Another winter gone

Its been a bit of a long break since my last post so I thought I should get back into the habit of the blog. The winter has flown by with the aid of 5 weeks of summer in America with my wife Katie, we went over for a holiday and I managed to slip in a US MTBGP round and the two North American World Cup rounds. It was awesome to get back over the states and check up with all my old friends there, not much has changed!

The racing was awesome and I was pretty satisfied with my results, coming in 8th at the US MTBGP round in Sugarbush, VT feeling extremely jet lagged and then 55th at the Mt Saint Anne World Cup. The World Cup in Windham was the only disappointment with a crash in qualifying meaning I missed the cut for finals by a small amount, after Windham though we headed off for the non bike holiday spending time in Las Vegas, San Fransisco and LA which was awesome. Nice to be a tourist for once!

There has been plenty of local racing on around Nelson too with the Nelson mountain bike club running their club DH series, Top of the south DH series, a 4 stage enduro and now a Super D series! I managed to win the Club DH series and we have just finished the Top of the south series last weekend where I won the final round by nearly 13 seconds in slick conditions of the Fringe Hill National track.

The 4 stage enduro was an awesome event held in the Codgers network of trails right by town and after some decent rain before the event it was a very grueling day! I have been really enjoying the new challenge of racing my trail bike and I ended up taking the win on the day by just over a minute overall!

To continue on with the trend of constant racing we have now just started the sprung super D series which is 4 rounds run every second wednesday night, Mildie is the man behind them and just to be extra sneaky this year he is keeping the tracks a secret until registration on the night to add an element of surprise!

The first round was an awesome track, nice and fast up top with a short sharp climb before some more down into another climb then just as your completely wrecked he threw us into the new downhill pump track just to see if our limbs were still functioning! I was definitely hurting by that point and managed to completely lose my rhythm and bounce my way down instead of doubling like usual. I ended up winning overall by about 9.5 seconds which was pretty satisfying! My new Ibis Mojo trail bike is pretty fast!

As summer hits everything is getting hectic again with organising all of my team stuff (graphics, jersey printing, ordering kits, ordering tyres, ordering parts, the list goes on!) and also trying to train for the National series but I love all of the this silly bike stuff and would be lost without it!

This is New Zealand full trailer

Earlier in the year I posted up my rider preview for the upcoming mountain bike movie, This is New Zealand, and now that they have finished filming the bulk of the film we can finally get to see the full trailer and it looks awesome! Check it out below
This Is New Zealand | Official Trailer on Pinkbike

Fresh lid!

I had been wanting to get a new helmet painted up for a while and I had also been wanting to do something on a carbon shell but having basically zero artistic talent when I finally decided to do it I went straight to Chris at Infamous Designs (www.infamousdesigns.co.nz) and gave him a vague idea of what I wanted along with the colours I wanted and left him to it!

After a few days I got back a draft image that Chris had drawn up and it was all set to go, the draft was exactly the sort of look I wanted, nothing overly complicated with a "fast" look, clean lines and a perfect amount of Carbon-Paint ratio.

A couple of weeks later I finally got to lay my eyes on the real thing and I was more than stoked with the result, Chris had exceeded my expectations by a lot and I couldn't of been happier. 

There wasn't a single hint of overspray anywhere, perfect lines and some very nice finishing touches to ensure it stays looking sharp!

If you are after a custom paint job on your helmet then I highly recommend you get in touch with Infamous!

Sugarbush MTB GP race report

After two days of flying and two nights of sleeping in planes Katie and I made it to Burlington, VT on the East Coast of America and met up with fellow Kiwis James Rennie and Pip Holdom to begin our trip to the second round of the US MTB GP which was being held in the small ski town of Sugarbush, VT.
Having never been there before I was pretty unsure of what to expect but after checking out the track we were greeted with a fully taped, multi line, wide track that looked awesome! 

The better part of Friday was spent building up my fresh new Zerode G1 and thanks to Rob Metz, Jeremiah Dylan Dean, Shimano, Fox, Maxxis and Gamut it was looking pretty awesome! The new anodized blue definitely helps it stand out!

After finishing up building my bike I managed to squeeze in a couple of runs in the evening to get a feel for the track and start to get my bike dialed in.

Saturday came out hot and fine and with qualifying in the afternoon it was time to get all my lines sorted on the track and get up to speed. It didn't take much to get the Zerode feeling at home on the rough track at Sugarbush and by the time qualifying rolled around I was feeling good on the track.

Photo: Dave Trumpore

With an open format for qualifying we were able to do our timed run anytime after 3pm so I decided to get up there early and get it out of the way. I ended up being the 4th person down the hill which was good to avoid sitting around in the heat too long!
Straight out of the gate was a short pedal and I decided to push it in my run to see how I was doing but unfortunately after bending a couple of teeth on my chain ring during practice my bike had other things in mind and primary chain derailed on the second pedal stroke almost sending me over the bars straight out of the gate! Luckily I managed to hold onto it and not crash so all I had left was to ride my run chain-less and see how it turned out. Surprisingly I managed to roll my way down into 8th which I was happy with, although still 24seconds behind fellow kiwi Justin Leov who qualified 1st, but I still felt I had some decent time to make it up with a chain on!

Photo: Dave Trumpore

Sunday was another scorcher and practice in the morning was hard work in the heat but nice to be away from the NZ Winter!
After a bit of bike maintenance on Saturday night my bike was all ready and with two good practice runs in the morning I was feeling good for the race.
The race runs were seeded off of Saturdays qualifying so being 8th it meant a fairly long wait until my race run, luckily though I had booked a room in the condos which were literally right beside the finish area and lifts which meant we could hang out in the nice cool room until it was time to race!
My race run started out good and I hit the fast open top section of the track smooth and clean before entering the woods and trying to adjust to the big difference in lighting. Down through the trees was smooth and I hit all of my lines before exiting out into the open once again for the final few berms to the finish.
All in all I rode a good clean run but felt a little reserved through the woods while trying to ride clean and smooth, in the end my time was good enough for 8th place overall which I was really happy with considering I have been away from International racing for nearly two years.

Photo: Matt DeLorme/Vital MTB

We are now in Mt Saint Anne, Canada for the 4th round of the World Cup series which begins with course walk tomorrow. The track here is traditionally pretty long and rough so I am looking forward to getting onto it on Thursday to test out the Zerode down there!

This is New Zealand - rider preview

A few weeks ago I posted a blog about filming for a movie coming out later in the year call "This is New Zealand" and ever since then I have been meaning to post a link to the my Rider Preview that Michael and Hamish put together from the three days of filming. I'm pretty stoked with the preview and this is just their throw away footage! Can't wait to see the full movie!

Rider Preview | Kieran Bennett on pinkbike.com

Last weekend the Nelson Mountain Bike Club kicked off their Club Champs Series which runs over the winter with one race each month. Traditionally the series starts off with an easier track to try and encourage people into racing and this year a short but fun trail known was "Redwoods" was chosen in the Brook Valley right by town. With it only being around a minute long I decided to race on my 6" trail bike rather than my full on downhill bike because the track just didn't justify the need for it, it was also a short ride to the top too so I could pedal back up between each run which helped turn it into a bonus training day!

Due to there being no shuttles sign in began at 12 and everyone could do as little or as much practice as they felt like before racing began at 1pm. After a couple of quick practice runs I felt pretty well dialed in and was having plenty of fun in the casual atmosphere. Even so I couldn't help but put 100% into my race run and coming through the line with a 1.03.35 which was good enough for me to take the win with a clear 3 seconds over 2nd place which I was really stoked with, I have been putting in a lot of work over the last few weeks to get prepared for my trip to the US for the North American World Cup rounds and US MTP GP downhill rounds and to win by a good margin on such a short track makes it feel like my training is paying off!

Another five weeks to wait for round two now and then three days after that I will be on a plane with my wife Katie and en route to my first race in the US at Sugarbush Resort, Vermont!

Filming for "This is New Zealand"

Some of you may have seen bits and pieces about the New Zealand MTB documentary that is in the works called "This is New Zealand" which is being produced by two young guys out of Christchurch. Hamish one of the guys behind it got in touch with me a few months ago giving me a run down on their ideas and asking if I wanted to film a section for the movie in Nelson which I immediately said yes to because it sounded like the perfect chance to show off what Nelson has to offer.

I wanted to get a bit of variety in my section so we spent one morning shooting some of the local trails that I use to train on my trail bike, there is a big network of MTB trail's about 10 minutes ride from my house and we managed to get a lot of cool footage there with some interesting shots off the back of my ute!

The bulk of my downhill riding was shot on Fringe Hill on the National Champs track, I hadn't been riding there since National Champs but it didn't long to get back into it and have some fun.

We also spent a day out on the Ben Nevis downhill tracks just out of Nelson shooting Reuben's section and also some stuff riding together for the transitional period between our sections in the film.

NZ National Championships

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!

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

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!

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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.