The end of another season...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!