Trail bike fun

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.

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!

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!

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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!