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!

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!

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!