Kieran Bennett, Downhill Racer

NZ National Championships

2012-01-30T20:55:00.000-08:00

Over the past weekend I had the New Zealand National Mountain Bike Championships here in Nelson where I took on the first ever Super D National Championship and raced the Downhill Championship for the 11th year in a row!

Super D was held on Friday evening on the backside of the Codgers MTB trails down Firball, Turners and Dogs which ended up being a really testing race. Each section of descending was quite different from the other and a good section of pedaling/climbing in between each of them to keep the oxygen deprivation high!

Since I have ridden the track a bit over the past year I decided on just one quick practice run before the race to get my head around the track again and get a feel for how loose the dust was going to be. This event was raced as a single person timed run just like downhill which I think suits the downhillers because we are so used to pushing ourselves against the clock rather than racing other people around us.

Being the local I ended up getting seeded to be last down the hill which meant I was chasing down some fast guys in the form of World Cup Downhill racers like Justin Leov, Jared Graves and Matt Scoles which was a good thing because it meant there wouldn't be any waiting at the bottom to know how I went.

My run went well and after trying to conserve my energy on the descents I hit the hardest and final climb with a good solid sprint but after about 30 seconds my legs were feeling like bricks and I had to sit down the last 15 seconds and spin which I was a bit disappointed with because it was so close to the top but as it turns out I still managed to cross the line in 2nd behind Justin Leov which I was stoked it. Justin showed us how much of a freak he is by putting a solid 12 seconds into me! I definitely had no answer for where those 12 seconds went and I will tell you all now you can put your money on Justin being a podium contender at the first round of the World Cup in South Africa in March.

Next up on the cards was Saturdays Downhill practice which was extremely dry and dusty after a couple of dry weeks leading up to the race. The track held up well though with only a couple of small turns getting blown out by the end of the day. I took the day pretty easy as I was definitely feeling a bit slow after blowing myself out in the Super D the night before.

Race day looked like the rain was going to come for most of the morning but eventually the sun came out just as predicted by Metservice! With such a long shuttle most people only got one run in during the mornings practice and that worked out exactly as I was planning for me making it up for the clear run pro practice before getting organised for seeding.

I wanted to put a quick run down in seeding to see where I would be standing heading into the finals so I decided to just try and ride a normal run down there so I knew I had time to spare and that was exactly how it worked it, I ended up crossing the line in 5th place about 6 seconds back from Scolsy who seeded 1st

Knowing that I would need to take about 8 or 9 seconds off of my seeding time I hit the track was aggression in my race run hitting the first few corners quick until a corner that had changed a bit since seeding caught me out and sent me to the ground. I was gutted to go down so early and got back on cursing myself for the mistake but forced myself to push hard again to try and salvage what I could from my run.

The rest of my run went well and I hit the tricky off cambers with an all or nothing mentality making it through them clean and fast.

Crossing the line at the bottom I was surprised to see my time was good enough for 2nd and only fractions of a second off the lead! With 4 riders left to go on the hill it was a nervous wait to see how my time would hold up but in the end I finished up 4th only a few seconds from the win which I was stoked with considering I crashed and still made the podium.

Justin Leov showed again he is on form taking his first National Downhill Championship and his second Championship for the weekend.

Iv'e got two weeks off now before the NZ National Downhill Series resumes for round four in Rotorua, I know a couple of things I want to work on before then so its back to training and getting prepared!

Thanks again to all of my awesome sponsors for making it happen again this year, Zerode Bikes, Fenwicks, Results Gym, Equilibrium Chiropractic, Fox Clothing, Scott Goggles, Maxxis tyres, Shimano, Pro, Fox Racing Shox and Interislander Ferrys!

In the news!

2012-01-25T22:31:00.000-08:00

Earlier in the week myself and my team mate Reuben Olorenshaw met up with a reporter from the local paper and did a bit of an interview and photo shoot. It ended up coming out pretty good in a half page article in tonight's edition, check it out here! http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/sport/6317578/Its-all-downhill-for-Nelson-riders

NZ National Series Round 3 race report

2012-01-22T00:40:00.001-08:00

Hey Everyone,

Another round of the 2012 NZ National Series is in the books and Methven put on a good one! I had ridden the top half of the track at Dave Balderstones memorial race in November last year so I had a rough idea of what to expect which made practice a little bit easier not needing to learn a completely new track. The top was a fast, open and had a few fun jumps in it to keep it fun before heading into a steep flowy section through the pine trees down to the finish.

Friday's practice was a day of fun runs playing around on the track with Matt Scoles which helped find out which lines worked and which didn't. Scolsy is my usual practice buddy at national rounds and is good to ride with because he seems to be able to pick the lines that work and get up to speed quickly while still having fun.

With a bit of rain sneaking down over night race day turned out fine but overcast which was good to help keep the dust down and the light change not quite so harsh going into the trees although it only took about half an hour for the track to be bone dry and dusty again!

My seeding run went well and I slipped into 5th place behind four world cup regulars so I was pretty happy to still be up there with those guys and it gave me some good confidence going into race runs.

After a big break unfortunately due to a couple of riders needing to be helicoptered out we were back to the top and getting ready for race runs. I think one of the best parts of the NZ Nationals is how much fun it is at the top of the hill before runs, no wind trainers, everyone is hanging out and messing around, not like a world cup start area!

I put in another solid run and felt like I had put in a competitive time coming through the line a second faster than my qualifier which put me into 3rd with 4 riders still to come. My time ended up being good enough for 6th which i was happy with although a little bit gutted when I saw the results and found I was only .09 of a second off the podium!

This result was good enough to bump me up into 3rd overall for the South Island Cup behind Matt Scoles and Brook McDonald which was a nice bonus for the weekend!

Still I was happy to put together two good fast runs on the day and am looking forward to National Champs this weekend which are being run on my home track here in Nelson, as well as the downhill i'm also going to be racing the Super D on Friday afternoon which I have been putting in work to try and pull a solid result!

Back on the podium!

2012-01-15T23:32:00.001-08:00

Last weekend saw the second round of the NZ National Downhill series head back to Dunedin which has always been one of my favourite races over the years!

With the weather forecast looking marginal for the weekend and after walking the track after it had rained I decided to go straight to cut down Maxxis Wet Scream's the night before practice started and it was a good choice because that night the skies opened up and it didn't stop all night!

Trying to survive during practice!

Practice day started off dry but before long the rain was falling again and trying to practice was a nightmare with people littered all over the track just trying to make it down, I don't think I even had one run without a crash in Friday's practice!

The rain finally stopped on Friday evening and with wind all night the track was beginning to dry out by the time practice started on Saturday morning, although it really only made things worse because the mud got even stickier and heavier without the rain to wash it away!

By the time practice ended things had got better though and the open section at the top of the track had dried out completely speeding things up dramatically.

My seeding run went pretty good until a small crash out of a corner in the bottom section slowed things down but even so I still crossed the line in 7th which I was happy with because I knew I had a lot of time that I could make up. But with Dunedin being Dunedin, just as everyone was getting comfortable with the drying track the rain came back again heavier than ever about half way through racing! Luckily I hadn't changed anything on my set up from practice so I was still set to go which allowed me to relax and get my goggles organised before my race run.

With all the rain before race runs I decided to really try and push down the top section to keep my time consistent with qualifying but that decision almost ruined my run about 30 seconds in when my front wheel washed in a berm sending me off the track into the tape to a complete stop! I thought that would be my run over but I got going again and tried to keep my speed steady and clear all the jumps before heading into the technical trees. Sticking with all of the lines I had practiced worked out well for me and I was riding good until a slippery root pushed my front wheel off a berm to make it stall out number two for the run! The rest of the run went well and I managed to hit all of the high lines over the roots that I needed to before the finish and was extremely surprised to come through the line in 2nd at the time!

With a hand full of fast guys left to come down I wasn't sure how well my time would fare but it was good enough to put me back on the podium for the first time in a couple of years with a 3rd!

Brook McDonald put together a solid run to take the win and my good friend Matt Scoles in 2nd.

11 years and counting...

2012-01-15T22:34:00.001-08:00

The opening round of the NZ National Downhill series on the 8th of January marked my 11th year of racing the series and it still only feels like iv'e been riding for a few years! 2002 was my first year racing the series and iv'e been there every year since, i think in 2002 I finished top 3 in the U17 class and I was hooked!

Believe it or not, that is me after my first National Series, looking absolutely stoked!

Queenstown took the honors of the opening round for this years series and it was a round that got everyone talking as it was expected to be held on the Skyline Gondola but after some complications it ended up being held off the bottom of the Remarkables Ski Area access round on basically a grass paddock. Don't get me wrong the track was a lot of fun but it seriously lacked anything technical so it was really just a matter of not making mistakes and staying of the brakes.

Sliding in the Queenstown dust

After a bit of a slide out in qualifying I came through the line in 13th knowing I had room to improve and after thinking about the run a few times I had a good idea of where to make up some time and hopefully put a better race run together.

Straight out of the gate I rode the first chute the best I had all weekend which put me a good frame of mind going into the rest of the run so I tried to put it all together the rest of the way and sprint where I could. I managed to ride a pretty clean run with only a minimal mistake losing me a little bit of time but still made up 6 places from qualifying and ended up placing 7th on the day only a second off a podium finish!

Thanks to all of my awesome sponsors for getting me to the series this year, Zerode Bicycles, Fenwicks, Fox Clothing, Scott Goggles, Shimano, Maxxis, Pro, Results Athletic Centre, Fox Racing Shox and Interislander

Dave Balderstone memorial race

2011-11-23T23:18:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I made the trip down to Christchurch for the final round of their summer downhill series which also doubled as the first annual Dave Balderstone Memorial race.

Dave passed away earlier in the year and it was a huge shock and loss to the downhill community to lose someone so talented and passionate about the sport. I first met Dave around 2003 when he started racing in Nelson and he was always a friendly kid who would absolutely rip the track on his Specialized Grom! After he moved up north with his family I didn't see him as much over the following years but he always had time for a chat whenever we did see each other and he will be someone I remember forever.

The race was held at Mt Hutt and the guys down there had put together a really fun track with lots of jumps and high speed sections with a bit of pedaling thrown in to keep you honest.

Apparently the top of the track will be part of the National series race in January so it was good to get a bit of an early look in.

After a fun afternoon of practice on Saturday afternoon we headed into Methven to stay at a local lodge that some of the Gravity Canterbury committee had organised so everyone could have a BBQ with Daves family and friends and have a bit of fun.

Sunday was up early in search of coffee with Snowy and Rennie to help cure the headaches from a little too much fun and then onto the hill to get organised for practice.

The track was holding together well and not changing much which made practice nice and easy so I decided to save my energy and only do a couple of runs before seeding.

I had a good seeding run but took it easy on the pedaling to save from blowing myself out for the race run and ended up seeding in 4th a few seconds down which I was happy with because I knew I had time to make up.

After an eternity of waiting at the bottom we finally got picked up and made out way back up the hill for our race runs and after some more waiting it was my time to take the start line. I decided I needed to put in a good amount of sprinting so I made the most of it where ever I could getting a few pedals in and carrying speed. The whole run was going great until I overcooked a blind drop into a corner and found myself parked head first down the bank in the bushes!

I got out and back on and found a little bit more speed down the last few corners thanks to the frustration of the crash but it wasn't enough and I ended up one spot down from seeding in 5th.

I was disappointed to miss out on winning the race as it would of meant a lot to win the memorial trophy but my time was still only 5.5 seconds off first so I know that my pace is good, I just need to keep it on two wheels.

One of Dave's best friends Sam Perry aka Wookie took a very deserved win and it wasn't surprising after seeing how fast he was during practice, he was definitely on a mission all week and it was cool to see him win.

Dave's old boss from AEL Engineering very kindly donated an awesome looking trophy for the memorial and it apparently started out as a $35,000 USD titanium jet turbine blade which had been broken so they set to it at work and turned it into the master piece pictured with Wookie below.

'Sprung' Super D series round 1

2011-11-15T00:40:00.001-08:00

A couple of weeks ago the Nelson Mountain Bike Club hosted the first round of their 'Sprung' Super D series on the ever developing Codgers MTB trails in the Brook Valley. This a fun series of four races that is being run on Wednesday evenings over the next month catering to all skill levels and judging by the 50+ riders that turned up for the first event it will be very popular!

The first round was held down one of the most popular descents called Fir Ball and into Piplini which is a 9min+ run with a very good amount of pedaling in the middle to even out the broad field of downhillers, xc racers and weekend warriors that showed up.

This was the same track that we raced earlier in the year that I took the win at so I was looking forward to getting loose it in the wet conditions and pushing myself to sprint as much as possible.

I had a reasonably clean run aside for a couple of small stalls in corners but managed to win the senior mens class by 52 seconds and take the overall by 10 over Jamie Nicoll who destroyed the 30+ class.

The next round is on the 16th of November down a couple of newer tracks and then into a couple of the more established ones with not much climbing but still a decent amount of pedalling which should make for a good race.

Top of the South finals

2011-11-15T00:22:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we had the final round of the Top of the south downhill series here in Nelson on the Fringe Hill Nationals track, although due to some problems with the track near the bottom we only raced the first 2/3rds of the track.

With steady rain on Saturday I decided to leave practicing until the morning of the race which i think was a good idea because the rain stayed away on Sunday and the sun came out which made things a bit better! The track was still pretty wet but was a lot of fun and really grippy to start off with but without the rain the mud had no where to go which ended up leaving the track boggy, slippery and unpredictable by the end of practice.

I had been feeling great all morning in practice but I found out quickly in my first race run just how unpredictable the track was with a big crash in the very first turn sending me off the big and into a tree. I decided to get myself together and just roll the rest of the run and check out the track as I twisted my bars and landed heavily on a rock on the back of my pelvis leaving me extremely sore on one side.

Still not feeling great I made my way up for second race run because I knew the overall title was down to the wire since I missed the first round and had no race to drop.

Starting out quite tentatively (mostly making sure I made it through the first turn!) I slowly got into my run and by the half way mark I was feeling a lot better although still struggling to pedal because of my pelvis until about 3/4 of the way down I hit a turn only to find the corner had blown out as my front wheel washed out and I went over the bars again, luckily onto softer soil this time though!

I tried to get up as quickly as possible and tried to get back into the run and ended up coming through in 2nd place only .2 of a second off the win!

It was disappointing to have two bad runs but not every weekend of racing can be perfect and my second place still gave me the overall title for the top of the south series which was a big bonus!

NZ Whip Championships

2011-09-28T01:02:00.000-07:00

Last month one night before a race while having dinner with Team RDR boss James Rennie we decided that we needed to put on a NZ Whip Championships sometime during the national series and after a bit of talk it ended up seeming to work out perfect to have it during the National Championships weekend in Nelson.

Leaving it at that I kind of forgot about it for a while but then it started to snowball and I was getting a lot of people asking about it so I decided to set a date and make it happen!

So January 29th after the conclusion of the Downhill National Championships its all on, the venue is still to be decided but don't worry it will be a good jump and there is even a guaranteed $100 prize money plus $5 entry per rider is going into the prize pool to make it even bigger!

Check out all the info here

Hopefully we will see some style like this! my good buddie Tyler McCaul getting sideways in Whistler. Photo : James Allen

Go Pro vids

2011-09-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

Check out a couple of videos I post up on youtube a while back, they were both from the first couple of times I took out my GoPro camera and tested it out.

Not the greatest because Maitai Face was so dark in the trees and it was blowing a gale on Broken Axe so the jumps were far from ideal but you still get to see some riding we have around Nelson!

Unfortunately I completely forgot to take a helmet mount to Rotorua last weekend so didn't get any footage, rookie error!

I wont be doing that again so hopefully from now on im going to have footage from each track we race to post up online for everyone to see.

Maitai Face with Reuben Olorenshaw:

A run down Broken Axe:

Another win in Rotorua!

2011-09-18T20:04:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone,

Over the weekend I flew up to Rotorua to race the first round of the new NZDH inc downhill series which is being held over the remaining months of 2011 as a build up series to the MTBNZ National Downhill Series which starts in January.

Friday afternoon in Rotorua greeted me with wet conditions once again but I wasn't too bothered as I enjoy riding the tracks there in the wet and have definitely improved with mud riding this year! Although once we started practice on Saturday although there had been some rain the track had held up well and was actually really grippy and fast, I had already put mud tyres on my bike and they were working well so I decided to stick with them for the weekend no matter what happened.

This ended up being a good decision because after practice finished on Sunday morning before race runs the heavens opened up and it started pouring with rain which left a lot of people scrambling trying to get their bikes set up for the mud that was waiting!

My first run was like riding down a river so I decided to play it a little bit cautious and try and have a safe, steady run down the hill without crashing! I ended up sitting in second place in the first run 3 seconds back off local Rotorua Pro rider Matt Walker which I was hoping I could improve on for the second run!

Luckily the rain eased up and went away for our second race run which made things a bit nicer not having to shelter from the rain but had also left the track very boggy because the rain had stopped washing the mud off the track! I started my run out not knowing what to expect so decided to go into it at 100% to try and make up the lost seconds after my first run and after a couple of stalls near the top of the track I got into a good run after steep sections and gave it my all for the last half of the track. Not wanting to lose any time on the flat sections I put my head down and sprinted through them back into the last couple of technical sections before the finish.

Going into my second run at 100% had been a good decision and I managed to improve my time by four seconds which gave me the win by just .85 of a second over Walker.

I'm stoked to take another win in such horrible conditions and with a busy couple of months of racing coming up it is great motivation to keep training hard!

Big thanks to Jasen at Fenwicks and the guys at NZDH inc. for helping me out getting to Rotorua for the weekend, the guys at NZDH inc. put on a fantastic event with a good pro purse and it really seems like they have a great series going on! Also I can't say thanks enough to all of my awesome sponsors who have been keeping me and my bike going strong this season!

My next race is the second round of the local Top Of The South Series here in Nelson on October 1st.

Brake Authority

2011-09-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago I got the opportunity from Kashi at Black Seal to trick out my trail bike and downhill bike with some new Brake Authority rotors and brake pads and I have been nothing but impressed so far!

Below is a shot of the rotors im running on my trail bike which are the "aggressive" rotors in 180mm diameter. They are a semi-floating rotor which is designed to help dissipate the heat and keep them cooler which seems to be working because on a lot of the long trail ride descents we have around Nelson I haven't had any issues with fading in any conditions.

The rotors below are Brake Authoritys more traditional offering called the "burly" rotor which also has some little tricks to help with getting rid of the heat in the form of the wave shape around the outside of the rotor.Paired up with rotors on both of my bikes are Brake Authoritys Ceramic pads which are designed as an all around pad which performs well and lasts longer than regular pads. They also only took about a minute to bed in with the new rotors which I was pretty surprised at, normally iv'e found new rotor/pad combos will take a couple of runs to really feel good but these were feeling great by half way down the first run.

Another bonus is you can buy them straight from www.brakeautority.co.nz and they will courier them to you so if your local shop doesn't stock them then check them out online!

Fox Shox Bio

2011-09-02T00:15:00.000-07:00

Just had an email from the guys over at Fox Racing Shox to let me know my athlete profile is up online, check it out here http://foxshox.info/bennett

While your at it have a look over their 2012 range then get into our local shop ASAP and buy some new suspension for your bike! The Kashima coat on their new stuff is unreal, it keeps everything running so smooth.

NZDH Inc launching a new DH series

2011-08-29T02:14:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have noticed the New Zealand DH Inc. page pop up on Facebook recently marking the launch of a brand new downhill series here in New Zealand. It may only look like a North Island based series but the people behind the scenes know that to make something big you have to start somewhere and that is exactly what they have done. They have a three year plan to grow the series to include rounds through out the entire country to help develop the future of the sport and allow riders to develop the skills they need to be able to compete with the best.

The series to me looks a good step forward for downhill in New Zealand and hopefully I will be able to make it up to some rounds this year!

Check out the brief below straight from NZDH to learn more about what they are all about

The NZDH Championship Series is designed and programmed to cater for all various skill levels from within the New Zealand All Mountain Category in preparation for the following MTBNZ Summer National Series.

The NZDH organisation's plan is to help and support all riders who wish to be involved in this exciting sport, compete and take their developed skills to the next step.

Our focus for the next three years is to grow the NZDH series venues throughout the country - both North and South Island as a base competition for rider preparation to essentially further develop their skills to compete on a national level.

Developing Downhill Racing - Introducing Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking To The Riders Of New Zealand

Nelson Club Downhill Champs Final

2011-08-29T02:11:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone

Over the weekend the final round of the Nelson MTB Club downhill series was on the newly rebuilt Broken Axe DH track in the Maitai Valley here in Nelson. With a good week of weather leading up to the race it was set to be perfect conditions for the weekend of riding and racing.

I spent Saturday afternoon doing a few practice runs on the track with some friends who had made the trip up from Christchurch for the weekend and after one run down the track they were loving it and couldn't wait to get back up for more, luckily having been involved with rebuilding the track I already

had the track locked in my memory from start to finish so I spent the afternoon showing them some of the fast lines I had found and having a bit of fun on the jumps.

After the disaster and disorganisation I had at the last round I made sure I had my bike washed, preped and ready to go for race day straight after we had finished riding and all of my gear clean and organised!

Race day rolled around with another perfect day blue skied day and I was eager to get into the racing! After a couple of practice runs to warm up and check out the track I was set to go and looking forward to seeing what sort of time I could lay down on the track.

With a flat tyre upsetting my first run and resulting in a DNF I did some quick work in the pits and got back up the hill for the second run which went a lot more to plan! I really wanted to take the win and my run was awesome, I managed to ride every line exactly how I wanted and carried really good speed especially on the fast choppy fire break section where my Zerode G1 ate it all up and made it feel like nothing.

I ended up winning the race by eight seconds and also taking out the overall club champion title so it was a great weekend for me and a really good confidence booster knowing that my training and hard work has been paying off.

My next event is on the 18th of October so until then its ba

ck on the bike and work on going faster!

Thanks to fixedfocus.co.nz for the awesome pic!

Another history lesson

2011-08-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

Alright here is another history lesson for those of you haven't been around downhill for very long, I started racing downhill in 2000 and at that time there was no vitalmtb.com, dirtmag.com or facebook so you waited to find out about races the old fashion way, either in magazines or videos. Below is a video section from the Arai, Japan World Cup from 2001 that the king of mtb videos Alex Rankin had in Sprung 5 (if you haven't heard of Sprung, do some googleing now!).

The quality of this video is awesome, music, shots, everything is good and this is before anyone did movie editing on I movie!

Take some time and enjoy, then go and find every one of the Sprung series and be impressed!

Reuben Olorenshaw x Maitai Face

2011-08-15T02:49:00.000-07:00

Check out this video of my Zerode Bicycles team mate Reuben Olorenshaw riding the top section of Maitai Face here in Nelson for a bit of Champery training before the World Champs next month!

Reuben is on his way to Europe at the moment to race the World Cup finals in Val Di Sole, Italy and then will be heading to Champery, Switzerland to race the World DH Championships in the under 19 class. Keep an eye out for him!

Zerode bike check

2011-08-07T00:28:00.000-07:00

For any of you that are interested in bike set ups I thought id post up a spec list of what i'm running on my Zerode G1 this season and a few random shots of it.

Fork: 2012 Fox 40 RC2

Shock: 2012 Fox RC4 w/ Nuke Proof Ti spring

Cranks: Shimano Saint

Chain Ring: Gamut Race Ring 32t

Pedals: Crank Brothers Mallet/50 50

Seat + Post: SDG I-Fly and Carbon post

Bars: Raceface Atlas cut down to 760mm wide

Grips: ODI Ruffian lock on

Brakes: Shimano Saint

Wheels: Atomlab Pimp Light wheel set

Tyres: Maxxis Minnion F 2.5mm

Headset: Custom Zerode 2 degree angle set

The frame runs a Shimano Alfine 8 speed hub which is modified by Zerode for use with the frame. My bike is also running a full Ti bolt kit which is available from Zerode and also a set of prototype light weight chain adjusters.

Nelson Club Downhill Champs Round Two

2011-08-02T02:33:00.001-07:00

Last weekend saw the running of round two of the Nelson Club downhill champs held on awesome Ben Nevis Mountain just outside of Nelson.

The hill has had downhill tracks on it since before I started riding and it is always fun even in the pouring rain! Luckily for us though the weekend was perfect blue skies although a little bit chilly with a good frost greeting us on race day.

After a few practice runs on Saturday I had the track pretty well dialed in and decided to just do a couple of runs on Sunday morning to save my energy as th

e track is pretty well established and wasn't going to change at all.

My first race run started well and I was feeling really good until about the midway point when I got that horrible feeling of a tyre going flat! Sure enough a couple of turns later all the air was gone so I limped my way to the finish and got it sorted and ready to go for race run number two.

Once again it was another good start to the run and I was pushing hard wanting to make up for the first run disaster. Unfortunately only seconds before where I had got my puncture I messed up my line coming into a turn and washed out hitting the ground hard and scrambling to get back up and going again.

Even with the crash in my second run I still managed to

take out second place and was close to the win so even though the weekend seemed like a disaster it was good to take some positives out of it knowing that I am still riding strong and fast and that my training is paying off.

My Zerode Bikes team mate Reuben Olorenshaw dominated the under19 class winning by 5 seconds and showing how much his training and preparation for the upcoming World Championships is paying off. Hes off for his first taste of racing in Europe in a couple of weeks so im looking forward to seeing how he will go there!

Go Pro!

2011-07-24T00:23:00.001-07:00

Last week I had a very cool package turn up with a nice new Go Pro Camera inside! The guys at Go Pro NZ hooked me up to capture some downhill footage so I was excited to test it out.

First thing Saturday I headed up the newly rebuilt Broken Axe DH track with Zerode Junior rider Reuben Olorenshaw and East Takaka local Reece Potter for some shuttle runs and had the Go Pro filming every run.

The footage that came out from it is amazing and its cool to be able to sit back afterwards and watch the run without having to concentrate on actually riding it!

I put together a quick edit tonight of a full run down the track and threw in a little bit of footage of the shock and gear box through some rough stuff to see how the Zerode sticks to the ground!

Keep an eye out on here and my youtube page for more footage soon!

Check it out below

Chad Reed = Bad Ass

2011-07-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this video of Chad Reeds crash at the Millville AMA Outdoor Motocross National last weekend then prepared to be amazed.

Reed is by far my favorite athlete and this effort just cements that even more, while leading at Millville he washed out off the lip of a big table top and got completely ejected off the bike in one of the craziest crashes iv'e ever seen, to top it off after falling from the sky he gets himself up off the ground, adjusts his brake/clutch levers, starts the race again in last (40th) place and charges back to 14th!

Watch the video and be amazed.

Another huge race for NZ downhill

2011-07-04T01:57:00.000-07:00

So I was up early this morning to watch the freecaster.tv live footage from the Mt Saint Anne, Canada World Cup and it was one hell of an exciting morning!

NZ had 7 riders qualified in the top 80 final and 5 of them ended up in the top 20!

Brook MacDonald's run was so smooth and flawless it was awesome to watch and when he came through the line and put 5.6 seconds into the ride who was in the hot seat i couldn't help but have a wee cheer in the living room by myself! I convinced myself

he was going to win after that but in the end he was bumped back to 3rd place only .515 of a second behind the winner Aaron Gwin!

Brook is on fire at the moment and i'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of his series goes, he has a huge future ahead of him.

Next in line the big horse Cam Cole who was one of my groomsmen at my wedding in March charged into 5th place for his first podium of the season, it was good to see him looking solid on the bike again and pulling a good result, look out for

him at Windham next weekend, hes won a US national there before!

Blinky was flying like usual and put in a very good ride for 7th but looked a bit disappointed at the bottom.

Justin Leov put a solid ride in on the new carbon Trek Session to take 10th and Scolsy (best man at my wedding) had an average run (stolen from his facebook status) but still managed a solid 19th keeping him in the top 20 overall heading into next weekends race.

I'm going to miss my world cup fix next weekend because im off to samoa on Thursday for my honeymoon but hopefully the boys will be able to have another good weekend and keep NZ on top of the world!

Facebook athlete page

2011-06-27T00:12:00.000-07:00

Check out my new facebook athlete page iv'e made at www.facebook.com/kieranbennettracing

if your on facebook click like then send it to your friends!

Two for two, Nelson Club DH Champs round 1

2011-06-26T01:19:00.002-07:00

After a bit of a hiatus the downhill scene returned to Nelson today with the first round of the Club DH Championships series being held on the Maitai Face track under clear blue skies.

It was obvious on Saturday everyone had been keen for the races to return with a lot of people out shuttling the track to get some early practice in and we were no different with a full load of people on my truck getting about 7 runs in by the end of the day. With some heavy rain on Thursday the track was still pretty damp and with the top section being pretty fresh it didn't take long for some massive (awesome) ruts to appear! (which sadly got cut out on Sunday morning before practice)

Race day morning started out very frosty on what I would say has been Nelson's coldest morning all year but once the sun finally made its way over the hill it was an awesome day and after a couple of good quick practice runs in the morning I was feeling pretty happy with my lines and confident for a good result.

After a slight delay due to the organiser's radios going flat the race finally got underway and with the track dropping straight off the road and into the action it made for some good viewing while we waited for our runs. Some of the juniors were a bit worrying after watching the likes of Reuben Olorenshaw, Reece Potter and Tim Adams tearing apart the first few turns I knew there would be no time for messing around on the short track!

My good friend James Rennie made the trip up from Christchurch to represent for the Red Dog Racing/22 motor sports crew and after i gave him a bit too much cheering going into the first turn nearly lost it mere seconds into his run but managed to hold it together just!

After waiting for nearly the whole field I was 2nd to last down the hill and after a near off track excursion in the same place as James I managed to put together a solid run and take the win on the short track with a time of 1.35 min with a comfortable couple of seconds over 2nd place.

Iv'e got a five week break now until the next round of the Nelson Club Champs at the end of July but in the mean time Katie and I are off to Samoa for our honeymoon so it will be a good excuse to relax and have a break from training for a couple of weeks!

Descend Rotorua Winter DH Championships Race Report

2011-06-20T01:20:00.000-07:00

With only a hand full of downhill races going on around the country over winter I decided to make the most of it and head up to Rotorua for the weekend to race the Rotorua Winter DH Championships to get some more racing in.

With the Descend Rotorua Mountain Bike Club running the event I knew it would be worth the trip and they didn't disappoint with a full day of practice on Saturday and then practice Sunday morning before two race runs with the top 10 riders going back up for a 3^rd run to battle it out for a cash prize.

After waking up several times on Friday night to sound of pouring rain I was expecting the worst but my first run down the track felt like a race run so I knew it was going to be a good weekend! By the end of the day the track had got extremely rough with some of the ruts up to your bottom bracket! After a bit of scoping on my last practice run on saturday though I had found some good lines and was feeling confident in the muddy conditions.

With more rain overnight I decided to just do one practice run before the race to check out the track and it was a good call with three race runs to come.

My Zerode G1 was feeling awesome in the muddy conditions and the new 2012 Fox suspension was eating up everything I threw at it so I was feeling confident heading into the race. With the whole field racing before the pro class the track had changed a little bit but my two race runs went smooth and after a bit of a wait I found out I had taken the race win by 14 seconds! The top 10 then went back up for a final shoot out for the cash which I managed to have another smooth run down and this time took the win by 20 seconds and the cash!

It was a tiring day after doing three full on race runs in the mud but I couldn't be happier with how the weekend went and I feel like im stronger than ever on my bike and really enjoying racing again.

Next up is the first round of the Nelson MTB Club DH championships this weekend so im looking forward to getting back on the bike!

Thanks again to all of my awesome sponsors keeping me on the podium!

Zerode all prepped up and ready to race

Matt Walker: Blue Steel

Jasen from Fenwicks was on hand to keep everyone's bikes clean!

All business in the race run's

R&R RIP Super D

2011-05-30T01:21:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-02T02:10:00.000-07:00

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!

behind the scenes

2011-04-27T01:09:00.001-07:00

Check out a sneak peek of a photo shoot I did with Evan Barnes from http://www.evanbarnesphotography.co.nz last night, there will be a slideshow up on vitalmtb.com sometime soon so keep an eye out!

inside the outdoors

2011-04-20T03:10:00.000-07:00

Check out another episode from the "Inside the outdoors" series being aired in the US, awesome footage and behind the scenes stuff. well worth watching

the great outdoors

2011-04-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

After breaking two fingers quite badly at a local motocross race back in October last year I didn't get to ride much over the summer but over the last few weeks iv'e managed to make it out for a few days of two wheel action that doesn't require pedaling.

Last weekend I got to check out one of my mates tracks for the first time and with a bit of rain the night before the dirt was perfect for a few motos.

Check out a few shots below that my friend Luke sent through to me that he shot while I was out riding!

Fresh bike for the winter

2011-04-09T16:13:00.000-07:00

After the NZ national series was all done my bike was looking a little bit worse for wear and with new suspension being built by Fox Racing Shox for my bike I decided it was time for a freshen up and after having white bikes for the last 3 years I thought black would be a good change!

After a couple of emails with Rob and Dodzy from Zerode we had the colour ways chosen and new graphics getting printed.

I finally got the frame back on Saturday and after a nervous hour of putting the new graphics on I was extremely happy with the end result!

New colours

New Fox Racing Shox Factory Series 40's

The finished product!

I can't say thanks enough to Rob and Dodzy at Zerode Bikes and Fitzy at Fox Racing Shox for all their help this season and to all my other awesome sponsors who have been helping me out!

Keep an eye out on Vitalmtb.com for a full bike check coming soon!

good viewing

2011-04-09T02:27:00.000-07:00

If your into motocross I think you will probably find this interesting...

Its a tv show aired on the Fuel network in the US which follows the AMA outdoor nationals and seems to have some pretty awesome stuff on it, lots of behind the scenes shots and interviews. Its an 8 part series so hopefully the others will be up soon

World Champs long list

2011-04-07T01:13:00.001-07:00

Just got word last week that iv'e been selected in the New Zealand long list for the world champs being held in Champery, Switzerland later on in the year. Theres a few guys who have already made final selection but iv'e made it known to the powers that be that if anyone gets hurt during the season then I will be fit and ready to race so not that I want any of my friends racing full time overseas to get hurt but it would be cool to race the world champs again which would mark my 7th year in a row!

Trail bike fun

2011-04-05T01:20:00.000-07:00

Check out this helmet cam video shot by Leo Sandler following me down the new Firball extension in Nelson. This is my favorite track to ride at the moment and every time im up there it seems to get better and better!

Nelson Cross Country Series Round 1 Report.

2011-04-05T00:24:00.000-07:00

The first round of the Nelson Motorcycle club cross country series kicked off during the weekend at Angelsy's farm near Tapawera. With a bit of last minute preparation over the last couple of weeks consisting of a few training rides on my mountain bike and a couple of days doing moto's. Not ideal but definitely better than nothing!

Its been over a year since I last raced a cross country so I was pretty excited to get it underway but by midway through the race I had remembered how painful racing a motorbike for 3 hours solid is and was ready for it to end!

The races are always started le mans style which is pretty cool because it separates everyone out straight away and with a good sprint I got into a good position straight somewhere around the top 10 which I managed to maintain for the whole race finishing up in 9th overall for the day and 2nd in the 0-300cc four stroke class.

I'm stoked to pull off a good result from barely riding and getting some severe arm pump over the first couple of laps, the next round is 6 weeks away so iv'e got a bit more time to prepare and hopefully come out swinging.

More new toys!

2011-04-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Ive had this wee fella sitting in the shed for a while now and finally got it finished last week. I got it mid last season from the guys at VSI who were one of our team sponsors at the time and along with a bunch of our other team sponsors I got the bulk of the bike built up except for cranks which I finally got around to buying last week!

I don't know why I wasted so much time getting them because its awesome! First ride at the local BMX track was good and hopefully ill be able to make it to a few races around here this year!

New goodies!

2011-04-01T01:12:00.000-07:00

Check out the nice package that turned up a few weeks ago thanks to Fitzy, Pappy and Mike V at Fox Racing Shox to get my bikes all dialed in for this year!

The Kashima coated 36's and RP23 air shock are all mounted up on my trail bike and are amazing, it feels like a downhill bike on descents now.

Now I just need to finish getting my Zerode G1 painted and rebuilt so I can get testing on the new 40's and RC4 shock.

Keep an eye out on VitalMTB.com in the near future for a bike check!

National Champs wrap up

2011-03-01T23:17:00.000-08:00

Last weekend marked the final event of the New Zealand summer series with the National Championships being held on Signal Hill in Dunedin.

With rain all week leading up to the event the track was extremely slippery and had already taken a few people out with injuries during the week so it didn't take much for me to decide to skip the first of two days practice to leave everyone else to slide their way down the hill and cut the track in a bit more. By Saturday the track was slowly starting to dry out with a bit of sun shining and a good breeze blowing through the trees making it more rideable but a nasty off camber section at the very end of the track made for quite a few hold ups during the day and I think I only had one clean run through there during the day.

With sun forecast for race day things were looking better and after the organisers had cut a couple of trees out of the off camber section at the bottom the track was flowing nicely and was looking to be a good race. My qualifying run was good up until the off camber section at the bottom of course, I landed on a root coming out of it and managed to dislodge a quite sizeable rock with my chest which I hadn't even noticed until a few friends came down to see me afterwards and make sure I was ok!

After a bit of a rest and bike maintenance it was time to head up the hill once again for my final race run of the 2011 National Circuit so I was determined to make it a good one and finish the season on a good note.

I decided to try and ride a little bit more conservatively in my race run because the track was still a bit wet and claiming a lot of riders in the other classes during finals, this tactic seemed to work pretty well for me as I had a good clean consistent run up until once again coming out of the off camber section I clipped a large rock knocked out by the rider in front of me, luckily though this time I managed to just hold it together and ride it out losing only a little bit of time.

In the end my time was good enough for 6^th place against guys who are on world cup teams for the coming season and have been training hard in preparation, after breaking my fingers in October last year and not even being sure if I would be able to race the whole series until December im pretty happy with how this series has gone. Ive realised a few weaknesses I need to work on and am now going to have a break for a month before getting back on the bike for a big race in Queenstown over the Easter weekend.

This weekend however brings the biggest event of the year as im getting married to my Fiancee Katie on Saturday!

Once again thanks to all of you for your help and support this season!

Keeping the vision clear mid run.

First turn of the track, sickest rut the whole way down

Race run making my way through the end of the wild off camber section, this was out of control during practice day in the wet.

Photos courtesy of James Allan

Gallery

2011-02-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

Just thought id post up a few shots ive collected so far from the national series here in NZ and a few shots of my new Zerode G1 race mobile. Also on a side note Zerode have just launched their website so check it out at www.zerode.co.nz

NZ National Series Round 2

2011-02-07T23:54:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone,

Round two of the New Zealand national downhill series was held over the weekend in the hot and dry Napier. Thursday night was spent in Rotorua building up my new Zerode downhill bike, finally getting it all ready at about 10.30 it was off to bed with a 5.30am wake up to get us to Napier in time.

It was great to get back to the national series races and catch up with a lot of old friends before jumping on my bike for the first time with only a day to get used to it before racing!

With only about a weeks riding under my belt since I had my finger breaking crash in October I was actually feeling pretty good on the track and felt like I was riding at a good pace. I proved this on Saturday morning during qualifying by coming in 6^th with a fairly decent run against a field of guys who have been training hard to get ready for the World Cup season thats coming up.

With my good qualifying run under my belt I had a bit of confidence going into my race run but still had the nerves going since I hadn’t ridden or raced in a few months! As soon as I was out of the gate and into my race run they were all gone and I was just focused and sprinting and getting to the bottom without any issues. My run went awesome and it wasn’t until about 10 seconds from the finish I had a mechanical and my chain jammed up which stopped me from being able to sprint the last flat part of the course and had to roll around the last jump. Even with that I still managed to equal my qualifying time and finished 6^th for the day only .2 of a second off the podium!

It’s great to know I’m back up to pace so quickly and haven’t lost any speed with my injuries especially with such a long time off the bike. This coming weekend we have the 3^rd round coming up in Rotorua so I’m spending the week there to do some more training and riding to hopefully get even quicker and on the podium this time!

Canadian Open DH - see ya whistler!

2010-08-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

Well after 10 solid days of riding in Whistler its all over for another year, were on the road back to San Diego where ill be for a few days getting my new bike set up for the world cup finals and world champs then its another cross country mission to New York.

I finished off my week with the Canadian Open DH race which was on a world cup caliber course and by far the best ive ridden in Whistler, Its wide open from top to bottom with an awesome tree section, a super cross style jump section and a section that had at least 100 people screaming!

I got the course pretty dialed in practice and was feeling real good about putting in a good race run and hopefully scoring a solid position.

Coming out of the gate I got a really good sprint which got me pumped up straight away and I rode the first few sections so much better than I had until I got down to where the huge amount of spectators were and managed to get way too excited and hit a steep rock roll in too fast and absolutely blow up at the bottom (hard enough to tear the top of my knee pad apart). Not ideal in front of where everyone was watching! I got going again and after getting myself sorted and back into the game I opened it up and rode the section in the trees way faster than I had in practice and after scrubbing my way through the super cross section managed to get a front flat about 45 seconds from the finish line even with running tubeless! I was pretty bummed and rolled my way down into the finish not particularly happy with my race.

But after checking the results I saw I still managed to pull 32nd so it was terrible, obviously not what I was hoping for but with all the mistakes it really got my confidence up knowing i'm riding well coming into the last few races which are all pretty big.

Ive got a couple of helmet cam videos but im not too technological so its taking a bit of time to work out how to post them up! hopefully one day soon though!

The most magical place on earth

2010-08-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

Nope im not at Disney Land, im at the other most magical place on earth. Whistler, BC!

This place is absolute heaven for anyone who rides a bike, with more trails you can possibly handle in one day on the mountain and awesome xc rides all over the place it makes for an amazing trip.

I was lucky enough to catch a ride up here after Crankworx, CO with my team mate from last year Ryan Condrashoff and have spent the last 3 days just hanging out and doing downhill runs!

Keep an eye out for more posts with some Go Pro footage of some of the tracks just to make you all jealous!

winter park = rain!

2010-08-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

After a relaxing break at home for a month to catch up with my Fiancee Katie and see the family I flew back into the US to head to the forth round of the Pro GRT series being held at Winter Park, Colorado as part of the Crankworx Colorado event. Having never raced there before I wasn't too sure what to expect of the race, all I had heard was that it was really long and physical so I was hoping my fitness hadn't faded too much after being sick for two weeks before the race.

With a nice short drive of twenty hours from Southern California we turned up on Wednesday afternoon and found the place we were staying and got settled in. After a sleep in Thursday morning we headed up to the event to check out the track and get some early practice runs in. After the first run down it was mixed feelings with my team mate brad and myself both wondering how we were going to survive racing a run that felt like it took nearly ten minutes to get down but was so much fun at the same time. With rain looming on the horizon we decided to try get in another run for the day but just as we got to the top of the hill it started dumping down on us and we had the wildest run in a torrential down pour.

Luckily the rain held off over Friday and Saturdays practice sessions which made for a really fast track with all the roots and mud holes drying out.

Sundays forecast wasn't looking quite so good, although the whole week had shown thunderstorms sunday had the highest chance of rain but after a dry practice it was looking like we might make it through the day before it rained. Pro qualifying went on straight after practice so I was first down the hill at 10.30am eventually ending up 8^th with a resonably conservative run trying to save energy for the finals.

Once qualifying was done the amature classes started racing on a nice dry track until about half way through the skys opened up once again with heavy rain and thunder and lightening causing the chairlift to stop and hold things up for a while. With the Pro race runs scheduled to start at 3.30pm we were clinging to hope that the rain might pass over by then but it kept on coming down steadily all afternoon with random clear patches followed by more heavy run.

Unfortunately I was one of the people that got some of the worst rain from what ive heard but I had got prepared back in the pits with tear offs and an extension on my helmet visor in an attempt to keep as much water out of my vision as possible which ended up paying off for me coming down into 3^rd place with a resonably clean run minus one near massive crash blowing both feet off the pedals but just managing to hold on to get going again.

In the ended my run held on to get me 4^th place on the day so in the conditions im really stoked with how the whole weekend went and it was great to get another podium in the Pro GRT and hopefully get myself up in to the top 5 overall with the points from this race.

Next on the event list is Crankworx in Whistler, Canada starting on the 6^th and running through until the 15^th so im pretty excited to get back up there and get lots of riding and training in before the next world cup downhill round being held at Windham, New York where I actually won a US National round in 2008 so im really looking forward to heading back there.

I also just found out that I have made the New Zealand World Championships downhill team again for the 6^th year in a row which will be awesome to be able to put the New Zealand jersey on once again in Mt Saint Anne, Canada on September 5^th.

Once again I cant thank team DRD/Tomac enough for all the support this season and thanks to all the team sponsors keeping our bikes running!

East to West

2010-06-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

Im back on the west coast again now hanging out at the Bike Vault getting my bike rebuilt and back into race spec after our 3 week trip on the road to the Plattekill Pro GRT, US open and the Angel Fire MSC race.

Plattekill went well but the US open and Angel Fire I just struggled with crashes and maybe pushing a little too hard.

I felt great on the track in New Jersey at the US open, it was rocky, fast and when you opened it up it got pretty wild so I was enjoying it a lot and was confident of putting another good run in after my podium at Plattekill.

The weekend had some really random weather, the first day we were riding before practice it was about 32 degrees celcius and you couldnt even ride to the lift without sweating! Then over the course of the next 3 days it went from cold to hot to a huge thunder storm then back to hot again just in time to dry the track up for race day!

The rain before qualifying was enough to get the track pretty slippery and I spent all morning crashing, my first run involved 2 big crashes and one off course wash out, I was pretty fed up after that run because i cant remember having a run that bad in a very long time! But I managed to get it together over the next couple of runs and get comfortable again in time for qualifying.

Qualifying started out good but then about a quarter of the way into my run i second guessed one of my lines and went over the bars, scambling to get my bike and get going again i managed to ride the rest of the course pretty well and make it down in 43rd place with only the top 50 making it into finals! talk about stressed waiting for the results to come out!

After another night of rain before the finals I was sure the track was going to be soaked but after my first practice run I was surprised to find probably the driest track wed had all weekend so I was pretty happy and looking forward to racing.

The cool thing about Diablo freeride park is that its quick and easy to do runs so right before my race run I went up and did a warm up run down one of the other tracks to get loosened up after sitting round for a few hours.

Once again my run started out good and I was feeling really good on course untill about 10 seconds where i crashed in qualifying I managed to screw up my line going through the technical rock section on the track and ended up over the bars then getting hit in the head by my bike.

That was basically the end of any chance of a good result but I got going again and pushed as hard as possible to the bottom and ended up finishing 33rd so better than my qualifying time but definately not in my top 10 goal.

After the open finished it was back on the road that night and headed back across the country on another huge drive, the team van was heading back to California and I was stopping in Albuquerque, New Mexico to head to the Mountain State Cup race at Angel Fire.

I won the race there in 2008 so I was really hoping to put another race like that together when I got there because i really enjoy the track but once I got there I found they had changed it to the track they raced the world cup on back in 2005 which they had also ran a 12 hour downhill enduro on at the end of last year so needless to say it was pretty beat up and slow.

I stuggled the whole weekend from run number 1 to get comfortable on the course and spent the whole of practice trying to get my suspension set up so I wasn't getting so beaten up on the course. The whole weekend was record temperatures up there so there was no worry of rain or a wet track, it was more just trying to stay hydrated and not get sun burnt!

By the time qualifying rolled around I felt better on course but still not 100% so I wanted to put in a good run to see how I stood but about a minute in I got caught up on a rock and had another over the bars crash resulting in being really winded and having to sit on the side of the course for a while to get my breath back. I didnt realise how bad it was untill I got down and was sitting in the pits and realised my chest and back were still aching and it was hurting to take deep breaths.

I was still motivated to try pull a good result so I pushed hard in finals and was putting together by far the best run I had all weekend even with the pain from my chest nagging me. But once again disaster struck within 30 seconds from the finish line in the last set of trees, I pushed way too hard going through on of the last turns and just washed out of the turn and into some trees aparently hard enough to rip a lot of bark off so I found out afterwards!

Salvaging what I could I ended up in 16th place which was well behind my goal.

Although it wasn't a good race I still took a lot away from the race and I feel like I know exactly what I need to do for the next race so now ive got a couple of weeks to relax and get ready for the next Pro GRT at Tahoe on the 26th then its home for a month for a break!

News and stuff

2010-06-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update today, im currently in Albuquerque, New Mexico hanging out with American racer Chris Boice getting ready to head to Angel Fire tomorrow for the Mountain States Cup thats on this weekend. I won here in 2008 so hopefully this weekend I can go for a repeat to make up for the horrible race I had at the US Open last weekend.

I managed to crash in both my qualifying and race runs there, luckily i got up kinda quick from my qualifying crash as they only take the top 50 and I made it through in 43rd. My race run was no better, I ended up going over the bars about 10 seconds further down the track from where I crashed in qualifying. Luckily it was also the most crowded spectator section on the track so plenty of people got to see me each shit.

I ended up finishing 34th which i was pretty surprised with cause it was a decent crash and looking at times I feel like i could of been well up there.

keep an eye out for a bit more detailed report from the US Open, hopefully with some pictures too

5th at Pro GRT Round two!

2010-05-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

One month ago exactly I was sitting in the emergency room of the Nelson Hospital with one hell of a sore right hand which ended up being a fractured metacarpal bone in my hand just below my index finger. There I was thinking things probly werent looking good as the doctor decided to stress me out by telling me my scaphoid bone may be broken but it was too hard to tell as they dont show up straight away, great! For those of you who dont know about the scaphoid its a stupid little bone in your hand down between the bottom of your thumb and your wrist and is a bitch to heal usually taking like 6 weeks.

Well luckily I was taking a trip to Dunedin to see my Fiancee so while I was there I went and saw a doctor at the New Zealand academy of Sport and got it rechecked again (3rd opinion as id already seen another doctor in nelson). After some more x rays it was all clear and I was ready to get back on the bike but with one problem, the knuckle in my thumb was still very swollen (and still isnt much better) so I decided to not risk and wait as long as possible so the first day at plattekill was my first day back on a bike in was seemed like for ever!First run was a bit dicey but it didnt long to get back into the rhythm and straight away the new 2011 Fox suspension was running like a charm, after a change up to a heavier spring they were amazing!

Looking at the weather forecare earlier in the week we spent all weekend waiting for the rain it finally showed up Saturday night just in time to wet the track before race day but it passed over pretty quickly and really just ended up making things better by the time we raced in the afternoon.After one slippery practice run first thing in the morning I was ready for qualifying and decided to just take it easy and have a clean run and see how it went. There was still some pretty slick spots but it was beginning to dry up a lot and after getting down pretty clean I was sitting in 13th.

After a nap in the van and a long time waiting round it was time to race, heading up the chair lift I heard a few of the chicks times and noticed how much faster they were in their race so I figured it must of dried up a lot so it was time to hang it out in the finals and push it a harder.

My race run ended up being pretty good bar a couple of minor mistakes and once I got out into the open flat sections at the end I just put my head down and sprinted as hard as possible knowing the suffering would ended pretty soon! Coming through the line on 2.47.99 I went into 1st which was an awesome feeling, its been a while since ive had a race like that. I ended up sitting in the hot seat for quite a few riders until #4 qualifier and good friend Justin Leov came down and bumped out, by then my time was guaranteed for a top 5 so I was stoked!

I couldn't of asked for a much better start to the season standing on the podium with 4 factory world cup riders!

Were in Vernon, New Jersey now for the US Open of Downhill which is on this weekend, $7500 for the win so I think it might be a death or glory run this weekend!

A history lesson

2010-05-11T02:42:00.000-07:00

Just found this over on Vital MTB, the 1994 Reebok Eliminator!

2010 Schedule

2010-05-10T01:29:00.000-07:00

For anyone out there in the land of the internet that keeps on eye on this little blog heres my schedule for this season so you can see where im gonna be.

May 15-16: Golden State Downhill - Fontana, CA

May 22-23 : Pro GRT round 2 - Plattekill, NY

May 29-30: US Open - Diablo Freeride Park, NJ

June 5-6: VEGG #2 - Blue Mountain, PA

June 12-13: Gravity East Series round 2 - Seven Springs, PA

June19-20: Powerade Race series - Snowshoe, WV

June 26-27: Pro GRT round 3 - Lake Tahoe, CA

July 3-4:

July 10-11: Mountain States Cup - Snowmass, CO

July 17-18: US Champs - Sol Vista, CO

July 24-25:

August 1:Pro GRT round 4/Colorado Crankworx - Winterpark, CO

August 7-8: Mountain States Cup - Keystone, CO

August 14-15: Gravity East Series Round 6 - Killington, VT

August 21-22: Plattekill, NY

August 28-29: World Cup Finals - Windham, NY

September 4-5: World Championships - Mt Saint Anne, Canada

September 11-12: Pro GRT Finals - Whiteface, NY

Pro GRT #2 race course helmet cam video

2010-05-10T01:22:00.000-07:00

Just found this vid on the Sick Lines website of the first major race im doing this year in the US on May 23rd.

Become Geoff Ulmers head for a few minutes and see what the track looks like from a riders point of view.

Spoke Magazine Frankly Thursday with Kieran Bennett

2010-05-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

So in case anyone out there doesn't check out the best New Zealand mountain bike magazines blog and didn't see my mini interview in the regular Frankly Thursday check it out HERE

And if you don't check the Spoke Magazine site keep an eye on it for all sorts of local and international news www.spokemagazine.com

time to go, time to sell!

2010-05-04T00:10:00.000-07:00

Alright ive been slack on this again but things are gonna change this year im sure of it, maybe.

Anyway its nearly time to go back overseas so its time to clean out my shed, everything listed below needs to go so if you see anything you like leave a message, send me a text if youve got my number and facebook me. im open to offers!

-2009 Intense Tracer VP trail bike. $4500

-Formula R1 brake set F & R (brand new) $800

-661 Fenix Rad1987 motocross helmet, medium (brand new) $400

-661 Evolution Carbon downhill helmet, medium. $220

-661 EVO Knee pads, size M. Used once, basically brand new. $140

-Dean Optics goggles, 3 pairs all with new lenses. Red, White or Blue, $50 each

-Titanium Spring, 550x3.0 - will fit most shocks. $300

-Royal Elite Gloves, size M - 3 pairs all brand new. $40 each

-Royal X-fusion/Intense Race Team tops, size M - 2 @ $60 each

-Royal moto pants, red/white, size 34" - 2 brand new, $60 each or 1 pair used once for $50

-Royal DH shorts, black, medium - $60

Europe Part Un.

2009-07-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

Our first trip of the season was only a short 2 race trip which was to 2nd and 3rd rounds of the World Cup held in La Bresse, France and Valnord, Andorra.
After a fairly busy night after the first round of the Pro Gravity tour that was held at Port Angeles, WA we finally got packed up and on the road to Seattle International Airport at about 2am which seemed early but by the time we got there we missed our first flight heading to LA but luckily just had to wait a couple of hours and got another flight there in time to quickly get some nutritious Burger King for dinner then realised while we were in line we were actually getting called to the plane, turns out the 4 of us were the last people left to board so we had to do a bit of a sprint through the airport to the gate.
Our flight to France was on Air NZ so all the guys got to see how good their service is, we actually ended up getting two rows of 4 seats in the middle of the plane so with only 2 of us in each row it made for a bit more of a comfortable trip.
This was the first World Cup La Bresse has ever run and it turns out its in the middle of no where so after about 3 hours of driving through the mountains we ended up where we started with no idea where to go, after a quick drive around to find some wireless internet to steal we ended up in a car park at about 2am trying to find directions. That was untill the cops blocked us in and started getting quite grumpy, turns out they ended up being quite nice after they realised we were lost tourists and they ended up escorting us about half way to La Bresse.
After spending half of the next day asleep in our awesome log cabin accomodation I woke up to find out I had caught some kind of cough/flu which gave me one of the worst coughs ive ever had, it hit me really hard in my chest so i was constantly coughing and struggling to really breath normally.

Practice in La Bresse was the hardest practice ive ever had to do, I would get about a minute into the run and have to stop to be able to breath again, my chest would just tighten up and make me start coughing again.
Over the course of the weekend i think i ended up doing a total of 7 runs which is usually what I will do on the first day of practice to learn the track.
With qualifying being the first full run of the track for me I was a bit worried I might not be able to actually hold it together for the full run but making it to the finish line i had a decent qualifyer and was somewhere in the 50s making top 80 so I was happy.
After random rain all through the weekend it showed up again just in time for race runs with no warning, not expecting it i was sitting in the tent at the top of the hill with no tear offs on my goggles watching as is was pissing down just minutes before my run. Getting into the start gate it was still pouring rain so I had no choice but to try hold it together as good as possible.
After about the first 30 seconds my goggles were covered in rain spots making it hard to see but the track was awesome in the wet and I was having heaps of fun. Unfortunately though I ended up making a couple of anoying mistakes because of slick spots catching me out and ended up only holding it together enough for 72nd which was disappointing.

After La Bresse it was onto Andorra for the next round of the World Cup, with a similar beginning to the last trip we made it our accomodation at about 3am but found the keys in the door so we got to actually get some sleep for that night.
Having raced in Andorra last year I was pretty familiar with it so I didnt end up walking the track and just went straight into a very wet practice to find the track was identical to last year and didnt even look like they had done any work to it since last year so lots of braking bumps and exposed roots which made it tough but was awesome to have a challenging course.
By race day the track was some good deep ruts and was getting fast and even more fun. Qualifying was rough and after an off track moment I got it back together and made it through to the finals somewhere in the 60s.
After a bite to eat for lunch and a bit of a break it was back up the hill for finals after my mechanic Mike D had got my bike into race spec and running smooth. I put a good run together except for a minor moment where i was headed straight off the track but got it back together and had a lot of fun getting wild for the rest of the run ending up in 47th place, my best world cup finish so far for the season, the craziest part was my team mate Ryan finished in 48th only .01 behind me!

USA Pro gravity tour no.1

2009-06-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

Next on the list was the very first event for the brand new Pro Gravity Tour that has been started in the US and being run by my good friend Jeremiah Dylan Dean.
The race was being held in Port Angeles, Washington which I was stoked with because I raced one of the Fluidride Cups there at the end of last season so I was excited to go back there again.
It was decided during the week before we needed a better set up in the van so me, Ryan and Tyler got out the tape measure and got all the measurements for the inside of the van then I went to work with a pen and paper and came up with a plan that I was pretty sure would work!
So after a shopping trip to Home Depot(same sort of thing as Mitre 10 mega) to get supplies it was all on, I had a plan in my mind and I went to it making some minor modifications as I went.
The result worked out pretty awesome and now the bikes go in and out o the van a lot easier and dont get destroyed for being banged together.

After a few hours of packing we had everything loaded and started our drive at about 2am on our 13 or so hour drive to Port Angeles, with a couple of pit stops and breakfast at Dennys we made it to PA in one piece and ready to get set up for practice the next day.

The track we raced was different to the one I raced last year but it was still an awesome track with some cool jumps and tech sections to keep you on your toes. I was having fun all through practice and started to get pretty agressive through some sections as I got more and more confident untill a tree decided to jump out in front of me on the fastest part of the track and catch my shoulder, luckily it didnt do any damage except for a bit of bruising so I was good to go again for qualifying that afternoon.
I had a resonably conservative qualifying run and came down in 3rd place so I was happy and looking forward to finals the next day knowing I had a lot more time left in me for the final run.
I did the usual couple of practice runs I allways do on race day morning and felt good to put a solid run together that would hopefully be good enough for the win. My race run started out good and I hit the first half of the track really good and felt confident in myself untill disaster struck and something hit my chain guide sending me flying over the bars and straight to the top of my head, dazed I got up as fast as possible and tried to get what result I could with the rest of my run. Unfortunately the crash had cost me a lot of time and I ended up finishing somewhere just insid the top 30.
I didnt realise untill later while I was getting changed I happened to glance at my helmet and noticed a crack, it turns out that I had basically snapped my brand new custom painted helmet through two places! I was gutted but looking back it was better to break my helmet than my neck, I feel it was proof that neck braces are worth wearing because the reason the helmet broke was because when i crashed my helmet got so compressed into the brace it broke the helmet!
A delayed concussion decided to show up later that night aswell which wasnt very fun, it made packing a complete mission and all I wanted to do was sleep.
The next morning it was on the road again at 2am! This time on the road back into Seattle headed for the airport so Mike D, Theo, Ryan and myself could catch our flight to France for the 2nd round of the world cup series.

The begining of another season

2009-06-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

Ive been a bit slow (slack) at updating my blog this year so i thought id try get back into it and get some reports up about the races ive been at so far this season.

After a few weeks of testing and training in California my team mate Ryan Condrashoff and I flew out to South Africa for the first round of the World Cup downhill series being held in Pietermaritzburg, neither of us had ever been there before so it was a big learning curve. Pretty soon we found out the places not to go and where to stay clear of after the sun went down!
Our travel didnt end up working out too well and we turned up the afternoon before practice started, that wasnt too bad except that our bikes were missing and we had no idea where we were going! so with the map we got off the world cup website we headed for the track but after about 2 hours of driving we got to where the map said the race was but turns out it definately wasnt there!
so on pure instinct we ended up finding the track about another half hour later.
Luckily our bikes turned up later that evening so we did a quick bike building session and got ready for practice.
The track was really different to anything we usually race on, it started off on a cool steep tech section which quickly flattened out to the point where it actually had a long gradual uphill before it dropped back down into the trees again before jumping out into the 4x track which basically saw it out to the finish line. It was definately the flattest world cup track ive ever seen.
Unfortunately on the Friday morning, qualifying day, I woke up to a nice dose of food poisoning and was quickly in the bathroom throwing up and feeling horrible. I ended up spending the whole day sleeping in the car while Ryan practiced and only managed to get myself out and ready for my qualifying run after eating a total of one piece of toast and a banana the whole day.
I was amazed to actually hold a run together considering it was my first of the day and actually make the top 80 for the finals in 65th.
I had the track pretty sorted so I decided to take Saturdays practice session off so I could rest up and try get some energy back after the food poisoning had hit me.
Race day came around quickly and I felt as ready as I could be to race so after a couple of practice runs in the morning I was excited for finals because I felt like I could pull out a decent result on a track that didnt really suit me.
My race run started off good hitting the first couple of sections good then on basically the last technical spot in the trees i washed out my front wheel at the top of a steep rock face that you had to brake really hard for. With my bike going out from underneith me I had no where to go but over the top and slid down the rock face (which had chicken mesh on it) into more rocks at the bottom then had to climb back up to get my bike. Unfortunately it was all over from that point for me, I got back on and finished my run but id lost too much time during the crash to salvage a good results so I made my way to bottom and finished up 80th of 82 so definately not the way I wanted to start my world cup year but no major injuries from the crash so it was all good.

After 2 days of flying back to the US it was one night in a sort of familiar bed then back on the road to the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, California. Luckily for me and Ryan we got it easy and got to make our own way down the race in the little red race truck since we had got back the night before.
I was pretty excited for Sea Otter since ive never been before so it was cool to see how big everything was. The race is held at the famous Laguna Seca car racing track so it was awesome to see the actual size of that too but i really just wanted to get a car out there and go for a hot lap!
The DH track at Sea Otter is fairly flat and pedally so everyone on the team ended up racing on our Intense Tracer's, a 6" travel all mountain bike with the new X-Fusion Vengance all mountain fork up front which was being released to the public at the event.
Sea Otter allways has a pretty big media presence which is good because the track has lots of jumps and cool corners to photograph so it was a good chance to get shots of the new X-fusion fork in action so I did probly twice the amount of runs I usually would at a race!
My race went pretty good except for one decent mistake which cost a bit of time but it was a lot of fun and had an awesome spectator turn out which was good to see. I ended up finishing in 32nd which was a bit worse than I expected but I learnt a lot of things that I can take into next year and I think I can pull out a far better result.

Custom!

2009-05-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

Just thought id post a couple of pics up of the awesome 661 evolution helmet that Jeremiah from Dylan Dean Designs painted for me for the season. Ive known Jeremiah since I started racing in the US in 2006 and hes been a good friend ever since and has an amazing eye when it comes to helmet painting. I gave him some colours and a basic idea for my helmet and he worked his magic on it and turned it into something sick, check it out.

Unfortunately on the 2nd day of wearing it I managed to land on my head and write it off which was pretty gutting, I think I felt worse for Jeremiah after all the effort he had put into it for me! Luckily though version #2 is in the process and should be on my head sometime soon!
check out www.dylandeandesigns.com for more of his work!

2009 is going live

2009-04-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

Ive been in the US now for about 3 weeks and now im 2 days out from heading for the first round of the Downhill World Cup in South Africa with my new team mate American Ryan Condroshoff.
Everything is very new for me this season, after the last 3 years privateering ive got the full back up of the team which is awesome, right now my mechanic Mike D is stripping down my bike completely and rebuilding it so its like and then boxing it up ready for the flight. I dont know what to do with all my free time!
Im on a new bike for the first time in 2 years and it is awesome, we are racing protoype Intense M6evo frames which are unreal, the frames were handbuilt and so far is the best riding bike ive ever had. super light too with mine at 37.9 pounds at the moment.Im pretty excited about South Africa, the track looks good from some photos ive seen and its somewhere new ive never been so it should be a good trip, ive heard theres some awesome beaches around where we are heading too so that could fill in a bit of spare time if we have any.

Its official, im on team X-Fusion/Intense for 2009!

2009-01-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

After about 3 months of holding my tounge(sort of) about this deal its now offically out for everyone to see.
Its gonna be a huge change for me this season being able to focus on my racing and training and not having to worry about how im going to afford to get to the next race! Im excited to start racing over seas and im working hard to be fit and ready for it.

Check out the official press release:

PRESS RELEASE

X-Fusion Shox Announces 2009 X-Fusion/Intense Factory Race Program And Roster.

Here at X-Fusion we love racing and the lifestyle that goes along with it. After two successful race and media campaigns in North America X-Fusion has decided to take it to another level. We are going International!

We will have a four rider team in 2009 with two riders putting in a full worldcup effort and the other two making a positive impact on the North American race scene. We have joined force with Intense Cycles to make sure our riders are on the best bikes possible when attacking a race course or shralping for Theo Dilworth's camera lens. We are very excited to be working with one of the most prestigious and influential companies in the industry.

Our worldcup team will be made up of the X-Fusion veteran Ryan Condrashoff and the newly signed rider out of New Zealand, Kieran Bennett. Ryan placed 5th last year at US National Champs in DH and made a very strong statement at the two Canadian worldcups proving he can ride at the level needed to be competitive. Ryan states, "For me being on X-Fusion/Intense is a dream come true. I love working with everyone at X-Fusion. They're an awesome company to be involved with and now to be on Intense Cycles, I know I couldn't be on a better bike!"

Kieran Bennett had an amazing season last year with almost zero support. He was the 2008 Oceana DH Champion, Had two NMBS victories and was the highest ranked privateer at worlds last year at 13th. We are excited to see what he will be able to do with the full support of a race team in 2009. He also is excited as he commented, "I'm stoked to be joining the X-Fusion/ Intense team for 2009!"

The North American team will consist of new up and comer in the pro ranks Tyler Wilson, and myself, John Hauer. Tyler Wilson has been getting coached by the DH legend Chris Kovarik and has tons of motivation and drive that will help him continue his success. As far as myself goes, I am absolutely pumped to be in the position to help out X-Fusion and these riders grow together and have tons of fun doing it. I will be focusing on the events that I feel are the most fun and that challenge me personally.

This season is going to be eventful and exciting and I really feel we have a great group of guys. I'm also excited to have our Mechanic Mike D with us for another season as well as our video mastermind Theo Dilworth. Our plan for 2009 is to create a ton of media so people can enjoy our riding, our trips and our lifestyles with us all season long.

Lastly, I would like to thank all the sponsors that came together to help make this possible. Huge Thanks too…

X-Fusion
Intense Cycles
Six Six One
Royal
Sunline
Formula Brakes
Gamut USA
Intense Tire Systems
Crankbrothers
WTB
Dean Optics

The off season

2008-11-22T19:25:00.000-08:00

Im pretty well into the off season now which is mint, its good to have some time at home instead of constant travel and never being in one place for more than a week like usual.

Ive been back working full time to pay off the last couple of seasons debt from racing and im almost all squared up even with the purchase of an 08 RMZ250 to keep me entertained while im at home!
As some of you may know ive signed a deal to race the full world cup series next year, its a dream come true to finally be getting paid and not have to deal with anything except training and racing. For those of you who don't know about it there will be an official press release out in December with all the details so youll have to wait untill then.
With everything set for next season already im really motivated and ive been training harder than ever so hopefully it all comes together for me. Its such a huge weight off my shoulders not having to deal with anything like previous years and has really let me focus on my training for once.
Ive been riding a bit of downhill back here but unfortunately im going to be having a few weeks off the bike, not by choice but for a couple of reasons. Ive been asked to send my Ironhorse Sunday back early so I wont have a bike untill my new team sends me out a bike early next year and also because yesterday we had the 2nd round of the Top of the south DH series on the Kaka Hill track here in Nelson, after a bit of rain I decided to take it easy for my first race run which didnt work out to well as you can see in the photos...
After 3 and 1/2 hours at the Hospital I left with 5 internal stitches and 12 holding it together on the outside! The cut was aparently to the bone in spot so now I can't really use my left arm for much for a couple of weeks. Luckily nothing is broken which is a bonus so once the stitches are out ill be back into action again.

Because of my bike situation it doesn't look like ill be making it to any of the North Island DH rounds so my first race back will most likely be the Dunedin round of the Nationals. This also means ill get to spend a bit more time at home this summer which will be good to get in some spear fishing and wake boarding.

The end of another season...

2008-09-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

Once again another season is done and in the books, although it was shorter than last year for me this one has been busy! ive had 2 weekends break the whole season and in those two weekends I was riding so I havent really stopped in the last 4 1/2 months.
Its been a break out year for me though and im really happy with how it has all played out.
I have achieved all the goals set out for myself at the start of the year, even some that I thought may have been a little unrealistic like a top 20 at the World Championships and I placed 13th so that was awesome.
There has been a lot of travelling this year aswell with about 150 hours spent in a van driving in the US alone and about 90 hours spent in planes over the whole season.

Im taking a bit of a break now to try and let a couple of small injuries heal up and let my body recover! Im not sure how long it will last though because I can't wait to get back on a moto.
Keep an eye out though because this isnt the end of my blog updates yet, ill be posting up any interesting news or anything exciting that happens during the off season.

Above: Mt Saint Anne

Below: Bromont

Photos curtesy of Sven Martin.
www.svenmartinphotography.com
Thanks Sven!

Canberra World Cup DH

2008-09-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

After 4 1/2 months of chasing races around the world Canberra, Australia was my last stop for the 2008 season.
Canberra is hosting the World Championships in 2009 so I was really looking forward to this race so I could get an early look at the track and see what I will be up against for next year.
After hearing everyones views on the track over the season who had already ridden it I had fairly low expectations of seeing a quality track when I got to Mt Stromlo on Thursday morning for practice. The first thing I noticed was that who ever named it Mt Stromlo should of called it Stromlo Hill because its definately the smallest mountain/hill ive raced on. But once I made it onto the track I was pretty blown away by what they had laid out up there, the track was really good with a couple of decent rock gardens, plenty of jumps and some interesting little things like a whoop/roller/rythm section that was difficult to get through cleanly and also claimed Matti Lehikoinen braking both of his wrists after going over the bars. He should of had surgery by now back in Finland so hopefully he heals up quickly and is back on a bike soon.

Being so close to home we had a heap of New Zealanders come out which was good to see with Scolsy making his return to racing after breaking his ankle at the Oceania Champs in March. I think we had 15 men racing all up which was awesome.

The first 3 days of practice were perfect weather, although a little chilly it was nice and sunny so everyone was enjoying it and getting in plenty of runs then of course like nearly every race this season the rain showed up especially for race day! The first rain in 4 months according to a local.
The track is really hard packed and sandy so the rain didnt really affect it apart from the last 30 seconds of sprinting which turned into a bog! It was definately a huge fitness tester of who could push through the pain and keep sprinting the whole way, Minnaar showed everyone just how strong he was and pulled a 4.7 second winning margin!
My race run went pretty well, I hit all of my lines and had a good run except for bending a pedal in the whoops section which made it really awkward sprinting at the end but im still stoked with 30th place considering that.
The main thing about this race is that I found out exactly where I need to work on my fitness to be a contender for next years world champs.

Whistler - Crank Worx

2008-08-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

My time in Whistler has come to an end again for another year, after almost two weeks here ive spent too much money so its time to leave.
Apart from going over the bars on a jump the first day I was here ive had a pretty good time, I decided to only do the Garbanzo DH race this year and thats to the crash I mentioned before Garbanzo sucked. I only got one practice run down the whole course the morning of the race so I was pretty much racing blind and then after crashing about 1 minute into my run it just kept getting worse with about another 3 crashes over the following 14 mins of the race!
The rest of the time here has been good, I decided to make a holiday of it so I was riding every second day and on the off days going fishing, hanging out at the lake and just generally not doing too much. Its been a pretty full on season with only 1 weekend off racing up untill this point so it was good to relax for once.

It was cool watching the rest of the racing and slopestyle stuff aswell, Sam Hill owned the Canadian Open track and won by 2 seconds which was good to see and Andreu Lacondeguy is rediculous, thats about all I can say after watching his winning run at the slopestyle competition.

From here im going to Seattle to race the Fluidride Cup this weekend and then I fly out on Monday to Australia for the World Cup round in Canberra to finish out the season.
Im looking forward to getting home again, but im not even going to get a chance to take time off and relax because 3 weeks after I get home im racing the 6 hour motocross enduro in Nelson so I will be back into training for that.

Looking for a ride for 2009

2008-08-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

I know its blatant self promotion but I'm hoping someone might see this and be able to help out!
First up I just want to clear up that I haven't signed with the ODI/Southridge team, basically the owner of the team just wanted to help me out how ever he could in exchange for me wearing the team jersey at the remaining US national rounds in 2008 so I have nothing set up with them for 2009 at this stage.

2008 has been a pretty huge season for me, after almost not racing the international season due to lack of funding I managed to get enough of a budget through working full time to barely scrape by and race 5 of the 7 DH world cup rounds and also 3 of the 5 USA national series rounds.
Even with the late decision to race this season I still managed to achieve all of my racing goals that I had set myself at the end of last season and now the only one left to fulfill is to be picked up by a race team.

2008 Results:
Oceania Downhill Champion
13th World Downhill Championships
Currently Ranked 22nd in UCI DH Points (top privateer)
1st USA NORBA Round 3
6th USA NORBA Round 4
1st USA NORBA round 5
Currently 2nd Overall in NORBA Points
50th Downhill World Cup - Ft William
34th Downhill World Cup - Mt Saint Anne
33rd Downhill World Cup - Bromont
Currently Ranked 61st Overall in the DH World Cup
1st 2008 Skyline DH Invitational

2008 Media:
NZ Mountainbiker magazine March issue - 3 photos
NZ Mountainbiker magazine August issue - 1 photo
Decline Magazine - photos
Pinnedmtb.com - photos/press release
Dean Optics - Photo used on promotional material
Bike NZ magazine
Blog posts upload directly to Vorb.org.nz home page

Contact me at kieranbennett@hotmail.com

Bromont DH World Cup Race Day Report

2008-08-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

I've never been so relieved to get a race over and done with than this weekend, for some reason I just couldn't get comfortable riding the track here in Bromont. When I walked the course on Wednesday I thought I was really going to enjoy the track but once I got on course on my bike I couldn't find any flow and just found it really difficult to get any speed up, every time I would try opening it up a bit I would end up on the ground and that is exactly how both days of practice ended up for me.

I was a little bit worried I wasn't going to have the speed to qualify in the top 80 but I just tried to push that out of my head and get a clean qualifying run out of the way so I could focus on the finals. I made a couple of mistakes during my qualifier but still managed to run a 3.04 which put me in around 55Th place so I made it through to the finals pretty easily.

Just before the girls started race runs it started raining again which I think most people were dreading including me, luckily it didn't last too long but I was still cautious through a few sections during my race run because I wasn't sure how slippery they would be. I had a fairly clean run with only one big mistake that would of lost me a little over a second but I still managed to run a 3.01 so I was quicker in my race run but still not under the 3min mark where I wanted to be. Still I managed to place 1 spot better than last weekend with a 33rd so it wasn't too bad.

Now were just getting ready to pack up the van again for another cross country trip this time to Whistler, BC for Crank Worx which starts on the 17th.

Bromont World Cup DH Report #2

2008-08-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

It finally stopped raining last night around 9pm which was a bonus, I was looking forward to riding untill I got to the track and saw that it was still saturated and sloppy so I was pretty bummed, I was hoping it had dried up but I think it actually got slipperier and there was even more standing water on the track than yesterday.

I only managed 3 runs today because once again I managed to send myself into the ground and my bike hurtling about 30 meters before it finally came to a stop, luckily I only broke my shifter and got a couple of grazes but I was pretty over it after that.

Unfortunately Bryn Atkinson had a huge crash and it sounds like hes out with possible broken ribs and maybe a broken wrist which sucks, hes an awesome guy and is fast as hell.

Race day tomorrow so look out for an update in the afternoon sometime

Bromont World Cup DH Report #1

2008-07-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

Day one is in the books and it wasn't a very exciting one, I only managed two runs after a big crash onto my head courtesy of clipping my pedal on a tree.
The course here is kind of strange, the top section is really good with some awesome rocky and rooty sections through the trees then it all of a sudden goes really flat with horrible hard pack bermed turns that follows along beside the 4x track then a final big jump out of the woods onto the last jump of the 4x. It goes from awesome to boring really quickly, and its super short, i think it will be under 3 minutes easily.
The 4x looks awesome for once, its over 1 minute long and has some huge jumps, a massive first berm, a rock section and all sorts of other stuff to catch people out on, it should be good racing if it stays dry.
Thats the other thing, in the last 24 hours weve had 3 big thunder storms come through and dump rain so the tracks are so sloppy right now, hopefully it drys out a bit because it was a mess today on the DH.

And on a completely random note I decided I needed some pictures up here for once so I found a couple of racing ones,

This one is from my race run at Ft William this year

And this is a random one of me I found on the BBC website from practice at the World Championships in Rotorua from 2006.

Dean Optics

2008-07-29T08:30:00.001-07:00

Just thought id give my good friend Jeremiah Dean's new venture a plug here, after working as a sponsorship manager for a couple of eye wear company's he has decided to go out on his own and bring out a new goggle into the MTB market. His company is called Dean Optics and is already starting to take off big time here in the US with multiple National wins and podiums gaining him a lot of exposure.
Ive been running the trooper goggle all season and im stoked on it, the frame is a good size and fits inside all helmets comfortably and the lenses come with tear off posts so you dont have to worry about buying new lenses to run them.

Mt Saint Anne World Cup

2008-07-29T08:01:00.000-07:00

So I finally got the monkey off my back and qualified at Mt Saint Anne, 3rd time lucky aparently. After 2 years of bad luck in qualifying I put in a clean run and qualified 35th, I knew as long as i had a clean consistent run I would make it into the top 80 easily. I think this has been one of my problems in the past, putting too much pressure on myself for qualifying then blowing up, exactly what I did at my first world cup of the year in Andorra.
Mt Saint Anne has always been one of my favorite tracks and this year they kept it almost identical to last year apart from a couple of minor changes near the end which took out an up hill and made the track better.
The only real difference from last year was the fact that its been raining for the past 6 weeks so the track had some serious mud bogs in spots, I needed my moto to get through some of them! The UCI changed the schedule for this round as well so we raced on saturday instead of sunday like usual which also meant we only had two days of practice to get the course dialled. I only did a total of 6 practice runs over three days because the track was so similar to the other years I knew where i was going.

My run started good and I was feeling confident going through the first woods until I nearly blew off the track going into a flat pedally section so once I got going again I was trying to make up some time. I had a pretty solid split time considering my mistake but then going into the lower woods I tried changing a line at the last second and came to a complete stop in a rocky section where keeping speed was a major key.
Even with my mistakes I still managed to finish 34th which was a good result but definately not a top 20 where I wanted to be.

Im in Bromont now for the 2nd Canadian World Cup round being held this weekend then its a cross country drive to whistler to have some fun and do some Crank Worx events. Its kind of crazy that my season is almost over, only two world cup rounds to go then its back home for the summer.

moto cross and world cups

2008-07-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update for now, Just got into mt saint anne, canada for the downhill world cup round being held this week. the course sounds similar to previous years which is good because its sick. We got to put some input into the finish this morning and its going to be quick with some flat turns which will be fun.
Cam Cole, Amy Lair and me went to Unadilla, New York over the week to watch the AMA motocross round and it was definatley my non mountainbiking highlight of the year. Amy managed to get us VIP passes which got us into the pits full time and into hospitality areas and a whole bunch of other sweet stuff like that.
The racing was awesome and NZ privateer Cody Cooper almost ruined James Stewarts perfect season, he was right behind him the whole time which was awesome to see. We met him while the first lights moto was on and hes a really nice guy so hopefully he gets factory ride for next season!

International Win Number 2!

2008-07-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

Weve just finished here in Winham, New York and I just won my 2nd US National DH round this season! I won qualifying by close to 3 seconds in wet conditions after it dumped rain on us all morning.

It stopped raining basically straight after our qualifier so it was really dry by the time finals rolled around. I was pretty confident going into the finals but was a little nervous being the last starter. I had a really clean run and hit everything exactly how I wanted and came through the finish over 2 seconds up on 2nd place finisher Gerrit Beytagh.

Cam Cole finished up 3rd making it two podiums for the weekend after getting 2nd in slalom last night, Amy Laird backed up the good finishes with 2nd place in the womens DH

After DH Cam, Amy and myself headed back up the hill to race super d, this is the first time ive raced it and I was racing the track blind because I didnt get a chance to practice the course. The start was a Le Mans format mass start so it made it pretty fun.

I got a really good start and managed to get through the first turn in the lead and start sprinting, I held the lead for about the first minute then the XC guys started flying past on the first uphill. I was looking forward to the DH to make up some positions but going into the first single track I got a front flat tire which sucked, Cam Cole was right in front of me and got a rear flat in the exact same spot! Amy had bad luck aswell after getting a good start her back wheel fell out of her bike so she couldnt finish either.

Next weekend the US national champs are on and they don't let anyone not from America race so its an off weekend for me. Cam, Amy and me and going to head to the Unadilla AMA motocross national next weekend so its not all bad!

40+ hours driving later....

2008-07-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

So after 40+ hours driving later we finally made it to Windham, NY for the lone East coast race of the 2008 US national series. After sleeping in the van for 3 nights in rest stops I was pretty stoked to get into a condo and sleep in a real bed!

On first inspection of the hill we weren't expecting much of the track as the hill looked small and flat but once we got up the lift and started walking within the first 30 seconds of track we knew it was going to be good.

The course builder here has done an amazing job and this is by far the best US national track ive have ridden, its really natural and he was used the terrain well making a super fast, fun track which is better than a couple of the world cup rounds ive ridden this season.

My laptop is still out of commision as i havent managed to find a charger for it yet so ive still got a load of photos to post but cant get to them!

More updates to come on Sunday after the race has been run.

Broken Computers Suck

2008-07-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

Well not so much a broken computer but the charger for my laptop died so ive been stuck with limited internet access lately which has made it difficult to keep regular updates on here.
This last week ive been hanging out in Boulder, Colorado with Jess Vogt taking a bit of time off riding to hang out, Cam Cole and Amy Laird were there aswell so it was good to spend to spend some time with some other New Zealanders!
The highlight of the week was definately getting a chance to ride motocross at Thunder Valley which held a round of the AMA motocross nationals the weekend before, It was pretty eye opening seeing the size of some of the jumps but after a while I had got back into the moto and was jumping most of the stuff there.
Tomorrow were starting out trek to the East coast which is aparently about a 38 hour drive, we dont have to be there till Wednesday so were not gonna do too many hours driving at once hopefully.

When I finally get my laptop back up and running ive got a heap of photos to post up so keep an eye out like usual!

Deer Valley NMBS

2008-06-29T15:52:00.000-07:00

So weve just got done with the Deer Valley NMBS here in Park City, Utah. Its been a weekend of New Zealand domination in the gravity events!

First up Cam Cole dominated the slalom on saturday night beating Petr Hanak who has been on fire this year in gated racing.

Today Justin Leov absolutely destroyed the DH winning by about 6 seconds over Amiel Cavalier with Sam Blenkinsop in 3rd. I just missed out on the podium finishing 6th after my derailer decided to skip randomly through gears straight out of the gate so I had to basically roll all the flat sections of the course and try carry as much speed as possible. Cam Cole didn't have a great day and mechanical forced him off the track so he couldn't finish his run

After DH Sam, Justin and Cam raced the super D and once again a New Zealander took the win, Sam showed everyone how fit he is by taking the win over Amiel Cavalier by about 1 second. He put in the most impressive sprint through the bottom section of the course to the finish by far. Cam got his second podium of the weekend by placing 4th and unfortunately Justin Leov came through with a flat rear tire.

Tomorrow were heading out to Colorado to spend some time with American DH racer Cole Bangert at his house to do some riding and training before heading out to the east coast to race the Windham, New York National DH round.

13th at the World Championships!!

2008-06-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update for now as ive just got back from the race, as the title says I just pulled off 13th at the 2008 World Championships! This is my best World Champs result so im stoked.
We also had a solid showing in Juniors with Aari Barrett in 4th and Brook McDonald in 5th, they are both in their 1st year of juniors so watch out! Unfortunately Matt Walked had a huge crash near the bottom of the track and was taken away by ambulance, the good news is that he is ok, he only chipped a tooth and had got a few bumps and grazes. (see photos that will be up later)
Gee Atherton won the elite DH with Steve Peat in 2nd, Sam Hill was on a killer run untill he crashed on the last corner!
Justin Leov was the top NZ pro with I think an 8th place, Wyn Masters also pulled a solid result with 25th.
Scarlett Hagen came through in 9th to be the top NZ lady with Amy Laid in 16th.

Off to 4x now to watch Craig Pattle and Wyn Masters do some sweet whips!

Thunderstorm!

2008-06-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Weve just had a pretty decent thunder storm roll through Val Di Sole, the rain only lasted about 20 minutes so i don't think its going to affect the track much if at all.
4x qualifying was on this evening, Jarad Graves is top qualifier which is sick with the NZ guys spread out through out the pack;
25. 125 NZL19880203 COLE Cameron NZL
31. 93 NZL19900324 WALKER Matthew NZL
37. 110 NZL19870418 MASTERS Wyn NZL
47. 128 NZL19850125 PATTLE Craig NZL

4x seems to have turned into a bit too much of specialist sport lately which I think is making it a bit less exciting, theres only a few people racing both DH and 4x and three of them are from NZ (Matt, Wyn and Cameron) along with Filip Polc from Slovakia. Thats the only people I can pick from the results anyway.

World Championships Day Five.

2008-06-20T05:21:00.000-07:00

Another day is in the books and it has been pretty uneventful, most people spent practice double checking their lines since it has dried out considerably.
The weather looks like its going to stay fine for tomorrow which will be good, the track is getting stupidly fast now that it has mostly dried out. Scary fast in some spots.
Aparently 4x specialist and former world 4x champ Michael Prokop is out after breaking his collar bone last night in 4x practice so it basically looks like its going to be a race between Lopes and Graves for the title, im hoping graves pulls it off because hes a sick rider and deserves it after all the hard work he puts in.

Race day tomorrow so having a pretty casual afternoon back here at the hotel, don't want to be tired tomorrow!

World Championships Day Four. Part Three

2008-06-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

The UCI have finally put the full qualifying results up on their website and I was pretty surprised to see my name in 15th and 3rd fastest Kiwi! There were a few of the top guys further back because of crashes etc. and it was only qualifying so im not going to read too much into it but its good to know im on pace.

1. 2 GBR19850226 ATHERTON Gee GBR 2:45.68 3:24.81 50
Course length : 2250 m / 1.40 Mile - Average Speed : 39.55 Kmh / 24.57 Mph
2. 3 RSA19811113 MINNAAR Greg RSA 2:46.42 3:28.52 +3.71 40
3. 11 NZL19841020 LEOV Justin NZL 2:48.64 3:29.95 +5.14 30
4. 1 AUS19850721 HILL Samuel AUS 2:49.23 3:32.32 +7.51 25
5. 15 NZL19881028 BLENKINSOP Samuel NZL 2:53.61 3:35.72 + 10.91 22
15. 34 NZL19871202 BENNETT Kieran NZL 3:02.38 3:45.85 + 21.04 10
27. 49 NZL19880203 COLE Cameron NZL 3:06.87 3:50.70 + 25.89 3
37. 38 NZL19871011 SKINNER Michael NZL 3:10.80 3:56.50 + 31.69 3
42. 56 NZL19870418 MASTERS Wyn NZL 3:14.24 3:58.57 + 33.76 3

Unfortunately Nathan Rankin is out with a broken collar bone sustained at Andorra, he decided it would be best for him to sit out this race so could finish out the rest of the World Cup.

World Championships Day Four. Part Two

2008-06-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

Seedings over and all of the New Zealander's made it through the day without any injuries. Brook McDonald had a huge moment off the jump at the bottom of the track but managed to recover with a good time that put him into 3rd with Aari Barrett right behind him in 4th after having a huge over the bars crash near the top of the track.
Justin Leov was the top pro in 3rd with Sam Blenkinsop in 5th. Not sure where everyone else was as I haven't seen a full results list yet but when it comes out ill post the rest of the New Zealander's up here.

World Championships Day Four. Part one

2008-06-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update this morning, the sun is out once again and it looks like its going to be a good day.
We have qualifying this afternoon so hopefully some hot lines will come out that we can poach!

World Championships Day Three.

2008-06-18T07:24:00.001-07:00

I woke up today to blue skys and a hot day so I was stoked! Especially since Pros didn't practice untill 1pm so I got to have a pretty casual morning.
I walked the track with Wyn Masters while the Junior Men were practicing so we got to have a good look at how it was holding up and also found some good new lines. The track was drying out slowly over the day so by the time we got out it had dried considerably since the morning but was still really slippery and dodgy because of all the wet roots that you couldn't see so it was basically trying to hang on and avoid the roots as best as possible.
I did 3 runs practice and I felt pretty good last run so called it good at that. I haven't heard of anyone else breaking themselves since Dan Atherton yesterday so everyones still in as far as I know.

This mornings view from my hotel room:

NZ junior Terrance McDonald:

Turns out mullets are in over here:

World Championships Day Two.

2008-06-17T11:15:00.001-07:00

Day two is over and we finally got to ride our bikes!
It rained basically all of last night and drizzled most of the day today so practice was slippery with a lot of people crashing. Dan Atherton is out with a broken collarbone already which sucks since hes been on the gas in 4x this season.
The track was constantly changing so I only did two runs in the morning to get a feel for the track then called it good.
Nothing much else to report on from today except that the weather seems to clearing a bit so heres hoping it gets fine.

Team NZ downhill mechanic and 4x specialist
Craig Pattle:

A semi clean bike with a sweet number:

World Championships Day One.

2008-06-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

Today was the first official day of the World Championships and after what has felt like a month but was only a week we finally got to do something other than sit around the hotel!
Although it was only track inspection it was better than nothing. I took my camera up and got some photos of the course, as usual they don't even come close to showing the steepness and roughness of the course but should give you a pretty good idea of what were dealing with here.
On first inspections the track looks awesome and scary at the same time, its really loamy soil so its going to get blown out and there are roots everywhere so id imagine that by the end of the tomorrow its going to be a lot different.

Thats about all to report on today, ill be posting updates everyday after practice so bookmark this page!

blogupdating

2008-06-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

Just a quick one for today,
Im in val di sole, italy getting prepared for the world championships which are being held next weekend.
The DH course looks awesome, huge boulders, steep and lots of roots. its going to be absolute carnage if its wet so heres hoping it drys up because its been raining the last few days.
We havent managed to find a DH track to ride here yet for training so weve been doing some sweet XC riding on bikes that id estimate to be 1995 models at latest with no suspension and 1inch wide tires riding some pretty technical rocky trails but its the most fun ive had xc riding in a long time.
Apart from that there has been a lot of sitting around, watching tv and reading books!

Europa.

2008-06-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

Today has been the first day ive had a chance to actually sit down and write anything since I left the US! I just got into Ft William, Scotland for the world cup round so its good to be back into a country where people speak english and drive on the correct side of the road!
Last weekend I had the 2nd round of the Downhill World Cup on in Andorra which is a tiny country between Spain and France and is basically just built in a valley in the mountains, im pretty sure you could drive everywhere in the country in a day easily its so small.
Anyway after a (not so) lovely couple of flights from America I got on a Bus and made it to the place I was staying at to meet up with Brook MacDonald who is one of the Juniors on the NZ worlds team. Thursday morning I got to walk the track while practice was on and on first inspection I thought it looked like rubbish, it was narrow, slow and one lined and basically just made its way across the side of a hill, definately not a world cup caliber track.
After 2 days of practice I was finally beginning to enjoy the track a bit more and have some fun on it so I was feeling confident I could have a decent result here.
Unfortunately again I ruined my chance of making the finals at another world cup round, this time on the very first corner as I hit it a bit too fast and blew out through the tape losing about 10 seconds, i missed making the top 80 for qualifying by 1 second so I was gutted because I knew I can be consistently up in the top 30 if I stop making mistakes.

Practice for Ft William starts tomorrow at 10 so hopefully this weekend I will ride a bit more sensible and keep together for my runs! this course is long and brutal so it suits me well.

Angel Fire - No words, just pictures.

2008-06-04T11:27:00.001-07:00

Angel Fire Part 3, The Race.

2008-05-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

Its finally happened, I just won my first International Pro race!
The course had almost completely dried today except for a couple of the bogs that weren't drying so the rock section at the top of the course was rediculously fast and the flatter sections below that were a lot easier to get through as well since you weren't getting pushed off line constantly by the wet rocks.

I did one practice run in the morning which didn't go too well, about half way down the course I had a really good line that I think I was only one of the people hitting but unfortunately as I went to ride this I missed my timing picking the front wheel up over a rock and had a pretty big over the bars crash, I landed hard on my left hand, left knee and my head (luckily im running a Leatt Brace) which all felt ok at the time but once I was down in the pits my knee and hand starting hurting a lot which ruined my confidence a bit for my race run. Since I had about 6 hours till my race run I went back to condo and got onto icing them which helped a lot but there was still a bit of a nagging pain there.

My race run went pretty well, I knew if I didn't worry about everyone else and just focused on my own run that I could take the win so once I had got through the more difficult sections near the top I just tried to recover any energy that I could in the open stuff so I didnt blow out closer to the bottom.
I came through the line into 1st place 13 seconds faster than my qualifying time so I was stoked but the fastest qualifyer Aaron Gwin was still on course, watching the time tick by was a bit nerve racking but he had crashed and after a minute I knew it was mine.

Im currently in Boulder, Colorado right now getting ready to fly out to Andorra for the DH world cup next weekend so keep an eye out for updates!

Angel Fire Part 2

2008-05-25T15:03:00.000-07:00

The sun is out and the snow is gone! that was the best part about waking up this morning.
I finally got to ride in only one layer of clothing instead of four! Once again the pros had practice with everyone so it was impossible to get a clean run in today, so I did a couple of runs looking at lines then decided to save my energy for qualifying which just finished.
I had a resonable run but it definately wasnt perfect, the altitude is so bad up here so I decided not to try sprinting any of the opens sections and ended up just sitting down and coasting them.
The course is long and physical and I came through the line with a 5.33 which was the fastest time at that point so I was stoked with that but just two riders later I got bumped back into second by Aaron Gwin by around 1 second.
Im happy with my run and I know ive definately got more left tomorrows run so im looking forward to it!

Angel Fire

2008-05-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update from the Angel Fire, New Mexico MSC/NMBS race here in the US.
Weve had two days of official DH practice so far and it has been freezing, the top half of the track is covered in snow which makes finding lines pretty difficult. The track is about 50% rocks which really suits me, its rough and technical which is catching a lot of people out. The hardest part about it though is the altitude, i havent managed a full practice yet because its so hard to get used to the limited oxygen.

Ive got DH qualifying tomorrow and then racing on monday so im looking forward to seeing how everything goes.
On Tuesday I fly out to the world cup in Andorra then I have the world cup round in Ft Bill, Scotland then its onto a week training camp in Italy for the world championships with the NZ team so its going to be a very busy couple of months.

Two Weeks!

2008-05-05T02:33:00.000-07:00

Another season is about to roll on for me and another summer! (only the 8th in a row!)
Im two weeks out from flying overseas for another summer of travelling mayhem and bike shredding and hopefully this will be better than ever.
I learned one major thing last season, stop crashing. so ive been working hard to put that into effect and hopefully step up onto some more podiums.
This season is going to be split between the US and Europe so im mainly focusing on World Cups but still getting in some US National rounds, heres my full schedule;

May 23-26 Angel Fire, New Mexico - NMBS
May 29-June 1 Vallnord, Andorra - World Cup
June 5-8 Ft William, Scotland - World Cup
June 10-13 New Zealand world championships team training camp
June 14-22 Val Di Sole, Italy - World Championships
June 26-29 Deer Valley, Utah - NMBS
July 10-13 Windham, New York - NMBS
July 19-20 Going to watch the Unadilla AMA motocross national!
July 24-27 Mt Saint Anne, Canada - World Cup
July 30-31 Bromont, Canado - World Cup
August 9-17 Whistler, Canada - Crank Worx
August 22-24 Seattle, Washington - Fluidride Cup
August 28-31 Canberra, Australia - World cup

Its a packed season with only 2 free weekends and a whole lot of travelling which is ALL being funded out of my own pocket once again but I do want to thank all these people for keeping me stocked with the best quality bike parts to keep me rolling this season!

one month

2008-03-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

I just realised im just over one month from flying out for another season of madness and riding bikes.
The last few weeks have been flat out with the NZ Open being held in Christchurch and then the weekend after we had the Oceania Championships here in Nelson.
The NZ Open was a pretty cool race, it was held completely independantly from bikeNZ so there were no commasaires to deal with and it was all pretty laid back, there was even some pretty decent(for NZ) prize money up for grabs. The race was held on the legendary Lava Flow track which is basically run down a open grass hill with no trees but a LOT of volcanic rock which isnt too nice to crash on. The course was taped well leaving a lot of room to get some new lines happening which made practice fun. I qualified 3rd behind Yeti Factory riders Justin Leov and Sam Blenkinsop with Cam Cole right behind me in 4th so it was going to be a pretty tight final.
By the time we got up the hill for finals there was a massive wind blowing straight across the hill which made some parts a little dodgy and some of them grueling trying to sprint into the wind. I had a fairly tidy run and came through the line slotting into 2nd with a 2.26.58 just .51 of a second down on cams time. The 2.26 mark proved to be popular with Sam Blenkinsop coming in with a 2.26.14 knocking me back to 3rd. I just managed to hold of Nathan Sharrat who also came through on a 2.26.97.
Although it was going to be Justin Leov's race as he came through the last section super smooth and stopped the clock with a 2.22.86 schooling us all!

The Oceania Championships were almost the complete oposite to what the NZ Open was, we were back to having to deal with power hungry commasiaires wanting to take you down a peg anytime they could.
Having ridden the track a bit before and also still trying to deal with an injured ankle which doesnt want to heal I decided to sit out the first days practice and help get the 4x gate set up that I had built. Day 2 of practice also had qualifying in the afternoon so I had to get a couple of runs in before then, the track was in prime condition with most of the corners holding together pretty well.
My qualifying run was going really well hitting everything clean and carrying some good speed untill about 3 corners from the bottom I got a rear flat and things got out of control! Comingh round the last corner into the finishing double I got a huge drift on and almost looped out, managing to hold on and grovel across the line I came through 3rd again behind the two Yeti Factory riders Sam and Justin, the times were all pretty close so I was feeling confident for the race.
My race run was fast but conservative in some places, I knew there would be some corners almost completely gone by the time I raced as there had been about 200 people down the track since I had last seen it.
As I came though the line I saw Nathan Rankins time of 2.57.48 on the board just before mine came up, I knew it was going to be a hard time to beat and as my time started scrolling aross the board i saw the 2.57 and it seemed like a long time before the .06 1st place came up. I was happy that I was definately going to get a medal but I didnt want to get too excited as Justin and Sam were still comewhere on the hill.
Justin came through the line and slipped into 2nd with a 2.57.20, I was stoked to hold off Justin because he is a really hard worker and is always on the gas. But there was still Sam on the hill and you can never count him out, especially after he had qualified 1st and was looking really comfortable on his new bike. Looking through the trees though it looked like he was cruising and when he came through the line I could see why, he had a massive crash near the top of his run and twisted his bars which would of made the rest of the run horrible.
But with this I realised I had just won my first Oceania Championships! Its a big race and there was some tough compeition to beat with valuable UCI points on the line.

Bring on the international season!

what? an update!

2008-02-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

Yes im back again, to make it 3 blog posts all in 3 different years!

This time im actually going to try keep it updated, thats if theres anyone who actually checks this page?!?! Were well into the summer in NZ and weve just finished the South Island DH cup, I ended up 5th in pro after crashing at every round, the round in Nelson on my home track was going good. I qualified 2 seconds up on Justin Leov then managed to some how loop out over the bars 2 corners from the finish, i still pulled 4th and got some cash so it wasnt all bad. The highlight was winning a pro invitational race in Queenstown and walking away with $200.

Supercross has started in the US and being a mental moto fan ive been keeping a pretty tight watch on whats going with that, my favourite riders are on the pipe, #22 Chad Reed has won all but one round where he got 2nd and he is pretty much running away with the points lead. And the #338 of Jason Lawrence finally pulled his first win in San Fransisco in the mud then going on to win Anaheim 3 last weekend, hes only a few points behind Dungey for the overall so heres hoping he holds it together.

Ive pretty much got my plans all set for the US season, I just found out I got accepted for a scholaship from the Adastra foundation so thats gonna be a big help to the finances, ive also signed a few sponsors in the US to help me out this year so its looking good.

bloggin

2007-08-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

I just remembered I had a blog so I guess I should try updating it for the first time in well over a year.
Last weekend was the 2nd to last round of the NORBA series here in the US and I finally got my first podium, 2nd place only 0.33 of a second away from win which was a little disappointing but a podium is still good. This has put me up into 5th overall for the series currently which im stoked with so hopefully ill be able to stay in the top 5 at the end.
Ive had a few ups and downs this summer in the us, a 7th place at Angel Fire with a crash was an example of both, a top 10 was good but know i could of been on the podium was a disapointment again. Deer Valley was similar, after qualifying 10th with a pretty stacked field I knew I could make up time but in the final I crashed and snapped my fork through the arch so that ruined my race run and also lost me a lot of valuable points for the overall.

With one race to go in the norba series then world champs its almost time to return home to NZ and have a break from racing which im looking forward to.

whats going on?

2006-05-25T01:55:00.000-07:00

So here I am 3 days out from leaving NZ for the USA and im wondering how i can keep people in the know of what im up to.... a blog, good idea.

whats been going on? weve finished the NZ season for 06 and now everyone is either over seas or very close to going.
I finished the NZ season a high being the highest placed kiwi pro at the oceania champs in rotorua coming in 5th for the race and 3rd for oceanias and also slotting into 4th place overall for the NZ national series.

The oceania champs were awesome being on the track that is being used for the world champs this year, most people spent the week leading up in rotovegas riding in the forest and at the bmx track to fill in the time, all the junior boys were causing havoc at the Ibis hotel, mainly ashley potts.....

by the time the race rolled around there were quite a few international riders, cedric and Fabien had made the trip from france to check out the track and a few of the aussie boys came over.
Cameron Cole and Sam Blenkinschnozzle my competition from juniors last year showed the aussie juniors whats up coming in 1-2 and both of them having top 5 pro times! watch out for these boys at worlds!!

Fabien took out pro with sam hill, cedric gracia and mic hannah in beind then me following up in 5th.