Arsecakes....

Always being up for a race in Vegas I headed up with Bushlove racing star Mono and ss Hardman Jacko for the 75km race. This was to double as the NZ marathon champs but being unlicensed and there being no ss class no national glory was on the line for this lover of bush. Still living down the shame of rocking gears for the 12hr last weekend I was back on the Titus ss styles.

As always lols where in order on the trip up especially from Whacko who's mum had forgotten to pack his helmet for him. We had a sifty ride in the forest to streach the legs and try (and fail) to set my forks up properly. Whacko and myself got lost, unable to keep up with Mono's pro pace but otherwise was nice getting out in the forest. A big feed of pasta for dinner (it all about the carbo loading) and an early night was in order.

Woke ridiculously early to a clear but cold Rotorua day and drove to the blue lake where the race was to start. With a few minutes to the gun I realise I must have a slow leak in my rear tyre so chucked 50psi in it hoping that would get me through the race. Seeing the Crow has almost no tread and is made to run at just over 20psi it made for some interesting cornering at times.

In what was the strangest start to a race we rode behind a pace car up the tarseal up to a bottleneck where we entered the forest. From there it was a fair amount of gravel roads before we hit any real riding. Despite spinning like a madman was well back in the pack right from the start. Didn't make much progress on the early tracks till Direct road which was one of the few places a ss had any real advantage. Was quite a maing train of xc riders up Direct road so showed them a clean pair of heals (and hairy calves) on the climb. From there it was into Frontal one of the best ss climbs in the forest. Billy T and Split ends where as awesome as ever but then it was back onto plenty of gravel and even some tarseal roads.

Rest of the race was uneventful although at times a bit tedious on the ss. Had a bit of a back and forth battle for 11th/12th overall till we got to the Blue lake where my lack of gears and fitness let him get away. Felt overall my performance was ok though and thoughts changed to a feed and a swim in the Blue lake. My front tire had different ideas though as it arseploded on a gravel road climb near the finish. Looking at the tire it looked like the sidewall had been grazed earlier in the race and had finally decided to give way. In what could only be described to a comedy of errors I struggled to get my wheel off (stupid bolt on skewers) struggled to get my tire off (stupid Stan's) and then found my spare tube had a hole in it (stupid Nick). A kind passing rider offered me his spare tube so eventually after a good 15 minutes was back on the bike. Turned out I was no more than a km from the finish so should have just legged it.

So not the best performance form me but that's racing. Mono had a steamer winning Senior Mens and Whacko did us proud battling on after an epic crash into a tree destroying his borrowed helmet and hurting his shoulder and back. I suspect he will be feeling a little stiff this week. Hopefully that's my puncture for the year out of the way now. Bring on ss nats.