Dutch Rudders Keep Bushlove On Course At The Moonride

The Bushlove Team had spent several weeks looking forward to the Moonride trip. It would be the first bona fide Team event we had done and would no doubt be a fantastic road trip.

We had designs on the North Island MTB Club 12hr Champs but knew we would get strong competition from teams like Hamilbogun and Manawatu. We lost Sharpie at short notice as the Playboy and Star Trek channels were doing free viewing over the weekend, which left us with fine Bushies: Tiger, Sixpack Chan, Slackshanks and Dr Love to contend.

In the solo class we had endurance athlete supreme - Clive Bushlove, and endurance athlete epic fail - Me.

We all woke nice and early to get on the road and away from my place by 8am. Well, every one but Slacky got up nice and early. After a bit of repacking and appreciation of my new lawn, Slacky, Boner Toner, Angry and me got going in the mighty Burkes van (thanks for the vehicle Burkes. Awesome kit). Inbetween mouthfuls of McMuffins, we regaled each other with tails of daring and adventure and discussed the benefits of the Dutch Rudder system, tire choice and plotted to ensure Nick and Sixpack had to share a double bed.

We arrived in Vegas about 3pm and sorted registration before pitching the tent (Bushlovers always pitch a huge tent). We had driven through some pretty heavy rain and where expecting a repeat of last year’s mud bath Moonride, but the rain stopped on our arrival and gave it a break over night too, much to the relief of the 24hr riders who would be out there bedding the track in while we slept.

We had a cabin booked at the Rotovegas Thermal Holiday Park and it didn't quite have the bed allocation required. We had to cater for the modesty and honour of our good friend Michelle which meant that the best option would be for her to take the fold out and two boys take the last double. We bagged the bunks and laughed our way through a large spaghetti bolagnaise. Thanks Troods for the soup tip. A dollop of Tony's soured cream was unexpected but a lovely addition to the cuisine.

The Moonride was made a bit extra special for us as the fancy new Bushlove Racing team jerseys had arrived in the nick of time, thanks to splendid efforts from Robin at Tinelli. They cleared customs on the Wednesday avo and we got them couriered directly to the Park. Only Tiger and I knew about it and we surprised the chaps by casually wearing them to dinner. They turned out great. Our studdliness was tripled as we eased them on.

Nick and Kah arrived in Nick's new Subaru (complete with Bushlove.com stickers) in time to police up the left over spag bol and come to the hotties. We informed them of the sleeping arrangements and before reacting with the typical 'No way, you're joking right', Nick and Kah exchanged that bashful look that simply said "We've been waiting for this moment..."

The hotpools were amazing. Just the ticket. We lulzed it up for about two hours and churned though many other patrons. We were joined by a fine pair of young ladies, who after quietly chatting away and ignoring our rants, inquired "are you the Bushlove team?". Gold.

It seemed we had genuine followers of the blog. People who were not either us or blood relatives. We introduced ourselves and found that Lisa and her friend whose name we shamefully forgot, were racing in the Lunartics team the following day. We meant to inform these hot new Bushlove groupies that just being in a hot pool with the team is grounds for a pregnancy test, such is the strength of Bushlove's virility, otherwise they might end up having a short, ginger, Asian, four-eyed, balding baby in 6 months time (Bushlove babies gestate faster FTW).

We headed back to the cabin and headed to the bunks, except the Dr and Sixpack Chan, who retired to their private room to make the beast with two backs. Ash, Danny Boy and Michelle arrived a little later and after the hello's we nodded off to the rhythmic tapping of Nick and Kah's headboard.

A fine crisp, sunny day dawned and we were well up for it! Breaskfasted, Vaselined and freshly inflated, we headed to the race ground to set up the rest of the gear. It was a 10am kick off and began with a 2km road stretch. Hell on the SS. I could only cringe as from the gun I got swarmed by any weekender with a big ring. On the way back to the race HQ I was spinning madly and tucking into the slipstream of nicely rounded middle aged ladies who I am not used to sharing the first minutes of a race with normally. I managed to take a lot of people once the pace slowed though and got into the swing of things.

My new bike (see post coming soon) was awesome. It was carving through the forest and doing everything it was told beautifully. The course conditions were good. Damp, grippy and well compacted. Excellent riding.

And then it all fell to bits. Not the bike, but my motivation. After 6 laps I was bored to bits. I did a lap on Nicko's crosser which was good, to spark myself up, but to no avail. I ended up pulling the pin at lunchtime! Not my usual style. I think the problem was that I had not psyched myself up at all and was just entered 'on a whim'. You really need your head set for these things and I didn't. I felt guilty that I didn't feel upset or gutted. I felt fresh and was riding fine. Shanks were good. Just a head fail. Not happened before. Was about time maybe!



So that's my race done. I directed all my attention towards supporting the boys and my main maing Clive Bushlove (as written on his plate). Clive was doing great and I spent the rest of the day sorting his bottles, fuel, bike and splits. It would have been tricky for the boys to do this as well as racing and recovering so it worked out well. And best of all, made me look useful and not like a slacker, who should really hand back their new Bushlove shirt and cook the sausages, but not get to eat one.
The boys were all looking magnificent in their new kit. We were getting lots of shout outs from friends and maybe folk who had seen the blog (there must be some folk other than us making up the 4,000 plus hits a month). Thanks for your support y'all!

The boys were doing hard turns, mostly double laps, and were coming back in flattened by their efforts. They were riding strong and doing us proud. We were hovering around tenth team overall and third in the Open Men's category. These positions held into the evening and the chaps had to maintain their pace if they wanted to be up on the podium in 4hrs time.



Before evening Tiger headed out after stating his intention to nail a very fast couple of laps. He turned in an 18.50 which was outstanding and the fastest the team put out that day.

Darkness fell and we knuckled down to maintaining the placing. I turned in a couple of reasonable laps and had a great time pimping the new Monkey Electric wheel lights. They were throwing down some mean patterns with their super bright coloured LEDs. Tones and Slacky also had sets on the back wheels and we must have made quite a spectacle. Thanks to Mono I had a grunty light to use which was unsurprisingly superior to my Mentos chewing gum pot DIY effort. Cheers Mono!

10pm drew close and I went over to the finish to welcome Angry in. It was awesome seeing the fast teams still sending riders into the woods with 20mins to go! I saw Mr Singlespeed, Garth Weinberg absolutely fly by, obviously chosen as his team's anchor man. Good choice. Angry came across and looked like someone who was ecstatic to finish a race but who had also been shagged by a rhino. I got out a seat for him and was quickly alerted by a marshal that I was on the track. Doh.


Ricky steamed the last lap for the team and finished with less than 5mins to spare. Perfect. The boys were all true warriors and secured themselves the 3rd place in the Open Mens category, something that we didn't really think would happen, especially without strongman Mono in the fold. I think we got tenth overall from all teams which itself was great considering the excellent teams who competed. We did miss out on the North Island MTB Club 12hr Champs team trophy though. Pipped by 1.5laps by a strong team from Hamiltron. Those Hamilboguns sure rode well. Congratulations and respect, should you be reading.

Prizegivng was strangely almost on time and it was a treat to see angry and the team collecting their wares in the new Bushlove jerseys. A great end to a memorable day.


We returned to the cabin to find Michelle asleep on the couch, so made her wake up whilst we drank beers and talked boyishly and noisily about the day's shennagans. I could tell she was pleased. We jumped through the shower and into the bunks, whilst Kah and the Dr headed to their room for round two.

More hot-tubbing and lulz followed the next morning before we struck camp and headed for Welly. The drive was wet and long. We bantered about the weekend's efforts and learned mechanical tips from the wizard Slackspanner, pondered the merits of chain lubes and thought about the next team event we could do. No more soloing for me though. I think our next one will be the Wild Wellington. Nice and local.

Congrats to all our friends who did so well over the weekend. Charlotte Ireland took the women's solo 12hr, placing fifth overall! Lisa Morgan, coach to the stars, won the women's 6hr solo, with a cracking 6th overall. Pete Marshall (vert) suffered like a dog in the 24hr solo and put himself in hospital (probably just to score a bed bath) - Good job soldier. The Wellington boys in the Searletech team did v.well too, with 2nd Open class, 3rd Overall.

Well done if you are still awake.

Watch this space for upcoming posts including - My New Bike and Davo-The Early Years.


Now for Clive's tall tales......

The 12 hour starts with a 2km road to separate the men from the boys (and singlespeeders) , something Davo was not looking forward to and the BLRT team stuck up Ricky as their first rider as he is used to carnage, (usually of his own making). The race started off into a sprint I stuck behind Thomas as he was my target for the day having thrashed me last year , was in a good roadie tuck and was probably in the first 10 into the forest.

12 Hour Solos are very mentally tough races (hate to think about the 24), but I knew I had at least 7 hours of good race pace in me so settled into a rhythm of "on your rights" and chased Thomas down and promptly hooked my brake lever on a tree and stacked, nice one but no injuries so back on the bike but had lost the lead pack and Thomas.

Smashed out a few quickish laps being wary to not smash it too hard as the day was long. I was pleased to catch up to Thomas after about 2 hours, just spotting him ahead in the pits, I snuck past as he grabbed food from his support crew, then opened the taps to pull out about a 10 minute lead which I held for the next 4 hours, during most of that time I believed I was in first place as there were no other Solos ahead of me, but the boys had checked the results and I was in fact coming 2nd as there was another Solo racing without wearing the Solo hat which is legal, but a little sneaky as I didn’t even know where or who this person was. Davo found out and started giving out splits and I was holding him at about a 3 minute lead until early evening then Davo for some reason lost track of him for a few laps but when he did find him he had stuck on over 10 minutes which was quite a surprise given the stage in the race, so concentrated on trying to bring this lead down but it was just too much and I couldn’t really do much more with the lap traffic as a lot of riders had slowed up considerably, my legs felt great and I was still climbing the pinches in middle/big chain ring out of the saddle as the team was feeding me (sometimes forcibly) very well. Thomas at this stage had fallen back quite far and I lapped him again at his feed station getting food so it was going to be Hamish 1st, Angry just under 10 minutes behind in 2nd, Thomas 3rd.



Despite the result being the same as last year this year was a far better race for me, lap times where consistent, but I don’t think I will be back next year, i just forgot how mentally and physically tough it is.

Ups to Coach Joel for prepping me very well for the event and to Ash and Michelle for feeding the first stages and coming out to cheer on course later on. But for me Davo's efforts as support after taking over from Ash & Michelle was outstanding and was pre-empting what I needed very well! Couldn’t have done it without you Davo! (Aw you big flirt, it was a pleasure - Ed) I was awesome also to hear teh Tigs yelling Bushlove through the forest, woot buddy!.

So 237kms later its was a 1st Club Champs, 2nd Solo overall, with 3rd Open for BLRT team, awesome effort for BLRT.