Crank It Cycles

After being cancelled for the first time in 26 years due to severe weather, New Zealand's biggest mountain bike race, The Karapoti Classic, was held on Sunday March 18. To see why it was cancelled, see this clip by Phil on You Tube and compare it to my photos later.

I was really happy that the organisers were able to re-schedule the event, as I had put in some hard work to get myself in good shape. My goal was to crack the elusive sub-3 hour mark, which is the goal for most competitors. The Sub-3 club has around 600 members, from around 16,000 people that have completed Karapoti since 1986. I have 5 sub three times already, but have set myself the goal of 10 before I am finished with this event. Every year I get older, it gets harder to achieve....

So, race day dawned fine, and no chance of rain! Awesome. However, I had a feeling that all of the rain 2 weeks ago may have done some damage.

It was a huge honour for me to be invited to attend the Tour Down Under in Adelaide recently. Specialized had picked a small group of NZ dealers, and together with around 15 Aussie dealers we would cram in as much riding as possible, and watch a couple of stages.

The tour leaders. See our facebook album for more of Steve's photos

Upon arrival in Adelaide, we were whisked into the Square in the centre of the city. This had been transformed into tent/demo city by all of the big bike brands, and really got the atmosphere going! We quickly assembled our bikes, and then it was a quick ride to our hotel, where we had 20 minutes to be ready to ride! Talk about cracking the whip... We rode about 60km, which included an awesome climb up Windy Point (I thought only Palmy could have a place name like that!), and the fastest descent I have ever ridden; try 2km straight down a 3 lane road, steeper than Ngahere Park! I was doing 82km/h and I was on the brakes because of the wind gusts. The locals easily hit over 100 on a fine day....