2x National Champ reports in.

2x National Champ reports in.

The training for the Nationals began in about December with some sifty laps (also known as my race pace) with Tiger , the Slackyboy designed course was as sweet as Keryn's lolly cake and would suit the Wellington riders well as it was nice and technical and getting to know how to run this sections with some pace was going to be a big advantage, so after 1,456 practice laps over the coming weeks Feb 27th finally rolled around.

Wellington laid on its usual beautiful sunny calm day and we all arrived at the velodrome for the pre race banter, I could see that M2 was stacked with some pretty good riders, Craig Lawn, Rob Kilvington, Chris Gaze, fellow Bushlover and soon to be 40 Johnny Waghorn and Karl Ratahi winner of the PNP M2 series.

My game plan was operation Shock n Awe, I knew I had some good hills pace so decided a through smashing up the road from the tennis courts was in order, put the plan into action as soon as the hooter rang and had a decent gap on the field by the first singletrack from there it was just try and stay on it and chase down Davo in M1 (for extra bragging rights).

The first lap went well, picking up a few M1 stragglers, I picked up Slacky at the start of the 2nd lap who hadn't had any breakfast and had been fixing everyones bikes till midnight, then spotted Davo ahead going up to the bench, I quickly yelled a warning that the 40 and overs where coming through and Davo capitulated, but did yell some nice encouraging words which spurred me on.
Up to Alex Saddle and the Bushlove support was tremendous, Trudi my wife (and official stylist of Bushlove racing) and Alex and Alana my kids where yelling out which really gets you going, awesome stuff, the Milf and Cougar along with Kiryan where also putting in great support for the riders.

Handlebar munching shot

Lap 3, I kept looking over my shoulders searching for the chasing riders but couldn't spot any much to my relief, had a stupid crash trying to be careful in one section, careful and MTB racing dont go hand in hand, I spent about 20 seconds just tryng to get back onto my bike handlebars around the wrong way I was sure I was going to be passed.

Into Lap 4, I still couldn't spot anyone behind so pressed ahead all the time little voices in my head where saying dont screw this up, each climb felt great as I knew it was for the last time, then over the rise and the finish line beckoned, to say I was stoked to win is perhaps an understatement, my first race in M2 and National Title , great start to 2010.

Big thanks to my bike widow wife Trudi for all the training she puts up with and my super kids for the support, much appreciated.

To top it all off I entered the Hill Climb champs on the Monday and took a footlong Sub of the Day and a National title back to the office for lunch.

A huge thanks to all the supporters on course and the marshals and organisers (esp Marco) and course designer Slackyboy.

Karapoti next..