Today’s race in Tokoroa drew the largest and highest quality fields for the series to date. All the North Island crew were there and a lot of riders had made the trip up from the south. I was placed second behind Nick Leary who is riding really strong and local Michelle Bellamy wasn’t far behind in third. I’m happy with my result after my weeks training load and considering the course was so flat. There were only a couple of short climbs in every lap but they each made for a good fun down hill. Next weekend will be my final national series round in Hamilton before I head home for Nationals!
Wahoo! I sent my ‘a’ into ‘g’ for this final round of the South Island Cup and came up trumps. I had a good race finishing first, kept all my skin attached to my body and I walked away with a special white envelope!! Since this round was a selection race I made sure I didn’t have legs of lead on the start line, this made the race so much more fun – I could finally ‘go’ and then keep ‘go-ing’. Amy and I had another good battle for the first part of the race, once I passed her heading up a slippery bank I just rode at a controlled pace till the end.
I reckon this was the best National Series course laid on for us so far, it was pretty tough and good as. The course incorporated most of the tracks they had used for Nationals last year with some new ones thrown in to form one big mother of a climb, suiting local climbing gun George Bennett as he won the elite men’s race. Now it is a weekend off racing to be at home, finally and sleep in my own bed. Then up north and into some more racing as the North Island series begins.
Some good photo’s from this SI cup race can be found here.
It was the biggest Elite Woman’s field today ever. Standing on the start line I felt crowded by the nine other girls around me – crazy! Then two minutes later we were off into it, racing around the funnest track in Bethune’s Gully. It was the same course that Oceania’s will be held on in March so it was good to have a race on the track now to know what we will be in for later. Two days ago when we arived here in Dunedin it was mud slush city, the track was just loose everywhere but it had dried up heaps by this afternoon, making it pretty fast. Amy Liard cleaned up again, Sara McDonald was just behind and I finished up third.
I got a brand new Jamis bike two days ago, complete with everything flash - carbon this and Sram XX that it’s pretty pretty! The geometry is real different compared to the Dragon though, but hopefully it won’t take long to get use to. Having two chain rings is way better, having a gold chain makes it meaner too and having componentry that works again! You can’t beat that. Next weekend is the South Island Cup final in Nelson. This round is a selection race for Worlds meaning everyone will be going harder and less tired to begin with so it should be a good test!
Today was one of those days where I just didn’t get it right. Round one of the South Island XC Cup was in Christchurch on a great course with heaps of fun switch backs and rollers. It was a hot day out racing though, which stuffed my body up. I tried to keep pouring liquids into my body to stop it from cooking (like it did last year at Timaru), I must have over done it or something because when I was on lap 3 I couldn’t even keep water down so that was the end of anything going in. Me and Amy were having a good old battle once my goose was cooked she busted off ahead. I was hanging out for the finish when on my last lap (number 5) I broke my chain. I ran and pumped my way to the finish as the rest of the field passed me.
That’s how it goes; the chain didn’t break because of my ruthless power rather because all the running gear on my bike was past worn out. I am getting hold of my new bike on Tuesday and was hoping like mad my bike would hang in there for this last race. Sometimes hope just doesn’t cut it. Oh well it was a good hard day training at least. I will keep testing out some different drink mixes and goos until I can find something that works.
Amy Laird took out the Elite Woman’s title today with a stellar performance on her home track. Amy has fully switched codes for this year getting stuck into cross country and selling her DH bike. The Elite Men’s field was dominated by Brendon Sharratt with young Anton Cooper not far behind.
The next XC round of the SI cup is in Dunedin next Saturday. It will be held back in Bathoons gully which is another great track! I’ll try again there and see if I can deal to a few hick ups, to make sure I am absolutely positively sorted by the time Nationals rocks around – that’s the big one!
Day three was ugly. There were so many crashes and the worst one happened just behind me in the bunch. Something must have been happening up the road so one of the officials cars suddenly drove to the front of our bunch and slowed down. The bunch was made to lose speed in a hurry and people nearing the rear of the bunch weren’t aware of what had happened in a hurry up ahead. Some riders must have jammed their brakes on and over lapped wheels, about 12 girls went down and five into the hospital. It is the worst sound and feeling ever. Katie was just behind the beginning of it but used her mountain biking skills to ride through it. Monique was riding on the other side of Katie and was forced to go down on top of another rider, she was lucky to escape unharmed and eventually carry on riding… Her brand new shiny Merida bike is written off now though, with a stress fracture and chip in the carbon frame. We were all pretty shaken up and none of us finished very well in today’s stage. It is a shame to finish the tour on a bit of a low but at least none of us got injured AND we had three great hearty days of training! The tour was actually pretty fun, racing on your limit and to keep racing once your smashed too see how deep you can dig. My legs are going to be hurting for a few days still but after that surely they will be ready to start some mountain bike racing!
Today hurt. Those roady girls cracked me and now I am smashed. This morning in the 70k road race the smack went down heading up Spooners, like it does every year. I was maxing out to get to the top in a good position as the field was torn apart. I painfully rolled over the top in a good bunch of about 7? There was no let up as a few leaders had got away and we had to catch them, many ounces of energy later we managed to do so. Then it was still hard, there was no time to recover and my body was hating it. When we hit the bottom of rays saddle my legs couldn’t go any harder so I got dropped. I rode the next 25ish km solo as did Nik Leary who was 400m up the road from me. 5km from the finish we both got swallowed up by the next bunch with Katie and Monique. I am a bit gutted to get dropped from the bunch and to have expended all that energy to gain no time. But at the same time it was awesome to have a go and see what I can do and also check out how hearty New Zealand’s top roady girls ride.
This afternoon we had to do a 19km time trial around a lumpy circuit. It wasn’t very fun, I was really tired and just couldn’t go fast. I lost heaps of time and 11 places down to 26th. Katie got her angry face on in the TT and had a good one as did Monique, only seven seconds apart and they both held their own in GC, 18th and 22nd. At the moment we are all stoked that tomorrow is the LAST day, one more 80km road race to go. After that we can have a sleep in and just be beach bums for while…. Can’t wait.
After a nerve racking drive late on Saturday night we (the Waiariki Mountainbike squad) made it to Nelson. The boys brightly decided we had enough gas to make it to Nelson and didn’t need to make the trip to Blenheim to fill up… so we didn’t. 75km away from Nelson the gas light flicked on they weren’t looking so confident. The van rolled down every hill in neutral and Scott drove us as gas efficient as possible, every mL of desiel was going to count so we even sacrificed our air con. Thanks to the team effort we just managed to make it! lucky?
Today the first day of racing began with an 11km hill climb up Takaka. Last year I blew up hard, not even halfway up and just ended up creeping to the top. Ever since then I wanted to race up Takaka again and do it better. Today was it, I wasn’t feeling amazing but I went as hard as I could with the legs that I have. I am pretty happy knowing I couldn’t have really gone faster on the day. National MTB champs are still two months away so there is still heaps more training and improvements to gain until our MTB squad will be hitting form. My time was 32min30sec which wasn’t too bad – placing me 6th in U23 age group and 15th over all. Continue reading ‘Tour de Femme – Day 1′
Word on the street is that Christmas is not far away now. So it is time to fill up any empty spaces under the tree (if there are any left), get those bbqs cranking with your friends and family and eat as much yummy food as you can get your hands on! It’s all go now, I’m off into the Sounds with the whanau for a three day Christmas, before traveling to Nelson where the racing begins… Then it is back into more holidaying! Whether you have three days or three weeks holidays off, these days are the best; jam packed with as many good times as possible in our good old kiwi summer weather.
I for one am definitely looking forward to another visit from Santa this year; you never get too old for that. Luckily for me Grandma’s house in the Sounds has a fire place so there are no excuses why my stocking couldn’t be tapped out. For all the people out there who modernised your heating methods this winter (like my Mum and Dad) or don’t have a fire place, you might not be so lucky?
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Check this out, it is my new Samara Sheppard logo! After a lot of time thinking about getting one it has finally happened. I initally tried to come up with the design myself, but after a good six months had gone buy and I still had produced nothing I was happy with, it was time to turn to an old school friend – Ashley Wicks for help. Ashley is super talented at designing and drawing and worked with Craig Guy (another mate from school doing Graphics Design at uni) to produce this awesome logo that repersents me. Four batches of cookies latter and I am now the proud logo owner! This logo is splashed all over my flash new riding kit (photos to come) and it is soon to be up and about on my website too… That’s me, I’m branded!!
Huge thanks to Ashley Wicks, Craig Guy, Anton and Hurbert Burian for making it possible.
Thanks to R&R and its terrific team for all their support this past year. A top bike shop and so handy to be able to rock on up to another one of their branches and receive the same great service in one of their other eight stores across New Zealand. Unfortunately though, I will no longer be rolling with R&R as despite their many locations they are not in Rotorua. Seeing that next year I will continue to study, work, ride and play in Rotorua it seems logical to support and be supported by a bike shop in the same town as me and my bikes. Continue reading ‘Thanks R&R’
