Dawn 2 Dusk a 10hr Solo DH race

Run by the Rotorua Mountain Bike club, the Dawn 2 Dusk is a multi lap Downhill event (team or solo) into its 2nd year running.

There are 4 sets of tracks you ride to get to the bottom, you can ride these tracks in any order and any amount of times but you had to do a certain number of compulsory runs of each. This year there was a pedally loop which was Billy T, G-rock, Chestnut, Rollercoaster, Chinese menu. You had to do 1 lap of this, you had to do 2 of corners, 2 of Jumps and 2 of the National DH. You would get stickers at the end of each track to confirm you had done it. Unfortunately there was really no way to force people to ride the courses properly and people were taking shortcuts or missing sections of track out. The fastest tracks to the bottom were the DH and Jumps (with the shortcuts) and this is what people wanted to ride.

I entered last year as a solo but didn't take the race too seriously, I missed the start and treated the day as a fun day shuttling. This year I thought I would try and take the race a bit more seriously.

The race was a hard race to do competively as there are so many factors you need to take in to do well in this race. While the main factor is your riding ability and how quickly you can get downhill, your race can also depend on the shuttle trucks and how they transport you back up the hill. Last year there were problems with the shuttles, there were often huge wait times to get you back up the hill, thankfully this year this wasn't really a problem.

There were other problems though and myself and a couple of other riders faced them, this was where our bikes fell off a trailer transporting them to the top of the hill. The suspect trailer had been borrowed from the Christchurch Southstar shuttles operation where they drove smooth tarmac roads to the top of the Port hills, the Rotorua uphill was far from a smooth drive up.

If there was ever an argument for why someone would need a bashguard on their bike, I was a strong contender for one. At close to 12pm on the way back up to the top my bike was flung off the trailer wheel braces and landed hard onto the trailers edge hitting my bike's chainring square and hard warping it beyond belief. I guess I was pretty lucky that no other damage was caused. After assessing my bike I slowly rode down the jump track, I couldn't pedal, then went on the search for another chainring and some bolts for my bike.

My hopes for this race were now gone, I almost felt like giving up and thought I was going to have to. After asking around a bit, the Revolution Cycles (Transition Bikes) crew sorted me out. After a search, a replacement 34T chainring was found and a couple of bolts. I installed the chainring and bolts, I was only running 3 but this was enough if I took it easy and didn't pedal too hard out. I think I lost a couple of laps while I mucking around trying to fix my bike.

I continued the race but without the dedication I had had in the morning. The rest of the race was uneventful for me and I finished it getting 12th place (18 laps) out of the 36 solo riders.

Cheers to Helen for the photos

Running again

Busy today at work and then meetings after lunch I planned I could only get a 30 minute run in this lunch hour as it would take time for me to get ready before and after and of course I needed to eat lunch.

Of all the training I do I still find running the hardest. They say running requires 3-4 times more effort (energy) than cycling, so my 30 minute run today could be equalivant to a 2 hour bike ride.

It was raining and cold this lunch hour today and I forced myself out for a run, I thought today I would just run out to the point and back, a bit shorter than my short usual run. I would also step up the pace a bit too so that I would be sure to get back in my 30 minute allocated time frame. Out to the point and back was roughly 6kms. There wasn't many people running today, but this was understandable given the crap conditions.

Running on road doesn't do much for me in excitement terms, much like road bike riding. I need things to keep me interested, keep me going. One of those things is music via my iPod and the other is these little goals I set myself. When I talk about little goals I really mean I try to catch up to people and pass them, if someone passes me I try to match their pace. The catching people and passing them goal works well for me, its great passing people, makes me think I am doing well. The matching pace when I get passed goal often doesn't work so well and buggers me out quickly. Fortunately today I was only passing people.

Running today seemed like more work than last week, though I dont feel as sore it did feel harder. Not sure if that was due to the weather, my faster pace (was it really faster?) or was I just having an off day?
28.22 minutes later and I am back, happily under my 30 minute estimate. Shower, a quick lunch and i'm in time for my 1:30pm meeting.