Angry, Davo & Ash Share A Screaming-O

Having decided after Karapoti I wasn’t going to do any races until my knee totally healed up a promise I was determined to keep I entered the inaugural Screaming O being my 3rd race since Karapoti.. nice one.. Well Davo peer pressured me into it.

The course was starting from the Catchpool centre South of Wainui, along the 5 mile track then out along the river, the MTB stage was 20km and then back up along coast road for another 9kms, I could see it would be a quick race so was surprised to see estimated time of between 2 & 4 hours on the entry form

Arriving nice and early in Wainui on Sunday morning, just early enough to see the local lasses doing their walks of shame. Twas a nice warm morning and the sun was shining so I knew we were in for a treat. As I was doing the MTB and Road I delivered my shiny freshly Slacky serviced roadie to the transition area and went back to talk smack with Davo.

Race starts... straight into confusion as an arrow on the 'warning cyclists' sign was pointing the wrong way, but luckily we all ignored it. Up front was Hiskey, me, Davo, Marco and keen Ken Fiest on his Cyclocrosser (hmm thats going to be fun down the river) , while ash was in the front pack of girls (in this case a pack = 3) . Hiskey quickly pulled out a lead followed by Feisty Feist then Davo then me, Davo then had a cornering/chain fail and I passed him and quickly caught up to Ken, Davo was also passed by Nick Waring.

The 5 mile track is really nice and flowy and its wasted on the trampers, but alas its a bit short and after about 20 or so minutes we emerged at the end of it, riding over a nice hoop bridge and onto the river bed, with instructions to head down stream. This was a bit difficult as there was no real track just boulders, but luckily I spotted someone in a fluro top on the other side so crossed the river and said "which way?" to which they replied "I dont know ". I think it was just a spectator, so just followed my nose and headed downstream smashing through multiple river crossings.

About 50 metres ahead I spotted Hiskey , tripod and slide camera out, taking photos of the view . Now this is the first time I think I have seen Hiskey in a race other than at the start line or him lapping me, so I went all out and narrowed up the lead to what felt like spitting distance . I surprised Hiskey , who packed up his cumbersome, heavy photo equipment and pulled out a lead again.


From there there where several longish climbs and some nasty steep pinches. On the last one I could just make out Hiskey up ahead collecting money for disadvantaged children who cant read and stuff, so I managed to close the gap while he wasn’t looking. I checked behind and there was no one there, but I was expecting Davo to come steaming though, so got into the flow and busted it along the track checking back to see if I could spot Davo, who was a minute back, trading the lead in the MTB Only class with Nick Waring on the pinch climbs . Davo's powerful shanks eventually got the better of Nick when he big-ringed a couple of the climbs, Nick sadly had a mechanical shortly after. All the while Ash was in the "middle aged men that ride nice bikes once a week" bunch (in this case bunch = 10). Times were rough for the newest Bushy that day.

The transition was quick, luckily I had stuck SPD's on my roadie (thanks for the tip Davo) and I was off again, but damn my speedo fell off so had to stop go back and pick it up and stick it back on, then I heard a nice BUSHLOVE war cry from Davo as he latched onto my rear wheel, he had put in a monster effort towards the end of the MTB leg to try and catch me and (so he thought) a nice draft back to the finish. Now lets do the math: a 2008 Dura ace Scott Addict race bike vs. a circa 1990's Specialised S-Works MTB... Bye Bye Davo - as he could only hold my wheel for 10 seconds, but thats fine as we where racing different classes anyway and I had hoped Davo could get a draft off me to the finish.

The head wind was ferocious and was hard to even hit 30 into it (or 10 if you're Ash) , however Ian Paintin was out having a lovely Sunday ride and gave me a bit of a tow into the headwind and luckily I spotted Hiskey up ahead again - he had found a nasty pothole and was busy filling it so as not to be a hazard to other riders, which I thought was nice, he spotted me just about to catch him so he compacted the last layer of bitumen and took off again.


Into the finish line and had nearly narrowed the gap again as Hiskey had stopped for some Yoga and Pushups, but in the end I was stoked to get 2nd, only 2 minutes 30 seconds behind Hiskey, Davo came in about 4 minutes later after smashing it using his fork crown as roadie drops, I kid you not. 45 minutes later Ash finished to the sound of Davo saying "man did you crash??"


Ash the newest Bushy came in 2nd in open women’s MTB which rounded up a stonkfest for BLRT.

The course was awesome due to some slick organising from Shane, Jill and the marshals, check out this link for other awesome events http://www.betterthantv.co.nz/
You can learn all about the event by visiting
http://www.screamingo.co.nz/ or if you have more time on your hands swap the co.nz for .com FTW.


Soon after we packed up and headed for home, news began circulating about Whacko's huge Singlespeed 24hr Solo win and Nick's 12hr solo silver, up in Rotorua. An outstanding weekend's results for the Clan Bushlove. 2 golds and 3 silvers.