Crank Taupo is a one day race. This is the second year that it was held, it normally has xc in it as well and an 'all mountain' category, but due to high winds in the two weeks before, the xc track was unable to have been cleared of the fallen trees so it was only the downhill race left.
I went up with the Tawa crew after course on Friday, didn't get to our accommodation until about 10.30pm and didnt start heading to sleep till about 11pm. Saturday was race day and practice day. We woke up at about 6.30am and had left a little after 7.30am to head to the track to register and do a track walk. We got about 1/2 way up the track during our walk when Scott told us we had to be at the rego tent in 10mins for the race brief, so we headed back down only to find out Scott had been misinformed. We got on the first shuttle and did a cruisey run do
wn the track, the top half was essentially the same as last year, so not finishing our track walk didn't make too much of a difference really. The only bit that was different would be at the end where they made the jumps better so they weren't just big nasty hucks to flat. Especially the jump over the fence which was a terrible huck to flat last year, but was pretty good this year. First run down i cruised into the step down near the bottom and forgot that there was a bump so you couldnt just cruise into it like i did, I ended up nose casing but managed to hold on.
Second run down i did every jump, just cased the fence jump but got the step down perfect and boosted the step up. Every run from now on was pretty much the same, but just trying to go faster and try some different lines in a few places.
Once prolouge had finished it moved into the finals where the top 40 riders got in. (prolouge was just our practice runs, but every run had been timed). I managed to get the top 40 riders which i was pretty stoaked about since there were 117 riders and out of that Kaytee and I were the only girls. My 'race run' wasnt the best, but i was still happy with it. It was about 3 seconds slower than my fastest prolouge time and i know i lost a bit of time from the step up as i
decided to back off on it after nearly falling off the back of the bike a few times during prolouge.
For being the fastest girl i got a mean as trophy as a prize as well as some minta bright as yellow bars which i think ill chuck on my double. Overall i was pretty happy with how i went during the race. I got what i wanted which was to see if my training was working and it appears it is, I also now know i still need to work on jumping a little bit more and learn to trust my bike and tires more.
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