jdb's blog

Was an eventful first section for me yesterday, had the front tyre washout and also clipped a tree leading to an OTB. Racing Ralph tyres had no traction through the damp section of single track. After hitting the tree I had to stop and adjust the bars a couple of times. Luckily as I hit the road section to the first water stop I found a fast group to ride with. I only needed to stop for long enough to refill a bottle so left most of them behind at the stop.

On finishing the Angry Doctor feeling fresh and ready to keep riding I felt ready for the Scott 24hr race. The Angry Doctor also signalled how fast the race was approaching and began the panic of getting everything organised, luckily almost everything turned up. Big thanks to Gavin, Vanina and City Bike Depot for organising a spare bike for me.

I absolutely loved this race! I'm looking forward to next year... from last in category at Dirtworks with the elite social riders to sub 7 hours, I'm over the moon My bike was awesome, it felt so light with the new bling wheels, it was serviced on Thursday by CBD and ran without issue the entire race.

Before the ride I made a last minute seat swap, stole the Fizik Gobi from my mountain bike and put it on my roadie. Pretty soon I think I'll have one on all my bikes, made the ride really comfortable.

I set off from home at 5:30am, my main aims were to average over 25km/h and keep my average heart rate below 170. I'm not sure how accurate the heart rate monitor is, it says my maximum heart rate was 237 bpm

I smashed my pre-race goal of 120km, I did somewhere between 140km and 132km, completed 14 laps. The track builder at the rider building said a lap was 10.2km, my garmin averaged 9.5km.

Thanks to Gavin and Vanina for giving me some of their gels, congratulations to you both for your awesome results. Apart from forgetting the gels my preparation for this ride was so much better than the WWS 8hr at Appin, I've now got a large number of bottles and containers with segments so I can organise all my food and drinks before the race start.

What a day, I had a blast. I'm already looking forward to the next round

Everyone was so friendly, especially the race winner Mark Tupalski and one of the KOM shop riders I'm pretty sure it was Chris Smith. Each time they would overtake we would have a chat and they would always offer encouragement.

The track was in better condition than I was expecting, there has been a lot less rain at Appin then there has in the Northern Beaches over the last week.

With rain in Wellington all day and night Friday plus some more Saturday morning, the Karapoti course was a mud pit. I set out to achieve a time of less than 5 hours.
The race begins with a quick dash across the river, which was freezing cold and waist deep due to the rain. I’m glad I didn’t pack my phone so I could take some pictures during the race, the start would have killed it.

After Rotorua I went to Taupo to ride the W2K track, a ride that Jason who I met at Summer Hill suggested. When I set out I did not plan to do a long ride but it ended up turning into one. Luckily I planned ahead and had extra food and my lights with me.

Took my bike to the Specialized dealer in Rotorua they did a great job, fixing the brakes installing a new rear tyre and adjusting the gears all in under an hour. I had two days of riding in Rotorua, I’m considering going there for another day later this week.

The people in the Rotorua and Taupo region are spoilt, so many great tracks to choose from. The first day in Whakarewarewa I only had two hours to play with, so rode a combination of the lower trails. Found a nice jump, which I did not go over