AKDH Round 1 - Long Gully 26-27/09/09

The race was held down Jawbone, Saturday was pretty good. Decided not to bother with Simons line up the top and i just took the slower line around it. Resource Consent jumps wernt to bad in the wind, only nearly lost it once on the end jump which scared the shit outa me. Got a bit annoyed how people kept stopping in the middle of the track so you couldnt really do a full run. Second run down the hill I got up the guts to do the ladder drop into Daves line, was pretty easy just not the best landing i found, probably didn't help that i was brake checking coming into it and shitting myself. All day i kept trying to get the guts to do the end jump, but couldnt get the corner before it right and get comfortable.

Saturday was also the 2x/4x, so i did that just for fun. Got my arsed kicked by all the guys but was still fun, probly woulda stood more of a chance if i did it on my GT instead of my hardtail, but i felt like doing it on me hardtail.

Sunday, was still trying the end jump. Ended up talking to Ricky and hanging with him and watched him do the jump and followed him off it, which helped heaps. The way he was doing it was a lot easier to do for me then what i had orginally been trying to do. I had been trying to go fast off the drop and braking through the corner, but always ended up braking too much as i couldnt do the corner that fast and just lost too much speed and wasnt feeling comfortable. Rickys way was to go slow off the drop with just enough speed to clear the rocks and to hit the corner with little or no brakes which i found a lot easier as i could handle the corner at that pace. I also started getting a bit more comfortable off the ladder into Daves line

Both race runs went good, didnt havnt any offs and didnt really stuff anything up. 1st run i went second after vee and caught her just after daves line which wasnt too good for either of us as we both lost any speed we had when i passed her. other then that its was a good run. 2nd run they ran it so fastest went first, which is better then slowest first espically if there is a big speed differnece. 2nd run i didnt make any mistakes that i can remember except for my foot coming off on the end jump, not entiley sure why it came off but it did

Ended up first by quite a bit as kinda expected, it being my home track and every thing.

full results here:

http://www.vorb.org.nz/download/file.php?id=121698

and

http://www.vorb.org.nz/download/file.php?id=121703

Rotorua Spring Fling 20/09/09

No offical practice day like the mudbuster, except this time they had the track mostly marked by lunch time. Saturday was good, no crashes except for one mupet as crash. dont even know what happen just went over the bars while pedaling just after the rock garden. was pretty stupid really and embaressing. It also started raining, well not really raining, more a constant, lite drizzle. just enough to make the track a little greasy in some places

Sunday was good, lines used were: loose line, river, new line, rockgarden, bus stop round the couch drop, line round 24 carrot and pimpstump, end chute, old end jump. luckly it didnt rain over night, so the track was dry and not at all greasy. practice runs went good. tried a few different lines in a couple of different places - im still trying to get the hang of picking lines and stuff and remember to actually look for them. Never got up the guts up to do the two jumps that i wanted to which im a little annoyed at, but oh well. First run went good except for one stuff up, nearly lost it towards the end of the couch chute, got distracted by connor yelling something, managed to get it back under control though. Second run was alright, thought it might be about the same speed, maybe slightly faster. Stuffed up a few bits by braking too hard and too soon in a few bits, tried to make up for it by pedaling my arse off where i could. Second run was 0.01 seconds faster the my first. seeing that, im a bit pissed off my self for making such stupid mistakes.

Was a good weekend though, looking forward to the Long Gully race this coming weekend, its gonna be mean

full results here

http://rotorua.mtbclub.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/Spring%20Fling%2009.pdf