In my ten years of racing I can honestly say that the Tour
de Whaka was the most enjoyable race I have competed in. Two days of racing split into four races: A
hill climb, super D, time-trial and cross country. The weather forecast was slightly dubious and
the organisers made a call to have the three short events on the Saturday followed
by the XC on the Sunday- good call as it turned out! There was a good turnout from the Palmy crew
with seven riders! The field at this
event was so strong- pretty much all of the north island nationals racers were
there and very few punters so we knew we were up for a couple of days of hard riding.
Most people were slightly apprehensive about the hill climb
but I was looking forward to it! Just
short of 20 minutes of uphill slog- good fun!
The ride of the day here has to go to Sam Bamford who finished well up the
field. The super D was a brilliant, albeit
pedally course, with some of the best tracks in Whakarewarewa- Split Endz,
Pondy Dh, Pondy New and Rollercoaster. Everyone
loved this race! The best moment had to
be Ben Somerton doing a cartwheel off his bike over the line and the only thing
he was worried about was whether his time had counted or not! Dan Terpstra showed off his awesome skills in
this race with a 6th place finish in the U19 grade. After two hard races everyone’s legs were
feeling pretty heavy with a time-trial on Old Chevy still to come. This was a really tough track to ride fast
with the hill climb and super D efforts still fresh in our legs! At the end of day one several Palmy riders were sitting well up the
field but the times were close so it was all going to come down to the XC race
on Sunday.
During the night we awoke to hear it absolutely bucketing
down! It was so loud that it was hard to
sleep and all I was thinking was that it was going to be an entertaining race
the next day and that I hoped it wouldn’t be cancelled! Luckily, the race was on! 25km of muddy goodness. The puddles were gigantic and hid numerous obstacles! Being of shorter stature I practically
disappeared in one of the puddles- heard the rider behind me having a good
laugh before taking a different line. It
was a super fun, fast and flowing course.
By the end of the race we all had a mudpack facial. Summer racing? Yeah right! At the end of the day Karl Paterson and Ben
Somerton finished 5th and 7th overall in open men- the
first non-elite racers which was an awesome effort. Ethan Jacobs has a stellar ride in the XC to
finish 2nd overall in the U16 category while Sam Bamford finished 7th
in the extremely competitive U19 grade. Tom Bamford finished 3rd in the
veterans grade and in the open women’s’ grade Sasha, myself and Megan finished
4th, 5th and 6th respectively. It was an awesome, well-run event and well
worth the trip to Rotorua. The new Pedal
Pushers shirts also made their racing debut and got a few comments on how good
they looked! If this event is run again
next year you can be sure I will be on the start line!
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