National Champs - Dunedin 24-27/02/11

Thursday was the hill climb and dual slalom events. I flew down friday morning, so was not there for either events obviously. Like Christchurch we got a 7am flight, so once again required getting up at 5am. Robert was going to Dunedin to race and we were looking after him. Our rental vechicle was a Hilux, which was perfect, managed to fit the 3 bikes plus the bags easily into it (bikes were my TR450, my Double, and Roberts Giant). It was now off to the track to register and do some practice runs.

Once at the track we put the bikes together and registraed while we waited for Scott to turn up as he had my mud tyres, and you needed your muds for that track as it had be raining during the week, and it was pretty slippery. It was especially slippery in the bottom half of the track where it was hard enough to stay up right and on line without muds. The track consisted of the rock gardens for the top half, then into the tripple treat jumps and finialy into the slippery off camber stuff for the last third. Did a few runs down the track and i was struggling just like pretty much everybody else. The first main rock garden was a pain to do. You either had to go off the rock drop or go around it, which you couldnt really do as it was soo awkward and you couldnt uneven your pedals or they would drag along the rocks. I tried coming into the drop from different lines and angles but couldnt do it and also couldnt get going around it. This was my main problem for the whole week. The rest of the track wasnt too bad, just really really slippery and everyone i saw down the bottom third was sturggling just as much me.

Saturday was a full days downhill practice. Muds were still on the bike, but by the end of the day you were beginning to wonder whether to chuck drys on or not. The weather was holding up for the race weekend, and looked like it would continue to hold up. Practice pretty much went the same as Friday did. Dad showed me a different line into the drop in the first main rock garden that made getting into it a bit easier and predictable. I tried rolling off the drop without stopping on the top once but missed the narrow as bit which was the only place you could roll of it (it was just wider then your tyre) and landed on the rocks. After that i was a too hesitent to try it again so kept stopping, but my stopping time lessened and lessened through out the day.

Sunday was race day. Turned up to the track and decided to chuck a dry on the back and see how it went. First run down and it went good. better then i thought, so decided to also chuck a dry on the front. Once the dry was on, i went up for another run, and that was also a pretty good run. I wanted to do another run on full drys but they wouldnt let us as it was 'pro practice' even though one of the shuttles was partly loaded with non pro people. I thought that was kinda stupid especially since there werent even any pros waiting for the shuttles, or heading over. Seeding run came and went, it was a pretty average run. I stopped for ages on top of the rock drop, a lot longer than normal which i wasnt too happy about, also the rock garden section bit after the rock garden was quite slow. I took it easy down there as i saw the rider (Phoebe) in front of me, was pretty glad i took it easy as Phoebe ended up crashing towards the end of the rock garden. Rest of the run went pretty good, didnt really pedal as i was saving my energy for my race run.

Race run went pretty good. Was probably the best full run i had all weekend. Pedaled as much and as hard as i could where ever i could. Hardly stalled at all on top of the rock drop, got pretty much all of my lines as good as i had when i got them good in practice runs. Got the tripple jump set good, and started pedaling kinda forgetting about the jump afterwards. Ended up hitting the jump for the first time in race run and made it all good. The rest of the track went as planned. Both feet stayed on for pretty much the whole run, which was a first for the weekend, especially for the bottom third. Ended up winning which i was stoaked about. I finialy got a break and managed a good run and got 1st instead of 2nd.