The 2008 PNP Mountain Bike Series
>> Wednesday 14 January 2009
PNP Mountain Bike Series ‘08
By Hannah Barnes
This year’s PNP series was a great experience. I decided to do the series because I did not have much on, and I had recently rediscovered my passion for mountain biking. It was a bit of a shock doing so much more mountain biking than usual and sure enough, it wasn’t long before the bruises started popping up on my legs again. In my training I was doing five or six rides a week, including mountain biking, road riding, turbo-training and track. After missing the first round I got stuck in on Round Two.
Round 2: Wainuiomata
After being slightly daunted by some of the track names (Roller Coaster and Crazy man in particular) I started my training, going riding after school most days. I didn’t have a set program of what training I would do because the weather didn’t always want the same as me, so on rainy days I would go for a 1 hour turbo train, and go for road rides and mountain bike rides on nice days, save Tuesday evenings and Sunday afternoons, when I had track, at the Wellington Velodrome. It was a big help going to Bike Barn every time I had something wrong with one of my bikes, because they were always so friendly and helpful.
When it got to the day I had a greatish start, after beating all the boys along the road, as soon as I turned to go into the bush, my chain came off, putting me at the back end of the bunch. It was a tricky ride and Roller Coaster was well named, taking us up and down in a dramatic and dizzying fashion. Going down the hill at the end was barely rideable, as it was very steep and muddy in some places and there were people from the higher grades constantly trying to get past. Overall it was a short but tough race, and gave me my first unexpected win, making me keen and excited about Round Three.
Round 3: Mt Vic
Now that I had won one medal I was determined to get another, and was inspired to try harder in my training, which was pretty much the same as it had been for the previous race. The day before the event I took part in a mountain bike skills training course, where I learned lots of useful skills such as balancing in one place, going around in tight circles and I learnt how to jump. We also did part of the Wild Wellington course that uses lots of the same tracks as the race.
The race was a fast two laps of a circuit that had lots of short but steep climbs that left you breathless, and then back to the velodrome to start your next lap. The race went pretty well for me but at the very end my chain got stuck between my chainrings and so I had to run the rest of the way home to pick up my second gold, and this time it was a full podium, so that made it feel like more of an achievement, plus I beat my brother which was something I had failed to do last time. It was after this event that Bike Barn offered to sponsor me.
Round 4: Belmont
The pre-ride two weeks before the race made me realise that this was going to be one tough ride. It seemed impossibly uphill, despite the fact that it started and finished in the same place. At the start of the ride was a tricky track that wound its way steeply up through the pine forest. As it was so damp and muddy all the roots
were exposed and in one place I fell and hurt my arm and it was aching for a week after, but you don’t need your arms for biking much so I was able to continue with my
training, particularly inspired to try my hardest to get a good result and thank my new sponsor, Bike Barn at the end, which I did.
After having rained all night the tracks were a bog, I think that for this race a wheelbarrow would have been more appropriate than a bike. My new helmet was
so much better than my old one that a few times I had to put my hand to my head to check I was wearing it, it was so light! Every now and then I had to stop and clear the mud off my back wheel because it was so clogged up with mud that it wouldn’t move. The rest of the ride wasn’t much better, and 90% of it was walking, and I came in after a long hard ride (or walk) in two and a half hours.
Round 5: Makara
It was good to be back on home territory and it meant that I could practice the exact course multiple times. And I did just that. After riding the course about four times in one week I probably could have done it with my eyes closed. I was working on my speed and on one day I beat the previous day’s time by fifteen minutes, and I
was feeling pretty confident and ready for the race, especially with my snazzy new Kona Lisa from Bike Barn.
The wind was blowing hard on the day and I got off to a good start. It was quite scary at the top because the wind was almost blowing us off the cliff, and so I had to jump off and run about 50 metres to avoid a date with the cliff face. At the end I put on a good sprint to finish the series in style, and beat my personal best
by three minutes, a satisfactory result.
Overall the series was full of some great rides and lots of fun. I am now commonly referred to by other cyclists as “one of the Barnes sisters” after Marty joined the
competition at Mt Vic. The new bike was probably what helped me do so well at Makara and by the end of the series I had improved not only in my cycling but also in my speech making skills, though I guess after my first grand speech of a embarrassed “Thanks?” this area wasn’t the hardest to improve. It was a great series, and I’m looking forward to next year’s events. For now I’ve still got road and track to concentrate on, and I hope there will soon be some great results for those as well.
