2010 Karapoti

I seem to be going backwards with my Karapoti attempts. This ‘adventure styled’ MTB race falls just one week after Nationals and I struggle to pull my head around it during this time – Karapoti is quite a different style compared to the UCI format of racing and to be honest I hadn’t really thought about anything past Nationals.

So yup terrible chain suck and a lost head made for a bumpy race. I was riding round at the back of the Elite Woman’s field thinking about how I was going to be ‘beer bitch’ that night (what happens if I post the slowest time out of the Wednesday night bunch) and contemplating how much fun that was going to be…

Going up ‘Dopers’- the final hill, I could see Sarah up ahead, with my competitive nature I instantly got back into the spirit of racing and I started to have more fun. From there I just rode strong picking people back off to finish 3rd place in the Elite Woman’s category. Annika took the win and was the only chick of the day to go under 3hours, Nic not to far behind was third.

One of the highlights of the day was the fact that Rob had posted a slower time than me! With his ‘handy man hat’ back in his shed, Rob thought he could fix his bike by bashing it with a stone. The only problem with this resurrection scheme was that Rob’s gear cable was in the way of his rock… bugger or him… as a result Rob earnt himself the pink apron and was the “beer bitch” for the rest of the night!

Rob did a great job though, as everyone was sitting around the fire late at night Rob was still wandering round person to person collecting their emptys and replacing with another full bottle.

Top performances of the Day came form Trevor – riding his 17th sub 3hour Karapoti while convincingly winning his old boys class. And yes, Dad too rode sub 3hours… kicking my butt. Dad sure picks the right race to have his one hit wonder on, so I have to let him have one more year of bliss.