Craigs blog

Easing on into Christmas this year.  It is really great having young kids to share this time of year with. Blake now 2 and a bit, fully understands what its all about, and is a long way from losing the innocence of learning that the Jolly Fat man isnt real.  Or is he?

We spent the weekend in Mid December doing all kinds of cool stuff. We picked up the Xmas tree that we had reserved about 3 weeks earlier, transported it home and set it in a bucket, then we all decorated the tree together, topped off with Blake sitting the angel on top. I remember so well from my own childhood, every year going out with Dad and getting a pine tree, and putting it up in the lounge, its such a great time and I vow to do this every year for my own kids.

Heidi's work had their kids Xmas day on the Sunday, and as soon as Santa arrived, Blake was standing their front and centre, pointing at the goody bag, arm outstretched, saying "Good boy, present!".  Santa gave him a Woody doll, hadnt thought about it but its the first doll Blake has ever had, and he really took to it, playing intently with it for about an hour, and saying "Woody's AWESOME!".  What a crack-up. Amy got a little musical worm thingee, she likes music so that ought to keep her amused for some time.

Work has been nice and steady this month, and a lot in the Auto Industry are winding down from the 19th, so Im having an easy last few days leading into Xmas, hopefully I can wrangle a day off on Xmas Eve and whistle over to Rotorua for a ride with Scotty before his new baby arrives, already 12 days overdue!

The only other news, is the Xmas pressie that Heidi and I got each other, a replacement family car, and I love it. I have been scoping for a Falcon S/W at the right price for about 6 weeks now, and came really close to a couple through Turners Auctions, but I finally nabbed one via trademe, committing the Page.1 sin of buying a 2nd hand car without seeing it or driving it, but I had a very good feeling after talking on the phone with the seller, and when it showed up I was far from disappointed. It has been very well looked after and was in better condition that I expected. I wasted no time, fitting lowering blocks in the rear, and replacement front springs. Really sets it off nicely with the XR6 alloys it came with. Then we had the windows tinted, it looks bloody great. Its so cool for me to finally have a car I like. While the Mazda served a purpose for us, Im not at all sorry to see the back of it, well I wont be just as soon as we sell it that is.

Really looking forward to a couple of weeks away from work now, and catching up with my bro Ben, who has just flown in from London for the holidays.

DSC03663

Finally got it finished on Friday afternoon. Been busy as all hell with work all week, and some bits I ordered on Monday only showed up on Friday morning, so I dropped the whole thing in to Hedgehogs to fit the new shift cables and tune the derailleurs. Then I got it home and fitted an adaptor and 180mm rotor on the front, then packed the car and drove for 3 hours.

Felt nice and mild, and remarkably warm when Murray and I arrived in National park late on Friday night, with bright stars all over the sky and no clouds. The next morning it looked awesome too. 8am start on the shuttle bus, and out to the trailhead at 8.30am. 14 of us, in varying fitness and ability, headed off into the 48kms of awesomeness known as the 42 Traverse.

The first 6kms or so were just doubletrack gravel road, undulating slightly, with a couple of sweeping downish bits, with some corrugated corners. My first impression of the new rig were just how planted the wheels felt on the ground, compared to riding a hardtail. I found myself actually hunting out the potholes and roughies just to see how it all went. And it went sweet. By the time we stopped there to regroup, I was already feeling slightly embarressed that it had taken me so long to get onto this full suspension caper.

I had set up the rear shock, and the front forks, on the softer end of the range for my weight, and set the rebound fairly fast, just 2 clicks off fully fast. And it all seemed to be doing its thang nicely. I tried the shock on the Propedal setting on a couple of the short climbs, but couldnt feel any noticeable difference from the Open setting.

About 18kms in, the ride heads down, a long unimpeded downhill run that is the major redeeming feature of this ride. After a short kodak stop at the the top, I headed off in the lead, and just opened the taps up wide. This bike had me in an uber-confident mood, to the point I was actually riding too quickly to make accurate line assessments of the oncoming trail, not that it seemed to matter much, this bad boy just soaked up everything I threw at it (including one moment off a drop into some horrible clay and boulder ridden ruts, that had me thinking "woops Im falling off now", but no it wasn't to be), the bike just ploughed through completely untroubled, and at this stage was clearly a lot better than I was.

We regrouped at the river crossing at the bottom to have a bit to eat and recount each others tales of the downhill section, and it is there that there is a nice loose, rocky, technical downhill feature about 10 metres long to play on. So I played, I rode it 3 times, looking for a nastier line each time, and the bike handled it with ease. At this point I have to give props to the Shwalbe Racing Ralph tyres I was rocking, brand new, and not something I have ever run before. I had them in 2.25" and tubeless, wide enough to be considered All Mountain, but light enough to roll and climb well too. Good consistent grip no matter how hard I leaned it over.

The balance of the climb features a plethora of long hot climbs, split by some fast descents on gravel road, with the odd bermed corner, stream crossing, and muddy bits. I have to say that while my fitness was slightly lacking, the bike just made me want to keep riding. So, I wasnt the fastest, but I was loving every part of the ride, and learning about how to ride the beast and get the most out of it.

Before I knew it, we were heading up the final 3km climb to the Owhango Hotel, and a cold jug of Speights. What a bloody great ride.

Sunday, and we left National Park headed to Taupo. A few of the crew were feeling it in the legs and only wanted a comparitively easy ride, so we met at Craters of the Moon and split into 2 groups. This suited me, I was dead keen to hit up some trails I knew fairly well, and compare how the GT Force rode on some sweet singletrack.

And I wasnt disappointed. To cut a long story short, I was unable to find any negative points about this bike so far. My understanding is that they can be quite heavy on maintenance in the I-Drive system, but if that is the case, then so be it.

The next day was Monday, and work. But that was only to fill in time until the Summerhill Monday Night club racing that I had organised for 7pm. A small but hardy crew showed up, and we had the course set up for as many laps of the GT trail as we could do in an hour, down to the bottom, and all the way back up. I got three laps in and finished 2nd. The downs were Ok, but showed me that I still have some learning to do, to get the most out of this rambunctious philly. And the ups were ok too, actually it seemed to get easier with each successive lap, but I dont know what to put that down to.

God damn I love this bike.

New Forks!

Needed 140mm of travel to suit this new frame. Spoke to a few friends in the know and they convinced me to go for a through axle for extra stiffness. So, it came down to a decision between an air-sprung fork, or a coil sprung fork. In the end I went with the new 2009 Rockshox Revelation, its a Dual-air fork (much like the Reba's I had before), and was 400gms lighter than a comparable coil fork. Comes with a pushloc remote lockout which has a nicer actuation than the old poploc that I have tried a few times.

Still waiting on a few parts, fingers crossed I might have it running for this weekend, going away with 13 others from the Tauranga MTB club to do a bunch of riding around the central plateau.

DSC03652

Took a look at the bike fleet the other week. And yes, it is a fleet. Im the first to admit that I have got too many bikes.

The other thing, was I went for a ride on a GT Force at a demo day last month, and really got the impression that here was a bike that could rekindle my recently waning motivation to hit the trails. But how could I do it?

That was when it came to me, I would take the 2 bikes that I dont ride hardly ever, my Jeffson Singlespeed, and my Scott Hardtail. Break them down, do a bit of a switcheroony with various components off Heidi's bike, keep some bits, and sell a whole bunch of other bits. That would allow me to buy a brand new frame, (thanks to a killer deal through my friend Victor who owns Hedgehog bikes), buy another set of wheels, and get some long travel forks to suit the new frame.

Lots of wheeling and dealing going on in the background still. Got some tasty wheels coming too for Heidis bike, with custom Fisher Carbon fibre hubs, and have narrowed down the fork selection to either the new 2009 Revelation, or the 2009 Marzocchi 44 ATA, both will necessitate a change to a through axle at the front, which I have been convinced is well worth it.

Sneaky early build shot to whet the appetite....

DSC03597

Well the whirlwind week has all wound up.

We kept the car straight and finished every stage, picking up 1st in Category, and 14th overall.

The car had 1 or 2 minor problems, a couple of things we can improve on for next year, but on the whole was a really sweet little package right out of the box. I had a major step-up in the co-drivers seat, the driver has had a heap of co-driving experience himself, and it took most of the first day to get things sorted between us. I had no idea just how much a co-driver could do to help the whole shebang go a bit quicker.

We had a few moments of less-than-glory, a couple of incorrect calls, and werent quite the quickest in our class, but thanks to the crew doing a superb job on all the pitstops and overnight services, we stayed ahead of the problems and ran a well-oiled operation.

Thats what I am when I see first-hand how the Human Brain works as a learning device. I have been slowly trying to show Blake how to drive his little electric Jeep for the past month or so. And today, he just worked it out. Got the throttle, and the steering all working together. Im really stoked. Check the vid

An engine started for the first time tonight.

Blake is 2 years old. Whoa that has gone by fast.

He is so into cars at the moment, buying presents was no problem. Although I did get him a couple of books, because books are always good. He is liking fantasy stuff in books right now, dragons, beasts, that kind of stuff, so I found a really good book with Boys Stories, with stuff like Beowolf, Pinnochio, Peter Pan, Huckleberry Finn, and stories like that in it.

The highlight was the cake that jeannette made, a Ferrari F1 car, we took some great photos. Scott got him a pair of Falcon V8 Supercars, in diecast metal, which he loves, and I got him a diecast Mustang, with heaps of shiny bits on it.

His vocab is taking off now, he has moved to the 'Over 2's' at daycare, so Im expecting that to thrive even more. He even started singing the alphabet today too, he has got the tune right, but the letters go all random after he gets to E.

Or not.

Firstly, I am now aware I have been blogging on about my life for at least 12 months now, because I wrote up my effrorts at this event last year, when I also tried 12 hours solo. This year, well I was in better health, but not quite as bike-fit, and carrying about 5kgs more than a year ago.

Secondly, I got beat up so bad last year riding this course on a rigid singlespeed, that this year I went with sanity and chose my lightweight bike complete with 27 gears and front suspension.

Thirdly, well last year I was merely using the event as a training exercise, and this year it was the main event, so to speak. So I was fairly adamant I would just ride around in circles for 12 hours, and made my first goal to do more laps than I did last year (14), and my second goal to try and complete at least 20 in total.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans.....

What you really need to do in an event like this is pace yourself. From the start. I knew this before, and I know this now. But dammit, when the countdown rings out, and the gun goes, something in me forgets all that and Im racing.

My first 2 laps were, for me, blistering. I was ahead of all the other 5 TEAMS that I was pitting with representing MTB Tauranga, at the end of my 2nd lap. Stoopid really. I actually thought I was going really well at that point, and I started pitting almost every lap, just for a minute or 2, to either swap out a water bottle, and/or grab something important to eat. I knew hydration and food were going to be important after last years effort. But as the hours went on I started to really feel it in the legs. I took Blake out for a (slow) lap for my 9th lap, and my knees were sore from that point on. At the halfway point I had started into my 12th lap, so I was well and truely ahead of my 20-lap goal for pace, but I was hurting pretty bad, and slowing up in a major way. I then put in 3 laps on the trot without a break, because the temperature had dropped, and I knew that each time I stopped it was taking about half an hour to warm up again.

Now it was getting dark, so I stopped to fit the night light set-up, at least 5 minutes stopped. Ate and drank some more of my high energy homemade nut/choc bars, but what I really needed right then was something hot and filling. And a support person to pat me on the back and tell me how well I was going.

I headed off for my first night lap and instantly the pain set in, I was probably under-dressed for the cold, and I didnt warm up for the entire lap. I decided during the lap that I needed to stop when I got back to the pits and eat something hot. I really hoped Heidi would be there (she had gone away to feed the kids and put them to bed). Alas she wasnt back when I pulled in. Never mind, I chucked on some warm clothes and rummaged around to find my wallet so I could go buy a hot punnet of ships or something, cant find it anywhere. A quick phonecall to Heidi revealed that she was still over half an hour away, and oh yeah, she had my wallet. D'oh!

Hang-up, look around, hey look theres some beers I have got waiting for when I finish! 

So I guess that was it for me.  Some lessons learnt, least of which is just how important a support person is when you tackle this type of thing. I massively under-estimated it. I still put in 15 laps, and in only 8.5 hours, so I did more laps than last year in less time. But on the whole, I sit here tapping away on the keyboard over 1 week later, and Im still a bit disappointed in myself. I still dont know if I want to try that again, maybe its too big a mental challenge for me?