R&R RIP Super D

On Sunday we got the last chance ever to ride the R&R trail in the Maitai Valley which is getting logged this week and the Nelson Mountain Bike Club decided to make a good day of it by running a Super D event on it.

The flow and technicality of the track made it one of Nelso

n's best rides and its a disappointment to see it have to go but the chance to race it was one I couldn't pass up!

My good friends James and Pip came up from Christchurch for the weekend to race so after a couple of laps of the track on Saturday I was feeling pretty good apart from a nagging head cold.

I decided to not practice the morning of the race and keep myself fresh for my race run and after a bit of a wait at the top of the hill I got to be the last one down after winning the last Super D race here.

My run went a lot better than I expected and I felt good

until the last climb when my legs started to feel like lead! But luckily it was only short and it was back into the last section of single track before a 30 sprint down a fire road to the finish.

I ended up taking 2nd place only a second behind Super D weapon Kurt Lancaster so I was pretty happy to still be so competitive. We've both had a 1st and 2nd placing now so hopefully the club runs another event so we can have a show down for the championship!

Ive got a couple of weekends off now before I head to Rotorua on the 17th for the Winter Downhill Championships and then the weekend after we have the first round of the Nelson Club DH series so its going to be a busy month!

Thanks to Shuttersport.co.nz for the photo and to all my awesome sponsors for keeping me and bike dialled this year!

Something a little bit different

The first gravity race on the Nelson Mountain Bike Club's calendar was held during the weekend with a Super D race on the Codgers trails in the Brook Valley.

I spend a lot of time riding my trail bike around Codgers so I was pretty excited to have a race there and the track they ran was one I have spent a fair bit of time on while I was setting up my new Fox 36's and RP23 last month. With the bulk of it being descending with a few fast flowing flat sections and only one real climb it made for a perfect track for the downhill guys.

I knew the track well but I also knew there would be some good competition in the form of New Zealand's reigning unofficial super d champion Kurt Lancaster who has won the last two big super d races around NZ and some other quick local guys who have been up getting plenty of practice in!

I got one practice in on the course in morning and it was pretty loose so I decided to tone things back a little bit for my race run. I had a couple of small mistakes but managed to keep it clean and get some good sprinting in.

I ended up posting a time of 8.50 which put me 6 seconds ahead of Kurt in 2nd and nearly 25 seconds ahead of 3rd!

The race was a lot of fun so hopefully some more stuff like this catches on and starts popping up around the country!

Thanks again to my awesome sponsors who make this all possible!