Women’s Revolve MTB Series - Race #2

The second race of the brilliant Revolve Series was held on Anzac Day. The weather gods had decided to commemorate our lost soldiers with some doom and gloom, weather-god style. This resulted in 40kmh gusty winds and fog so low that from my point outside the school I couldn’t tell there were any hills around. This race I had an even better excuse to not ride: going for a run on Friday I had tripped and hurt my foot and I have been hobbling around the place since, despite this I thought it would be good to make myself useful by going down to marshal.

There were lots of people who had volunteered to be a marshal, plenty to go around all the key places on the course so I got the job of limping around the corner to where the actual finish was to inform the riders of the neutral zone.

The race went well, with 51 entries. I was impressed by the numbers given that it was Anzac day and the weather wasn’t exactly ideal for racing. As far as I am aware there were no crashes or other unpleasant incidents. Rachel Reynolds won the Queen of the mountain Category and Sarah Backler won the Girls Just Wanna have fun. It was interesting to see that for both classes, the winning time was 59 minutes and the slowest time was 1:39, which indicates that the two courses were perfectly balanced.

Marjolien and Ashley did an amazing job, it’s brilliant to see so many women out there racing, and when they all come to the club races and other races we’ll have Marjolein and Ashley to thank for getting them confident enough to show what they’ve got.

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Womens MTB Revolve Series - Race #1

I have decided to have a rest from racing for a while, but I thought I may as well help out and marshal for this event, because I know that Ashley Burgess and Marjolein Ros have invested a lot of energy and passion into women's cycling, including helping me, and this was a chance to give something back.


7:30am was the time to be at the velodrome on Mt Vic ready for the marshals' briefing. Jony and I were placed near Charles Plimmer Park, but before we left the velodrome we put up the start and finish flags, as well as organising a finish desk.
We arrived at our marshal point and were given specific instructions. Jony was about 100m up the track and on the other side of the bush so I was alone. Before the race started I had to warn the many walkers that there was a race about to start, some seemed interested and were happy to adjust their walk to stay off the tracks that were being used, others. . . not so willing.

The first riders through were from the “Queen of the Mountain” category, the harder of the two, but they were closely followed by the girls in “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. Where I was marshalling I had the two groups coming down different tracks and merging onto one. I had to make sure they didn’t collide (nobody did) and send them up the hill, much to the despair of many,
“UP!?”
“Sorry, yes, up.”
Was a common conversation.

Being right next to Charles Plimmer Park, a dog exercise park, I had to talk to a few not-so-happy dog owners. One dog (that was not on a leash although it was not in Charles Plimmer Park) nearly caused some riders to crash. There must have been around a dozen dog owners walking there dogs on the track that I saw, but not one had a leash. This is a serious danger hazard. Fortunately I had no actual crashes, but it’s only luck that stops them happening.

After both the Tail-End-Charlies had come through I waited for Jony and then we walked along the course picking up arrows and markers as we went, we got back just in to watch the prize giving. Rebecca Speirs won the “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” grade and an awesome home-knitted beanie, and Rachel Renyolds won the “Queen of the Mountain”and a really cool home-knitted scarf. The event was a success with 53 riders on the courses, many of whom I recognised from the MTB Chicks group, run by Rebecca Speirs (check it out at http://www.mtbchicks.org/). Ashley and Marjolein did a great job of organising it, from the colourful wool for tying numbers onto bikes, to the hand knitted hat and scarf that Rebecca and Rachel won, it was a fantastic and girly event. I recommend this series to all women who ride, whatever their ability. See you next weekend at Makara!

Full details are at http://www.revolvetraining.co.nz/mtbSeries.html. The photos on this page are borrowed from the links on the Revolve website.

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Makara Peak Grand Loop Time Trial

Bushlove Racing proudly hosted the 2010 Makara Peak Grand Loop Challenge on the evening of Thursday 6pm 1st April with the slogan “It may be April Fools Day, but the only fool will be you if you miss this race!”. Entry was $5 with all entry fees donated to the Makara Peak Supporters – a total of $180 was raised.

So on Thursday evening Jony and I rode down to the Makara Peak Mountain Bike Park carpark to register. Most of the famous faces of the Wellington MTB world were there, though Dave “Hugh” Sharpe was missing from the Bushlove line-up. It was good to see quite a few women ventured out to have a go – but where were they all last Sunday in Wainui? As usual everyone was super friendly, the event was really fun, with a very merry atmosphere.


The course followed the traditional “Grand Loop”: up Koru, Sally Alley, Missing Link, Aratihi then down Ridgeline, Ridgeline Extension, Big Tom, Swigg and Starfish to the finish - just over 12km by my speedo. The first rider back (Gavin McCarthy) did the loop in an amazing 40:01.


Being one of the slower riders there, I was one of the later starts and spent most of the ride with the ever friendly Tom Lynskey/tail-end-Charlie (who was immaculately dressed for the occasion with a really cool helmet to match his shirt). My time of 1:07 wasn’t too bad, but wasn’t helped by the fact that I’ve been fighting off a bug since I got back from Track Nationals.


The tracks all had lots of loose gravel on them, making them a bit harder than usual. I know some people didn’t manage to keep the rubber side down for the whole race, but I was riding slowly so I managed to escape crashing. I was glad I had my headlights as I needed them going down Swigg and Starfish at the end.

I came in just before they started the festive prize giving, where Easter eggs were given out and bigger eggs given to the winners. Big thanks to the Bushlove guys who ran this, it was a great race - I’m glad I wasn’t a “fool for not being there”!







For a fuller review and a link to the complete photo album, see http://www.bushloveracing.com/2010/04/makara-peak-grand-loop-challenge-post.html

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