Makara Rampage, Ice Cream Rampage & Child Juggling

Its not easy to get the whole whanau out biking. Despite best intentions I hardly ever manage it, and it has become double tricky now we have young George who just turned 5 months.


My smokescreen, Amie, is getting back out on the bike after a long spell out of the saddle and wanted to head up to Makara with her friend Kristen from Vancouver. I cunningly tied it in with some sifting with Al Crozzalozza whilst a girly morning tea took place and we swapped the kids over at 2pm on the dot.

It was an awesome sunny day in stark contrast to the rankness of the day before which had put the odd unseasonal puddle on the track and added a little no-traction-action to some of the chutes.


Al and I cruised via the standard fare of Koru, Sally Alley, Missing Link, Aratihi to the summit and then sauntered along Zaks Track and headed down Vertigo which was riding really well. Then we enjoyed a foray up Trickle Falls to the waterfall with the riderfall next to it.



I'd not ridden it before and always had a crisis of confidence on my own or found myself there with both an inappropriate machine and inadequately sized stones between my legs. It feels great dropping in with the waterfall next to you. Recommended. Fine when soaking wet too, which is handy, as to my knowledge it has never been dry.


After a poke around on Rimu, AMP Connecter, Magic Carpet and Live Wires, we arrived at the car park for the hand over of the juniors. Amie and Kristen headed off whilst Al headed up to ride Deliverance and I took the ankle-biters to Karori Park for a scooter/bike/ice cream fest. Kristen's man, Rob, carried his offspring in a back pack up Wahine and down some of 98DH.

Al returned in time for ice cream. The choices of ice cream were, in grandeur, related to the ferocity of one's challenges for the day. So whilst I feasted on a Gucci White Magnum at $3.30, Al had a Lemon & Lime Splice at $2.00. When Al deploys less Shank's Pony on Vertigo's drops he will be stepping up to the Cornetto.

In another huge win, our daughter, Ella who is 5yrs, learned to ride her bike by herself at the park. She has been ok without training wheels since October, but learning to get moving by herself was a HUGE event. She got right into it and earned herself a White Magnum at $3.30, like her old man.

Amie was less than impressed with the video of Trickle Falls and has assured me I won't be doing it again for some time. Then what do I find on the camera? A shot of her and Kristen rampaging the See-Saw Of Death! Pot, kettle, much?


Hope you are all having a good Christmas break.

Cheers
Davo

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Gone With The Wind - Turbulent Love

No, not the American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War, but rather my ride home yesterday.



As a remedy for too much work and not enough play, I left work a little early yesterday and rode home on my fine Ibis Tranny singlespeed, along Wellington’s Skyline. I knew this idea had little merit and was likely to be more character building and soul destroying than a quality outing. But to get from the city to Porirua on trails there are few options. So despite not being able to see the hills as they were shrouded in fast moving cloud, I headed up anyway.



I climbed up via the Karori Cemetery Track which despite the recent rain was in great condition and only forced me to dab on those two switchbacks, which would be tight for a terrier, let alone my beast. I could hear the gale roaring outside the safety blanket of trees and was not looking forward to emerging on the ridge. But I’ve never met a kilometer I didn’t like and didn’t plan on whinging about kms I’d chosen to do today.

Singlespeeding along the skyline is pretty hard for me, so in a gale force Northerly it was shithouse. I expected to do plenty of hiking and wasn’t disappointed. Visibility was between 20-40m in the cloud I was riding in, and riding in a cloud meant I was wet, but working too hard to put anything over my t-shirt. It occurred to me that the road might have been a better option. But I cast that weakness away and plugged on, getting on the pedals whenever I could.

I did a couple of singletrack switchbacks and found myself out of the wind for a moment so I sat down and ate some of the chocolate I procured from a supplier’s Christmas gift basket and called Mr Al Crossling for a quick gasbag. Turns out it wasn’t Al with bb problems that I had called to help with, but Tigs, but was good to share my epic with Al as he sat at his desk making love to excel spreadsheets, or whatever a statistician does. I told Al I could hear the wind roaring like thunder about 100m away where the wind and cloud must have been pouring through a col on the ridge, then let him go about his business.



I dropped out of the gorse shelter around the thin track I was on and immediately got body slammed into the ground. I’d not leant into the wind early enough and paid for it. I got up, got pushed over again, and as I got up the second time and was halfway through pointlessly exclaiming “Fuc…” when the wind confiscated my left contact lens. I dropped some C-bombs in short order. My prescription is -5.75.

The next sections involved a lot of hiking alongside the bike. Even that was hard to do and if I didn’t keep a hand on the back of the bike, the gale would lift it off the deck and blow it out like a flag, twisting up my brake lines. I braced myself against the wind and risked ‘life and limb’ to bring you this high quality footage:



I was eventually relieved to drop out of the cloud and the wind off Kau Kau and as I span into the far more moderate wind along Ohariu Valley the memory began fading. I wondered what the problem was and why had I made a fuss about the conditions on the top. So I thought I’d blog it for posterity.

This morning dawned fine. Sunny and no wind. But I had no energy to do any of the riding I forcefully claim I never do, so got the train and ate a massive Mcmuffin.

Happy windy trails.Dave

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Makara GLC - Rampage Time Trial

For the Spartans, the main event at the recent Makara Peak Festival was the ever epic Grand Loop Challenge. 30 warriors turned up to try their metal against the impressively loose, dusty and rocky trails to the summit and back down Ridgeline.

Commander Crossling Ran the show with jockstrap-like support from Rammer and Bushlove’s Amazonian Arizonian, Ashley.

This was the latest opportunity for sultry shysters, Davo and Wonny.J to knock heads. With Davo one up in there epic odyssey of rivalry, Jaghorn would be looking for a victory in this race within a race to preserve his debatable honour.

First man out was lean bean, Stu ‘Holeshot’ Houltham, followed at 20secs by Lanky Wildman, Tom ‘hot chicks on his Facebook’ Bradshaw, then Fastest Man, then Wonny Jaghorn, Davo and NCX2.
Fastest Man reeled in the human golf club, T-Rex, on the early climbing and continued his rampage to dish out some good news to Holeshot Houltham on Aratihi. Stu was later heard to be baffled as to where Ed found 40secs on him, and blamed his 20hrs of training that week. Here at Sparta Towers we call bullshit on this as nobody has ever trained for that long in one week and to our knowledge it is not humanly possible.

Ed takes the win with a new record time.

Meanwhile Davo, rocking his (Wildman’s old) Ibis Tranny singlespeed, was chasing Wonny hard to get on par before the descending. Luckily he caught Wonny and Tom at the same time on Koru and dispatched Wonny sharply lest any spectator see him exchanging pleasantries with a rival, especially one with pink heart shaped sunnies and zebra print lycra tights.

Wonny chased hard but was kept a couple of corners back on Aratihi by Aldred, who was motivated to stay clear of hard charging Clive NCX2 Bennett, who was coming strongly from behind. Eventually NCX2 collected both the retro rivals once he found his stride after bloodying himself going uphill in Sally Alley.



Dave led Jaggerhorn onto Ridgeline and they both stalled the singlespeeds in the gale force crosswinds on the rocky pinches and did some pathetic hiking, but picked up Clive on the main descent despite a delicate dismount from Davo. Aldred drew out a gap with some pinball dh styles to take 4th.

Ashley meanwhile was cutting out a fast lap to win the Goddess section. Unfortunately there were few ladies prepared to take on the loop and plans are afoot to remedy this low attendance with initiatives from Sparta Towers such as placing Horn Dogs like Kah Chan and Sam Rammer Dungey as strategic topless cheerleaders around the course.





Everyone wants MOAR Grand Loops and intensive planning is underway at BLR HQ to deliver them.

Excellent pics from Ridgeline by Damien Steele-Baker here

Moar pics of the fine day by Andy Kingpin here

Results on P3 of this thread

Happy trails.

Leonidas. BLR Press Sec & Fluffer

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Retro Rivalry - More stats to Czech

Likely lads Waghorn and Aldred are two of BLR's trio of old schoolers. The other being Ricky Pinecone. Despite maintaining the public image of being friends, in reality these two are cut throat competitors. Their wolverine-like killing instincts honed over their combined 98 years of mtb racing, help them to steamroll countless metrosexual shaven wanabees when they line up, on a strict diet of pastry, ice cream and zero training. Ripping places and seconds from each other is everything to these two. Fun doesn't even come into it.

Dave and Jon are bitter rivals and relish any opportunity to bang another nail in the other's coffin lid of inadequacy. Dave scored big recently when in a megafail by the Taupo organisers they cast him on the front of the Taupo brochure and magazine adverts.



This would have riled Waghorn, fresh from his last defeat at the extremely important Wellington SS Champs. But not to be out done Waghorner In The Corner got an action photo in the Wellingtonian.



Despite the huge cycling audience for Alldread's Taupo pic, he looks like a dirty roadie, albeit in denim lycra, so J-Dizzle won this particular media whoring event.

Since Waggerlagger returned to NZ he and Mr Aldred have knocked heads at the Karapoti, three CX events and the Wellington SS Champs. Waggers was gifted a victory in Poti as Dave used a very old retro bike with toe clips. But Wagers wasted this generous gift by axing himself and his wheel, ripping spokes out and holding his breath lest his wheel should collapse in the final kms. But Dave had to chnge gear on the Nishiki with a stick. Placing it in the front mech for the dog, and putting it in his pocket for the granny. Lots of sandbagging either way here and Jonny takes a minute from Aldred, with both going under 3hrs anyway.

The CX races were classics and there was even matching between the retro rivals as they traded a place each way with AllDread beating Jon twice against his once, to level the playing field after Private Waghorns Poti 'victory'.

The Welington SS Champs was a warm up for the Worlds. But there was nothing warm about it. These two elderly Spartans had themselves for company at the front, but despite his suspension fork and Davo's lack of one, Waggers got his horoscope read on the early descending and couldn't reel Aldred back. A flat tire put a dampener on any comeback plans for Waggers and thus Dave is currently one up.

Check out these stats. Trend lines added. Here at BLR Media & Stats HQ, we think this clearly shows the stats in their purest and most unquestionably vague accuracy.



Next head to head could well be the 2010 Makara Peak Grand Loop Challenge, held in the afternoon of the Makara Peak Festival on Sunday 5 Dec. Thats if these hardy untrained lager swillers aren't building fences, dealing with their ankle-biters or doing some other miscellaneous manly activities.

Be solid

Leonidas Of Sparta
Bushlove Press Sec.

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Makara Grand Loop Challenge - it's back!

This is the biggest race in mountain biking - no contest! 
As part of the Makara Peak Festival, the stage will be set for another set of names to be written into the Grand Loop Challenge history books. Who will it be?
At 4pm Sunday 5th December, the riders will be set off in 20 second intervals to find out who is the Makara Peak Grand Loop Champion of the World.
czech last year's stats!
The current record holders will be there:

Mr Ed - 37'53"

Wonder Woman Ash - 52'35"

WILL YOU?

This year a trophy is up for grabs...
We've got high tech this year and you can enter online: ENTER NOW

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That's a Wrap!!

Another year, another PNP MTB series and my second overall title. Sunday was the final round of the 2010 PNP MTB series and instead of giving you a run down of the race, I thought a quick recap of the series is in order.


Rd1 Makara
Crap weather, crap worn out drive-train, just plain average sums up Rd 1! The heavens really opened up for the first race, turning most tracks into rivers; it did offer some interesting situations with washed out tracks and mega chain suck (my drive-train was screwed anyway), but it’s still always fun playing in the mud no matter what your age. Lucky enough to hold onto 2nd behind a hard charging Mono.

Rd2 Wainui
My good old home town, what better place to race then where I grew up, except that the tracks weren’t there when I lived in the ‘Nui. My legs felt brilliant this time and nothing was going to stop me, allowing me to take a 10min win; riding in Wainui is always fun with the wicked tracks offering rocks, clay, roots, just about everything really. Apart from the win the highlight would have to be racing down Spoonhill twice.

Rd3 Mt Vic
Couldn’t say my luck with Mt Vic has always been favorable, except this time things went smoothly. Once again the legs were super sharp and with Whaka the following weekend, I was happy with my skid in the central town belt. Once again a very satisfying win, though my ability to float across the wet pine needles and roots impressed me most; considering my ex-roadie skills I have to savor the odd shining of decent bike handling.

Rd4 Belmont
Always tough from a physical point of view due to all the farm track and lack of technical single track, this was my toughest race in the series. Managed to lose my bottle only a quarter of the way in and on a warm day this is not the most ideal. Coupled with a very tender knee I had my work cut out for me. This race was not over until the finish line with me only winning by 5sec’s; I always love a good hard race and like the previous year Belmont didn’t disappoint.

Rd5 Makara
With the series already wrapped out I could just head out and have some fun. Rocking my new SantaCruz single speed I didn’t exactly give myself the easy option, though riding down Vertigo towards the end put a grin on my face. Only rolled across in 6th place but it was the Champagne that I was looking forward to.



So, another successful PNP MTB series and another summer of racing to look forward to.
Big thanks to Marco, Al, Ash and the rest of PNP for another fun filled series, SantaCruz bikes for helping me roll on the fastest wheels, all the Bushlove crew (and SS’s) for their ‘encouraging’ support and most of all my lovely smoke screen; cheers to everyone.
(Thanks to all the photographers out there as well, awesome pics)

Stay tuned for tales from my summer adventures.

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Dirty Girls

We’re not like other girls; we like brown more than pink, camelbaks better than handbags, and would choose a chain ring over a diamond ring anyday… We are the ‘Women of Dirt’!

On Sunday 7 November the women dug deep and got dirty with Wellington’s first women’s only 6 hour mountain bike feast! 10 teams (Dirty Girls) and 21 solos (Dirt Divas) completed the event. The ladies took over the car park at Makara Peak Mountian Bike Park, and transformed it into an impressive spectacle. Everything from decorated bikes to matching costumes, and even customised name plates and themed tent sites, the women were ready to ride in style.

The Women of Dirt enjoyed the sweet trails on the fun 20-30 minute course, while dedicated supporters and photographers were all smiles watching the women zoom past. The hardcore women completed 14 laps- just over 80km with more than 2,500m of climbing! These girls totally deserved the baked goodies that were waiting for them at the end.

The women finished the day off with a tea party in the sunshine. The top Dirty Girls and Dirt Divas were awarded with Dirt themed prizes, and of course there were a few extra goodies to be given out. The Best Dressed award went to Amanda Walker, aka Dinky Furpurse, for her quick and colourful costume changes- she had a new one for every lap! The Best Baked Goodie award went to the 'Banana Flavoured Snatch Cake'.

This event was brought to you by the lovely ladies of Revolve: Down to Earth Cycling for Women. Check out http://www.revolvetraining.co.nz/ for all the women's only weekly rides, clinics and seminars, and events.

The Fastest Women of Dirt:
1st Dirty Girls- Thorn between 2 roses
2nd Dirty Girls- Team Style
3rd Dirty Girls- Knight Riders

1st Dirt Diva- Jackie O'Hagan
2nd Dirt Diva- Rose Green
3rd Dirt Diva- Jude Young

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How to be like Fastest Man 101

If you're anything like me you ask yourself every night before going to bed "How do I become "Fastest Man", I am about to divulge all . Stalking... Nooo, we'll not much anyway.

Take one part "Fastest Walker"
Add a dirty "Fastest Roadie"

Mixed together should give you something that looks like this to start to live and breath everything he did.

Breakfast of champions, yes that is Raw Sugar on Rice Bubbles and Peaches

Dress the same:










There were times I got soo close he was mesmerizing....


Some lost tack of the goal at hand...

Yes Davo it is a Toaster...

Others tried to mimic his race style. No NOT both feet on the ground at the same time, slow enough but NOT a champion walker there...



Sexy as this man is, NOT Fastest Man's Wardrobe colours (Thanks to Wardrobe Flair for dressing Fastest Man)...


Others have tried getting in the pants of Fastest Man and come up short:


So after days/weeks of stalking I came up with only answer... HTFU Pills!!!! See you all at Makara for the final round of the PNP Bicycle Series.

My advice to you all "Never eat Fruit Burst Clusters"

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Czech my stats - OTA at the ss worlds.

Just when you thought the coverage from the ss worlds has finally ended, there's more! I'll keep it brief though, you know my stats.

After a winter of skiing (or attempting to) and doing no riding whatsoever, I've only been getting back on the bike in the last month or so . With the sun out, the trails in Chch are finally open and the riding is great. With not a lot of riding and quite a lot of BMI, I wasn't expecting much more than a few lolz and a weekend drinking.

Being a tad unorganised, we had to fly to Auckland post work on Friday so rolled into Vegas around midnight. I managed to build the bike up when we arrived without any dramas ready for the big day. As always, we had breakfast at Zippys pre race and headed out to the forest where we were greeted to a great selection of not gay at all costumes. They were a big step up from other ss races which really added to the atmosphere.

You've all heard how the race started "Daytona" styles so all I will say is that out doing everyone I started back in 1400th place. OTA FTW.

With my race over from the start I just enjoyed the atmosphere and the trails. By the second lap had passed enough people to have some clear trail so put in a bit more effort to try save some self respect. It would have been nice to have a bit more focus on racing (without taking away from the spirit of singlespeeding) but nevertheless I had a great time. It made my day to see Garth take out the title, he's truly an inspiration.

We stayed up in Rotorua till Monday catching up with peeps, having a few drinks and steaming some trails. Good times were had, thanks Rotorua.

Going for the holeshot at the start.

Not a drop spilt.

Feeling the bushlove from Mike at Bike Hutt

Having a well deserved swim.

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Brutal Hardcore 29er / CX Action

This is mainly for Mike Anderson's benefit as he hardens right up at this kind of thing.

See Al Crossling at 39secs and Hayden Richards at 1.58

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Where for art thou SlackBoy

Now I keep getting asked "Where are you now? Why haven't you graced our presence with your majestic calves. True our partners find it harder to lust after you, which we find grateful, but nonetheless, we miss you SlackBoy"
Now don't worry my lil star-struck fan base, for I am not completely gone. For I now call a mountain top mansion of cheap pine and tin home. And am one of the chosen that worships upon the altar of trail building, and carve out of the mountainsides sweet womanly curves of dirt and rock.
For once, tho I have been digging trails for years, I am actually being paid for doing what I used to do on my day off, for free.

Here's a small sample of what I/we have been doing..........

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