlespeed, a leisurely ride up Rapaki and across the traverse, sifting Flying Nunn repeats or even shuttlez.

It was a tad blusterous on Kennedy’s Bush and up on Siberia it was freezing and howling. I decided to go full on for 20 minutes and see if I could break the 5 lap mark. The wind quickly put pay to this plan as I was struggling to pedal down the steepest sections. After 18 and a half minutes I’d managed 4 laps and my throat and chest was agony. It didn’t bode well for Sunday, but I try to ignore boding where ever possible.

Friday was much better fun. Lovely hubby and I put some new, wider Kore bars on my bouncey bike, at the suggestion of the fabulous local supplier. He was right! We also tweeked the suspension which was set up waaaaay too hard and moved the brake levers and shifters around, all of which resulted in a much more stable and fun bike to ride down a hill. Which is what I did and met up with the girls for some shuttles. Frist run down Vic Park and my brakes and shifters weren’t in the right place so I adjusted them for the second run. The second run we went up to the Nun, where I hammered my legs by forgetting to put my seat up for the climb. The Nun was flowing sweet and we had a great ride down to the Kiwi. I love my new bars. The down Vic park and grins all round. Amongst our party was a lovely Vorbette from the tree covered north and it was fun showing her our trails, which are somewhat more exposed, rocky and full of wonderful corners than she was used to. However this didn’t stop her riding fast and well, it is so great showing the trails you love off to others.

Saturday I spent the day watching horsies race round and drunk slappers stumble over. I enjoyed the horsies a lot, and got my yell on regularly to try and urge my horse into the money. Unfortunately my horse choosing skills leave a lot to be desired and it was not a financially successful day. It was fun dressing up though.

Sunday was short course again. After Thursday’s efforts I wasn’t feeling optimistic and was also worried about running into children on the course. Because of this I was determined to get a good start so I could have a clear run down the singletrack on my first lap. This part was achieved and I steamed into the singletrack in first and blasted down, with my usual insane grin fixed firmly to my face. I needn’t have worried about being held up by children too much, I’d gone out far too hard and was destroying myself wheezing up the first climb and everyone streamed past me. I was held up a bit on the singletrack, but not much and then Megan zoomed past me on the hill climb like I was standing still. That woman has mad-core skillz to come down and race at great speed on a track she’s never been near in her life. I’d catch up with her on the singletrack and then she’d pull away again on the climb. In the forth lap I got badly held up by a number of elite riders who were pre-riding the track, but managed to get past eventually and also past Megan in the chaos. I felt stink about passing her like that and was pretty happy when she went back past me up the climb. I didn’t hear anyone telling me how long there was to go at the top so I figured I must still have loads of time for another lap and headed out. I pushed hard down the singletrack and headed up the climb thinking “Thank god I don’t have to go out for a 5th lap”. I was so knackered that I had no idea how many laps I’d done and when I heard the hooter sound I thought it was the 3 minutes to go signal. After I’d collapsed at the end my husband informed me I was really close to getting my last lap in and I was horrified I’d only managed to do 3 laps, talk about pushed past the point of comprehension! As it was, I got 4 laps again and was 30 seconds off getting that magic 5th lap. Next week is my last chance so I’ll have to be more strategic about my start and not destroy myself in the first minute of the race.

Looming large on my calendar is the Moa Hunt, only 11 sleeps away. I don’t usually count down to races in sleeps, but the Moa is the day before the Pearl Jam concert and that is ONLY 12 SLEEPS AWAY! The excitement I feel about this concert cannot be contained within a mere blog so I’m not going to attempt to quantify it. Back to the Moa. Being so close and being made primarily of enormous climbs I’m heading for the hills to sharpen my legs up for the task of breaking the 4 hour mark on the Moa. Admittedly that’s only 3 minutes faster than last year so shouldn’t be too much of a big ask. Hopefully I’ll do it in 3hrs 30, but I’m not overly confident about that goal, I’ll just have to see what the day has in store for me.

I’ve started out this week with a new commute via Kennedy’s Bush Rd and then down the Croc. This gives my legs a really good work out hammering up the road and puts a big grin on my face with its yummy switchback descent. I’m off to do Nun repeats tonight so that should give me more hill climbing kilometres in my legs. I have big plans for the weekend, but that’s another story. Stay tuned!

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.

Hi, my name is Oscar and I’ll be your grouch today

It’s 8am on Saturday morning and I’m still asleep. Mmmmmm sleep, how I love you at the moment, I wish I could have more of you all the time. The significance of me being asleep at 8am is the previous night I’d agreed that 9:30am would be a good time to go riding up Rapaki and had asked my lovely hubby to wake me at 8am to ensure I had plenty of time to wake up and get ready. Unfortunately he was unable to keep track of the time once he got up and the next thing I know I’m being abruptly awakened by my phone announcing it has a text for me. Sometimes I truly regret my Invader Zim ringtones.

Through bleary eyes and with fog filled headed I eventually regain control of my limbs enough to press the necessary buttons to read the text and discover, to my disgust, that it’s a beautiful sunny day and 9:30am is the kick off for the ride, as I foolishly proposed the night before. I hate it when I’m the author of my own downfall. I flop out of bed and into the kitchen to remind my lovely husband to wake me at 8am. He is surprised and amused at his oversight, I am not. I am grumpy. Breakfast is quickly eaten and biking clothes are gathered in front of the heater. The many layers are donned and the search for a clean and dry headband commenced, in vain it turns out. No clean headbands, and sun glasses are MIA. I am grumpy.

My lovely husband attaches my bike to my car as penance for not waking me up while I fill my camel back with clean water, gather helmet, gloves, and shoes and then pile into the car. The call of my warm bed is still strong but I start the car and head off. I feel ever so slightly sorry for my riding companions, but it passes quickly because I’m grumpy. The spin round the road from scatter’s house is ok, but I’m feeling a little light-headed and am pining for my sunglasses. Up the seal on Rapaki Rd I manage to go quite woosey (the medical term) and ride into the gutter and almost fall off. Hmmmmm I am grumpy and a muppet. Guess which one!

After some emergency shoe-stuck-in-pedal-repairs for one of our small group at the gate and some bike swapping we’re off. I have no power at all. I will be riding slooooow. The sun is out, but we are completely shaded in the valley, but we’re also sheltered from the wind. Up we go and I go slow. But I go. It’s weird. I get in a zone where my legs just go round and round and while my heart isn’t racing, I can’t really talk, that may have more to done with grumpiness than exertion, and I am determined to just keep pedalling till I get to the top. We pop out of the shade at the track temporarily levels off and BAM! the wind kicks in. Typical.

The grind up the final section is unpleasant with a mixture of gusty cross winds and nasty head winds. I’m slightly less grumpy as the wind gives me something to think about other than how feeble my legs feel. I’m also glad for my heavy bike and frame as I’m not so susceptible to buffeting by the evil wind. At the top the wind is howling and freezing and another layer is quickly added before we set off up the road. The road ride is yucky and by the start of the traverse I’m very grumpy. We go straight into the Traverse and I’m nervous. This is my first ride back here since my break and this is the track I’ve crashed on the most, usually through the rocky section. My nerves block out the grumpiness and I flow along the track and smile. It’s good to be back. I completely stuff up the rocky section and have to walk it, but I don’t care. Along I go and it gets better and better. The surface is dry almost everywhere, and I’m loving it. The second half is even better and I’m grinning through the new bermed corners towards the end and we are at Vic Park.

Dun dun DUN!!!!

My first visit to the scene of the accident and I feel a bit sick looking at where I crashed. I do not ride Brake Free, but we make our way to the start of Sesame St and as I drop off the cattlestop I ask aloud “What am I doing?” I’m really nervous and completely nana it along the track and through the sweet corners. I stop and admire the wall ride and I long to ride it, but not when I’m this nervous. I get to the bottom full of adrenaline and stoked. Down Dazzas and my bung arm sort of collapses and I almost endo, I am grumpy and berate myself but make it down in one piece and happy. The 4wd track is rutty and wet and the drainage ditches are not fun. We come past Double Drop and I stop and look back at it and cannot believe I ever rode down it. Insane. On down the 4wd track and I get some air over the speed humps and I’m loving it and I know I want to shuttle again. Nothing else makes me feel this good when I’m this grumpy.I’m bloody tired when the ride is over and I’m still grumpy, but overlaid on top of that grumpiness is a thick juicy layer of happy. I love riding my bike, I love pushing my limits, I even like scaring myself trying hard stuff and I love riding with mates. They all seemed to survive relatively unscathed from their encounter with Oscar.

Off Track – Plans are a Changing

Since the Hammerhead things haven’t really gone to plan, as evidenced by my lack of posting. My legs were completely trashed after that race, and mentally I was also completely spent. Although I managed to go singlespeeding and do some shuttles in the week after the race my head wasn’t in a training space and I ended up not riding at all at the weekend. I did however go watch some downhilling, very cool to see Rita race, and had a group of lovely cycling women over for a BBQ (including Emmeline Ragot, a really lovely French chick who’s currently the World Cup number 4 ranked woman in downhill!!!!). The BBQ was great fun and it was really great to have a group of women together from many different disciplines of this sport we all love, talking about riding. It will have to be repeated in the future.
The following week I had 3 days in Wellington for work and couldn’t get out riding as the meetings were all day affairs. I was able to be home for Wednesday so we headed up Kennedy’s, tackling the Croc first. Bollocks is all I can say. The Croc is quickly becoming my nemesis. I know I can ride it, I’ve done it a couple of times, but it seems like if I’m tired or stressed at all it quickly turns into a nightmare ride of hyperventilating and rubbish riding. I was not a happy camper when I eventually struggled to out at the top, but luckily that didn’t last. I actually made it much further up Kennedy’s than I expected after the nightmare of the Croc and while Pete and Michelle continued up to the top I blasted back down and did some little hill repeats of the little bit of down hill singletrack. Zoom up the 4wd drive as fast as I can, race down the singletrack, and repeat as necessary. I managed to get 3 hill climbs and 2 and a half descents in before Pete and Michelle appeared and I was grinning from ear to ear again. Which makes me think, if you are having a shite day on the bike, let all that crap out – have a wee tanty, then get back on the bike. It certainly made me feel better.
After that no more riding till the weekend and then there was very fun singlespeeding in the muddy wet forest. My legs were finally working again (phew) and my brain was fully back in the right place. Yay. Monday saw me back out on the roadie for the first time in months and months. It was a great wee 30km ride and I completely hammered the wee rollers on Cashmere Downs for the first time. Yes! Unfortunately there was a rather painful side effect that appeared as a result of this ride. My poor butt, and in particular my sit bones are not used to my roadie seat anymore and the next day I woke up with the mother of all saddle sores. So no riding on Tuesday and to make matters worse it actually kept me awake during the night. Bugger, I really wanted to ride on Wednesday, but no, it was not to be. Luckily by Wednesday evening it had settled down in time for Christmas, but no riding was done.
So this has lead to some tough decision making this morning. Obviously I very very much want to do the race in Bannockburn on the 30th, however it is a long long way to drive ($$$$) for an hour and a half (hopefully) on the bike. There are other complicating factors around New Years and friends visiting from Japan so Pete and I have decided to flag the race. This makes things a lot more simple, but I’m still feeling a bit gutted, I really like this race and was very much looking forward to the measure of progression it would have given me. Now I have to wait till April to do a race I’ve done before and see that progression. Bugger. On the plus side, there will be some riding of Hanmer, Craigieburn and possibly Wharfedale or Poulter Valley to make up for it. Yay.

Finally, belated Merry Christmas all. I got a lovely new camera which will let me take much better photos of biking for my blog. Here’s a few wee shots from my play session with it yesterday. Coffee anyone??

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.