World Championships Day One.

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

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.

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.

Angel Fire Part 3, The Race.

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

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

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!

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

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!

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.