Akatarawa Attack - Bushlove Team Nearly Dies

Having just lost a really long, well written post and nearly burying my fist into the kitchen worktop - I'll be keeping this brief.

I teamed up with Nick K to compete in the Akatarawa Attack. A MTB orienteering event in the same region as the Karapoti. Nick won Open Men last year with former plumper, Mono Sharpe, and I was keen to give it a good crack to see if we could do a repeat and shower the team with more glory.

You get the maps for about 45mins to study them and work out your best route around the forest trails to collect the most 'control' locations, which have a certain number of points according to difficulty to reach, and a clipper to punch your card to prove you've been there.

We worked out a fairly good route (we thought) and moseyed off the start line feeling fairly confident and looking forward to a good time in the hills and exploring some new trails. After about 1km the no-expense-spared Bushlove Mapboard destroyed itself and jumped off my bars, meaning the rest of the event was spent trying to read maps which got slowly written off through sweat and repeated handling (a lot like Whacko's johnson). Keeping the maps in our pockets and up our short legs did nothing for their readability and made some areas tricky. Also a pain as we now have to buy more maps to keep so we can head out there again.



We got our first control which put us on a little high going in to the long 4wd forest climb up the Puketiro Loop. We got a good control in a ravine which no-one else appeared to have bagged so felt pretty good about things. We also felt pretty 'Sparta' as we were riding the singlespeeds at about twice the speed of everyone else up the climbs, which did wonders for our confidence.

It was a bloody warm day and we were thankful that a lot of the hard work was in the forest where a bit of shade saved our bacon. Out in the open you could feel the heat coming up off the track. The sweat dripping off our elbows and knees was turning to steam before it even touched the ground. Well maybe thats a little bit of bullshit, but you get the idea.

We nailed a bunch of controls but never got out as far as the water point as we thought we would run out of time. I also had two flats in the front, one of which nearly caused me to steam off track and huck-to-head in the rocks. They were fixed quick though and it was poor planning and a little bit of erroneous navigation that cost us time during the event.

We headed back down the descent of Puketiro Loop, nipping into the woods to claim more controls and then headed up Battle Hill to collect the remaining controls we could reach. We ended up back at the finish with 30mins to go. Easily enough time to pick up more than enough points to win the event, but we planned our route a bit poorly and all the remaining controls were out of reach. Shame, but it is that kind of event. The cunning can out fox the stupid singlespeeders - and they did.

We swam and put our gladrags on for the extremely well done BBQ. Plowed through much meat and fruit and then got awarded with some beers for getting 2nd in Open men and 3rd overall. A great result considering our amateur errors!

It was good to see Sifter and Simon come in. Sifter looked like he had been beasted by a rhino and Simon looked pretty good. Sifter said it was the hike-a-bike stuff that got the better of him in the end. They must have done some serious work, as John is an animal and not easily thwacked like that. Matt Farrar and Ian Paintin, seriously able Vet XC racers, got the 8hr win, putting Sifter/Simon into 2nd by about 10pts out of 1700pts!. Close stuff.

Next year we'll field more Bushlove Teams. It really was a mint event and was organised impeccably well by some very dedicated chaps. It was fantastic to get out and ride some unseen trails and never know what was round the corner for the whole time.

I felt pretty knacked by the time I got home, only to realise I was locked out. Luckily I have nice neighbours who fed me curry and beer while I waited for my wife, Amie, to return.

A cracking day out - Big ups to my Bushloving Team Buddy, Nick, for recruiting me. Nick is a champ to ride with, always in good spirits, never winced at the hardest sections and was bloody strong, riding his SS machine where I had to crawl on all fours. Good man.

Oh - The title bit about nearly dieing. I forgot.... Turns out there is a native nettle called the Ongaonga. It has killed animals and one person apparently. What a hard fecking plant. It was in the forest in certain locations which we advised to us by the orgs. Nick got a bit on his leg though we think and it gave him a bit of grief. So maybe we were not as close to death as the post title suggests, but you never know. At least we learned something about native killer bush. One not to love.