Goldie's PNP Final Round Hit-out

Hey riders,

Was really looking forward to some pain at Makara for the final round of the series, was feeling reasonably good apart from the early start and driving down from Levin. Was a good sized field of 15 elites and the Master 1 riders starting with us, i dunno how that came about but i wished when i was riding masters we started that way.Got away to a pretty good start up the road and hit the first bit of dirt in about 6th place behind Connor who straight away arsed up with some problem with his front brake grabbing, i personally think he`s just been doing too much road training and not enough dirty stuff, shame though cos i reckon he would`ve been right up there.

Anyway, popped out on the 4wd track and was about to drop into swigg when Dave sharp came steaming by passing me and ed, wasn't sure what grade he was racing at that stage but thought he ain't an old master yet so must be with us. So followed Dave and ed at a decent clip until ed let me past somewhere up koru, i was super impressed with Dave`s riding and kept his wheel until he let me past at the pylon at the start of aratihi, i think we had a fairly good gap on the following riders at that stage and i could see hisky and josh not to far ahead.

Climbed aratihi fairly well then launched down upper and lower leaping lizard and i was closing the gap up nicely, caught hisky and josh just past the nikau turn off and kept with them up possum bait until i messed up on 1 of the tight switch backs and they got a slight gap, was a real hard case watching the different riding styles, hisky been smooth and calculated and josh bouncing around almost wrestling with his bike. Lost a little bit of time stuck behind a few slower riders on nikau and did`nt want to panic them on the tight stuff but they were all good and finally let me past when they could, i steadied in to a good rhythm and climbed up aratihi once again, where hisky and josh and started pulling away a little, i looked behind and saw big Gav getting near. Gav managed to slip past me just before the summit and i held his wheel down zac`s. I was ready for the wind up there only because I`ve never ridden zac`s without the wind, it was fairly brutal, especially when you`re a light weight like myself. I climbed back up that nasty rocky climb with Gav and then back down zac`s for the second time just to see if it was still bloody windy and yip it was. Gav started pulling away while i was measuring the wind speed, i was unable to ride the whole climb just bailing out on the top before i got blown over the edge.

Turned left into ridgeline and fought my way down choosing some pretty dodgy lines but managed to stay upright unlike hisky who was leading josh and caught a gust of wind which sent him and his bike end over end over end over end, big up`s to him for dusting himself off and jumping back on his horse, I carried on down ridge line extension back down swigg starfish and popped out on to the rode where i battled against that nice head wind back to karori park finishing in 5th place.

It was a real enjoyable race lots of little battles going on within the big battle. 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th placings were all within a minute of each other with legend Stu winning and already showered and writing his podium speech. Special mention again to Dave sharp who ended up a few minutes and a few placings back, Good Shit Man!! All in all a fairly enjoyable series, very pleased with me new bike. My next outing is the taupo huka xl (70ish k i think) event, after that still undecided about my summer plans as my partner Megan has a bun in the oven so i`ll either be riding a heap more or a heap less.

Over an Out, Jase