PNP Club MTB Champs - 21 March 2010

Just as it was last year, the PNP Club MTB Champs took place in the Wainuiomata Trail Park.


The day before I rode with the MTB Chicks group in the same park. This was really good because I could get used to the feel of the tracks and I got a chance to ride the brand new Snail Trail before race day. Snail Trail is a really cool track, great fun to ride so well done to everyone who put in lots of effort to get it built.


The morning of the race came and we got to Wainuiomata High School (where registration was) with plenty of time to spare. I double checked the race description, rode around for a bit and made the really important pre-race decisions like arm warmers or no arm warmers?

The start came soon enough, D-graders left first. We went up the huge Konini Firebreak 4WD to the top. That was slow and hard as usual. Then we descended Labyrinth, and onto Snail Trail. The descent was fun; the bush in there is really beautiful. When we got to the bottom we then had to do two laps of the Wetland Loop. I was quite pleased with myself for being able to ride the drop off on Beeline both times around. I got back into the school with a time of 01:13, something I was pleased with.

The race was really fun and it was organised brilliantly. Huge thanks to Marco and the team. It was a shame that so few riders turned up. Recently there have been so many events on it has been hard to choose what to enter. On the same day as this event was the Oceania MTB Champs down in Dunedin, so lots of riders were there.
In a race with 60 riders all three of the female categories had only one rider in each, plus there was a girl in the Under 13 category, making a showing of only four female riders in total.

This event was particularly important for the Juniors as it was also the College Sport Wellington MTB Champs. I now have the title of Under 19 Girls Champion for the second year in a row, though it wasn’t very hard to get this year with no one to race against. Slightly disappointing, because I'd come well prepared to defend my title with a new bike - many thanks to Andrew Robertson for the gift of a Giant XTC frame, and to the Bike Barn workshop guys who transferred all my componentry across from the Kona Lisa. Other than the small turnout the day went really well and I am glad to have been there.