Wainui Mudfest - The 6hr Wurldz

Yo!

The trails at Wainuiomata are awesome. They're built and maintained by the WTP. We don't get over there as often as we'd like, so a 6hr race was a great chance to get a good fix.

The BLR Roster for the day:

Ashley - Racing as sassy roller derby girls with her girlfriends.
Ed - In the DUETS team. A two man outfit with epic sifter, Stu Houltham.
Slacky, Al, Davo and Sharpie - Solo

The rainy weather had dealt a blow to the course and some sections were soft, gluggy and hard work. But as testament to the efforts of the trail builders, the established trails were bullet proof.

Davo's Tale

I'd done no training but was keen to see how well I could go in this. I figured if I did it, I could call it my entire winter's training.

Everyone set off really quick and I dropped back, riding a pace which I could do for 4 or so hours (figured I'd deal with the last bit when I got to it). Had some back and forth with riders including Mr Lindup, Mr Crossling and Mr Fiest. Eventually I managed to pull ahead a bit and kept my foot down. Mr Sharpe withdrew from the solo lead with mechanicals. I didn't know who was ahead of me so was pleasantly surprised to learn around 7 laps in, that I was leading! Then I started to panic about what my gap was to 2nd. Clive made the ethically robust decision to lie to me and say 15mins. Longer and I would have sat up, shorter and I might have paniced!

I lost vision in one eye for no apparent reason at around the 3-4hr mark. Switched contacts for glasses, but no better. Turns out there is a link between hard excersise and clouding vision. Wierd! I'm looking into it more. I initially thought it was my brain's way of trying to limit how much of Lynskey's NUDE lap I could witness.

I had a couple of proper 'lie downs' on the trail, then my shanks imploded so my last laps were quite lame, although made brighter by Al and Ricky's company, just when I needed it! It was great to get a win. Thanks very much to Tryfan at Floe for my prize of a great event shirt.

My favourite bits on the course were the Snail Trail's awesome pump and flow, the zippy singletrack afterwards, and passing the many kind friends who were shouting for me. Thanks very much for your support! Oh, and I loved hooning down the steep drops on Beeline Ext. And loved the gross muddy sections as I knew how boxed my competitors drivetrains were getting! Poor buggers. Mr Lindup even broke his rear mech off, after saying on the startline that he was questioning his decision to run gears.


Al's Tale

Lining up for my first race since the nationals back in February, I was really looking looking for some proelite XC rampage. Off the line it was shaping up like it was going to be a solid race, but something was not quite right... so unfortunately I had to pull into the pits after one lap and figure out what was going so wrong. Now I had two choices, DNF because my 'race' was over, or just keep riding...

So I moved to Plan B which was to sift around with Ricky for a few laps. This was a lot of fun, especially trying to make it all the way down the Snail Trail descent without pedaling (which is harder than you think). Good times were had with Slacky till Ashley decided to drop us up a hill which required some kamikaze descending to make sure we passed her on the way back down! This finished Ricky off, so with just over two hours to go Ricky stopped for a slice of salami (or maybe the whole roll!) and a lie down.

So onto Plan C, which was to find out just how hard I could push it now that I was feeling better. I was making more of an effort than I do at a singles night - and believe me I go 100% when there is the chance of a date! So after 3 more laps at Warp Speed, the time ran out. I was super happy with those 3 hot laps at the end, I was even getting air time on some of the jumps. Yes, Ricky is not the only strawberry blonde who can jump.

This was a truly awesome race and Shane Wetzel (and his team of volunteers) deserves a huge round of applause for his first foray into race organising. There are so many people getting involved in helping make this sport this much fun at the moment, this is a good time to be a mountain biker!

...................................................

So a mint day. Everyone got a treat, when they caught or got overtaken by Ashley, MJ, Rachel and Natasha. Their outfits were awesome!

Stu and Ed won the overall and Stu even blitzed a lap with just 21 mins to go, finishing with a few seconds in hand. Classy.



The Wainui 6hr was Dave 'Mono' Sharpe's last outing in the Bushlove jersey. Dave is pursuing some new projects. We'll miss him, and wish him the best of luck!

We were all pretty tired after another classic day in the saddle and are looking forward to 2011's edition! You can check out the album here. Clive took loads, you might well be in a couple!

Cheers :o)