North Island Downhill Cup Round 3 (Leivn 24&25/01/09

Practice day didn't go so well, I only got 3 runs max in on my bike. The chain kept falling off and then got jammed in my rear wheel locking it up. I ended up having to get a new chain, front chain ring and rear cassette and did a couple of runs on a 09 Demo a bike mechanic had there.

Race day wasn't any better. Instead of the chain falling off the outside, the chain fell off between the chain ring and bash guard and got stuck so I ended up doing my seeding on the Demo, and I was all over the place. My feet kept coming off. Race run I did on my bike and ended up crashing twice and nearly losing it a couple of times. I wasn't used to riding with Tripples, so I couldn't turn as sharply as I was used to, so I crashed a couple of times because of that. I had just put my rear shock back on when I realised that the shock I had borrowed didn't hold the air.

My seeding run was way better than my race run (seeding about 20 secs faster then race) but oh well. I ended up coming 6th but I should have finished at least 5th. Another weekend of learning more lessons!

North Island Downhill Cup Round 2 (Rotorua 16&17/01/09

Practice day was good, I hadn't ridden much during the week as stuff on bike kept breaking and then I strained a muscle in my chest on Monday. (The only reason I could do practice and stuff was because Ed from Planet Bikes lent me a rear shock after I broke mine earlier in the week. A big thank you to Ed and Planet Bikes!) About a week ago I had built up the nerve to do the end jump which I was glad to do. Practice was going all good until what would have been my 2nd to last run of the day ended up being last run because I crashed. I crashed on the end jump, as I was coming into it faster than I normally do, so thought I would try and clear it to the transition (bloody great idea that was), ended up coming off it wrong and went straight for a tree at full speed and bent the steerer tube on my new forks (not even a month old).


James Lewis from Sram lent me a bike for me to race on. It was a brand new bike and I got to have first ride on it. Not sure if it was his own or the company's. Just hope I didn't damage it too bad, or break anything on it. (It had a gear box thingy for the front 2 gears which stopped working after I had a small crash on it, and the rear shock pivot stuff came lose before my race run, only noticed it at the top when I was making sure I was in the right gear.)


So in the end I came 7th think, and I was happy with that, mainly because I still did the end jump and was on an unfamiliar bike. A big thank you to James Lewis and Sram!

North Island Downhill Cup Round 1 (Rotorua 3&4/01/09)

Practice day was good fun, I quite liked the top half of the track, which went down team line and off the Dog Drop. I like the Dog as it was easy to do, and you could easily roll off it. The rest of the track after the road kept changing, as the weather kept raining and then stopping, so the track became slow, then ruts would appear where they weren't before which made you stay alert.

During practice I got the guts up to do one of drops when I was looking at stuff with the rest of the girls.


Come race day, there were some large ruts and braking bumps coming into the drops/jumps and technical bits, the couch drop/jump chute especially.