The New Zealand National Championships are a prestigious event. The winner of each grade gets to claim the coveted title of National Champion for an entire year until everybody will meet up again and battle it out all over again. To be fair to people of both islands the venue alternates between north and south islands every year. This year they were being held in Dunedin over Firday-Sunday the 25th-27th of Feburary.
Fresh from the shenanigans in Queenstown I was super keen to see if any of the training we had done would pay off on this track which was certainly worthy of deciding a title such as this one. We arrived in Dunedin on Thursday, the day before the first practice to book into the motel and to walk the track which we wasted no time in doing. We drove up to the top of the track and began our descent. The track looked good from the outset with a big sweeping left-hand corner leading you into a little scrub jump which then led into another flat corner and off into some man-made corners. These were followed by a road gap and then the first of many rock gardens. Normally rock gardens are not too much of a hassle but here in Dunedin things were a bit different. The weather in Dunedin is not really that great and in the week leading up to the race there had been a lot of rain falling onto the track that looked like it was going to turn things into a bit of a nightmare. We carried on and were then faced with the main rock-garden.
This thing is crazy. It is about 40 meters long and it’s just....well...it’s just plain evil, at the start of it there is a roll over with rocks that a concreted in to point you off track followed by a 4 foot drop to flat with some roots straight after it. Then you turn right and have got to pinball your way down the next 30 meters or so of just crazyness. There were some gnarly jumps at the end for the keen (landing on....you guessed it, rocks!) and then we off into a big pedal into a good sized jump followed by another drop into a rock garden and then into 3 really fun jumps and off into the lower section of the track.
The lower section of the track was the opposite of the top. Where the top was rocks, this was roots, where the top was taped quite wide this was tight, where the top was generally a mellow gradient this was a lot steeper and where the top had berms and benched track, this part looked like it had never heard of the words bench or berm. It looked like it would be good fun to ride but a very challenging and I went home excited about practice the next day.
We woke to rain and wind and seeing as the practice was only half a day with a full day the day after we made the decision not to ride as the track was going to change so much due to the softness of the dirt and people skidding on it. So instead we decided to get some more sleep and go up later and walk the track and see what had happened with the other riders cutting in the lines. I also needed to go out and buy some mud tires which was going to be difficult judging by the amount of people that needed them. Luckily for me Justin Leov had a pair he didn’t need and so I brought his ones which were the last pair in his shop! This made me a lot happier that I was actually going to be able to grip in the mud and was hopefully not going to spend all day floundering around like a fish out of water. We went and walked the track again to see if there had been many changes and there had been. With some lines disappearing and new ones forming it was a good decision not to ride as really the track changed so much.
On the second day of practice the weather was a lot nicer and while the track was still pretty muddy it was made a lot nicer by the fact that it wasn’t actually raining on us. The track dried out a lot as we were riding at but that didn’t make it any easier as we were all having quite a few crashes trying to suss out different lines and start to ride the track a bit faster. While the track wasn’t exactly the steepest or the roughest one we had raced this year, the technicality of it made it really quite difficult and even in practice it was hard to put a solid run together and I was quite often left at the bottom puffing for a good 5 minutes to get my breath back. A few times I also needed to stop for a bit to let my body recover as I was taking a few hard knocks. I got 8 runs in during the day and by the time the last truck went up the track had dried up substantially and I felt like I had a few decent lines sorted out and was feeling fast but wasn’t sure if it was fast enough to be national champ.
Overnight I decided to change my tires and when race day dawned sunny I was happy that I had made a good decision but a little apprehensive as I knew it was going to take a couple of runs to get used to the change and was really hoping that I hadn’t changed too late. First run down and while the tires were good most of the way down they did struggle quite a lot through the rock garden and before I knew it I was in the bushes. I picked myself out of the foliage, carried on and while I rode the bottom section well I was looking for clean/fast runs to give me confidence going into seeding. Oh well I still had another practice before they finished, Back up in the truck and focussing on a clean run. My second run started well and that was about it. Coming into the first rough section I hit a bit of a sniper stump and over the bars I went straight into a big pile of rocks. Luckily I broke my fall with my forearm (which had padding on it) and not my head! I rolled off the side of the track and spent the next 5 minutes deciding how badly my wrist hurt and how much of a pain these stupid rocks were. After a while I decided I needed to get down the bottom to eat some food and get some energy back. However the mountain wasn’t playing nicely and I had another couple of crashes which dented my confidence even more. When I got down the bottom I wasn’t really enjoying too much and just stopped, ate food and waited for seeding.
Going up in the truck for seeding I only had one thing on my mind, a clean run. I hadn’t managed to do one all ay and it was really playing on my mind. As I was sitting in the start gate I decided that while I did want to go fast, this run was going to effectively be about making sure that I could get down the hill in one piece at a reasonable speed.
I left the gate and pedalled into the first little jump, scrubbed off that, set up for the corner and took off down into the track. I came into the section that had my big crash in quite fast and while it was playing on my mind a bit I just focussed on where my line was and how I wanted (and knew I could) ride it and what do you know I got through it just fine. This gave me a lot of confidence going into the next sections before the rock garden and I opened it up a little bit and started pushing harder. This was a good move I think as I helped me to carry more speed through the rock garden which meant that my bike got less affected by the rocks and stayed going where I wanted it to go. I went over the jumps and into the bottom section of the track feeling really good and in control, I rode solidly through the trees with no mishaps and came out at the bottom feeling like I had put down a solid run. That was right about the time when I realised that I hadn’t actually crossed the finished line yet and so ended up rolling across the line going snail’s pace and slotted into 2nd .2 seconds behind fastest seed, local Leighton Kirk who was on a 3.16.40. This made me happy but kind of annoyed as well. I was stoke that I had put down a solid run but annoyed that I had pretty much stopped before the finish line and had therefore seeded second. Though it didn’t really bother me too much as seeding first means you start as the last person from your grade and that causes more pressure on the rider, and also I knew that I was riding at a very good speed and as long as I could keep on two wheels I was in with a shot at taking the title.
Race Run time. Sitting at the top I was definitely feeling a bit of pressure as I knew what was on the line and I expected myself to do well. As usual time crept un on my and before I knew it I was putting my goggles on getting ready to start probably the most important race run of my summer. I started out of the gate well, getting some good pedals in. I carried a lot more speed off the first jump and then into the track going quite a lot faster than before. I came into the first rough section pinned and had to make a split decision to take a different line than normal because I knew that I was going down if I had tried my usual route. This was a bad idea as I hit a hole that I hadn’t seen and very nearly lost it 20 seconds from the start! Luckily though I managed to hold onto it and while I lost a lot of speed and momentum at least I was still on 2 wheels and pedalled off furious at myself that I had done that and knowing that if I was to stand I chance at winning this thing I had to do something pretty special. I came into the rock garden with a do or die attitude. I carried way more speed than I had done in practice, hit something that I hadn’t done before which pointed me off my line but still on the track and thought “well I’m still pointing down the track, let’s take the brakes off and see what happens” . The next 10 seconds wee a crazy mix of my bike going in all sorts of directions, me trying to control it, rocks disappearing under me and everything else becoming blurry. Somehow I managed to stay upright and get through quickly, once again I didn’t end up riding where I had practiced but I didn’t care as I knew it was fast and I still upright so I just decided there nothing to lose and that It was worth just letting it all hang out and go for it. I got through the jumps fine, pedalled as much as I could and was then into the bottom of the track and the last 200 meters of my season that was either going to go really well or terrible. Coming into the steep section I was blown away by how many people were there, there must have been a good 100 people all perched on the sides of the hill cheering and making noise, It really added another dimension to the race and made me push even harder. I managed to sneak through in between the trees and the people and popped out the bottom and pedalled across the finish line to stop the clock in a time of 3.07.13 taking over 9 seconds off mine and Leighton’s seeding times and knowing that I had done what I needed to do to take the title and now it was all down to Leighton to see what he could do.
As the seconds ticked by and no sign of Leighton I started to think that I may have done it but when he came storming out of the trees I wasn’t convinced. So when the timing board read 3.11.60 a massive wave of relief spread across me as I realised that I was now the New Zealand National Champion! For a while I couldn’t believe it but when they called my name up to receive my medal I was instantly grateful for all the hours of training that I had put in while I was in Chile and stoked that I had lived up to my expectations and that I had achieved all the goals I had set myself.
This win means that now I am in with the big kids, the Elites for my future races, looks like it’s back to the excer-cycle and Xc riding for fitness, after all, It is going to take a lot to get up to the same speed as those top guys but I’m determined to give it the best possible go I can.
