Kaiteriteri 6hr Mountainbike

Thinking I had missed a great opportunity to race on Kaiteriteri's newly developing mountainbike park while at heights of winter I received a nice surprise. The proposed 6hr race had been postponed a week due to seriously crap weather. Brilliant...no excuses now.

As the day began we were treated to a typical Nelson frosty morning along with magical blue skies. The event started with a quick ride on tar seal alongside the estuary before turning into the mountainbike park and some amazing intermediate single track riding. Being a Solo rider and having taken the last 3 weeks off riding my goal was "preservation". With this in mind I got into a rhythm riding with biking guru Nick Ross (pronounced woss). We soon realised that although amazing riding, great trails, pleasant company yada yada yada that there was a lot of uphill making for a very challenging course for Solo riders. To put the day into a couple of sentences, there was a lot of ups and downs, Nick unfortunately had a mechanical after 3 hours cutting him out of the running, and I was not that dissapointed when I missed the cutoff for a final lap by a few minutes. I spent the day establishing myself into 2nd place and finished about 15mins off the pace from a formidable Tom Filmer.

A big thanks to the guys from Nelson mountainbike club for organising a top day. My legs were toast but it made for a really satisfying day. If you haven't already done so, check out the Kaiteriteri mountainbike park. Its worth the trip!