It’s always great when a creaking noise from somewhere in
your bike turns into a crack. It’s even better when it’s the afternoon before
you leave for a race. Luckily I had Ricky and Kim to help me out. By the end of Thursday night Ricky had set me
up on Kim’s spare Hard-tail frame, which had me extremely grateful that I’d actually
have a bike to race on, but at the same time slightly worried as I hadn’t
ridden a Hard-tail for nearly a year.
Despite the stressful start to the weekend, I was still
excited about the race; I’d be racing on some cool new tracks, and against
multiple girls. Although the early Friday start (4:00am) wasn’t exactly a
highlight (or the drive up where dad got really witty and decided to take
photos of me sleeping) pre riding the course was. The course was really awesome,
with not too many climbs, a few technical bits and lots of flow, the race
promised to be exciting- and the Hard-tail was definitely fine for the course.
Ryan also decided to be extra generous, not only was he and
his dad letting me stay at theirs but Ryan let me borrow his super nice Carbon Enve
wheels (a really nice brand with sick sounding hubs), so I was pretty pumped
for the race. With nearly record girl numbers (four in U17 – a full podium!!!)
the race was turning to be better than I expected.
Jess Manchester ended up winning with Phoebe
Young from Wanaka coming in second; I managed to get third, beating the fourth
girl who had come all the way from New Caledonia. The race was good fun and I’m
happy with how I did, I tried my best and got results that I’m happy with-
despite being a step lower on the podium I was way closer to Jess than I had
been at Mt Vic.
Of course I genuinely wouldn’t have been able to race if it were
the amazing support and help I got from Ricky, Kim and the other guys at MUD
cycles. Thanks so much Kim for letting me borrow your frame at such short
notice, and Ricky for organising it so I could borrow a frame, and then moving
everything across. And Cheers to Ryan for letting me stay at yours and for
lending me your awesome wheels. Mum and Dad, what can I say, it can’t be fun driving
me round the country every few weeks, so thanks so much for giving up your
weekend! Also cheers to MUD Cycles for the support they always give me and to Lisa
at Cowbell Coaching for the awesome coaching that gets and keeps me race fit!