Ohope Ordeal

After a years break Ohope Ordeal was back and been less than 2 weeks before we are off to Europe it was a good hit out to have. Heading home to the tracks I grew up on is always a good feeling; I had just about forgotten how steep the hills were there but was soon reminded how hard it was there, this is the hard terrain that has shaped me as a rider and I love it.

I had won this race 4 times and was the only male winner to have won the event, so I kind of felt pressure been a local race and heaps of family and friends there, and I didn’t have it all my way with 2 of the young guns turning up. Under 19 national Champion Sam Gaze and my local cousin Brad Jones were there to beat me.

We started off quite quick creating gaps strait away, after a few minutes it was just us 3 boys off the front. I was told by Evan to hold back as much as I could but not to let them go, as its going to be a long season packed with racing. After the 1st major decent Sam and Brad gapped me slightly and been on the 26inch I found it hard to roll back to them on the paddocks and flats, but was soon to catch up on the next steep hill, a lot of cat and mouse was happening with the boys I think they may do a bit to much road racing and their roadie tactics defiantly played into my favour. On the main climb up to the transmitter been a good half hour of solid steep up hill I dropped Sam but couldn’t get rid of Brad until he made a small mistake and popped a foot on the final steep turn of the climb and I attacked out to having about a 20 second gap into the decent, after not riding here for a couple of years I spend more time on the decent looking over banks and in the long grass off the ride lines trying to push it to much . By the bottom of the decent Brad was no where in sight so on the final climb back into Ohope I backed off slightly, by ¾ of the way up the hill I looked back to see Brad coming full steam so gave the final push over the top and descended to the finish winning by 40 odd seconds for my 5th Ohope Ordeal title.

Carl

Katie's Race

Must be a bit out of routine and again missed the whole warm up, a spin down and back up the road for 2minutes was all I could get in. I wanted to start hard but was unable to and it took me majority of the first climb to start feeling like I could nearly climb. As the climb went up a notch I managed to pick off a number of riders in front, the second long climb I maintained my position and could see about 4 riders ahead, I did not have the legs that early to pull them back, but never let them get out of sight. I knew that they had been riding hard and pushing it and would be feeling it, so soon as we got off the farm land and started the steeper climbing up through the trees I picked off the 4 riders in front, getting into 10th position overall.

During the Race I had some great battles with Sam Thompson, our team manager who sacrificed his legs to really put the hurt on me during the race. In the initial start loop I would try come around only to be met with a surge of power, far from enjoyable with my legs not yet being on-board with the race,. When I managed to get to him later in the race, I was able to pull away up the hill but into the single tack Sam was right there so it kept me pushing the descents. This type of pressure is great for me in preparing for Europe as I am a bit out of practice so it was defiantly a fun race.

Sunday following I went on a bit of Skills session with Craig Pattle who has been working with Amber our team mate and found it great to pick up on some lines. He gave me some great tips to help get my movement back in my body as at the moment although I am feeling faster every ride I still ride very protectively of my back and am not moving around my bike as well as I could, so will have to cut a few laps of the pump track and make a conscious effort to get this down. I have been doing a few skills session lately, was stoked on Monday prior to the race to get in a session at my Mountain Bike Rotorua and get a few skills dialled in with the help of Brad O'Malley.

Awesome to have so many people around to help push me - so as usual thanks to all those helping and supporting me. In Particular Evan Mcrae our coach, he has really had to work hard to get me back racing :-) I keep on hearing "It will come", I think it is stage two of the "patience is a virtue" concept.