Eye of the tiger

It's winter, it's horrible and cold and raining, and even though riding in that is still fun for a while, and I'm used to the cold by now, cleaning bikes all the time gets lame pretty quickly.

This winter I'm trying to build more core and upper body strength, and since I'm not riding my bike all day as a courier I have the time an energy to do it on top of my normal riding. So as well as some weights and strength excercises I've been making regular use of my boxing bag - I've had it for ages but it tends to be a last resort for when I'm injured and can't ride!

Since I'm still at home it's set up in the shed along with an awesome 80's ghetto blaster that I bought for $2, crammed in between the bikes, bodyboards and windsurf gear, and a whole load of Dad's old tools. My MP3 player hooks up to the ghetto blaster, although I should go really old school and make a mixed tape... Eyyyye of the tiiiiiiigerrrrrrrr!!

Firepit pump track

We were heading down to Christchurch again and stopped on the way at the Firepit Pump Track. Sooooo much fun! Damian, the guy who built it, came out to show us how it’s done – very inspiring. It’s surprisingly hard work getting around it, and you have to get your berms totally dialed on this thing to make it. After sessionning it for a wihle I could make it around on one of the lines for a couple of laps without pedaling… it’s so addictive I want to go back already!



Check it out at www.firepit.co.nz

The Secret to Wheelies

I’ve finally learnt to wheelie, Emmeline and I had this ongoing thing over summer that we were going to learn to wheelie, and have a wheelie competition. I’m not quite as consistent as I’d like to be, but I can now wheelie for aaaaaaages, and made a video for Emmeline’s birthday talkin’ smack about how I’m gonna beat her at the wheelie comp!

If you are my friend or a friend of one of my friends of facebook you can watch the vid here (click!)

The real secret to wheelies? Well, it’s just practice! And realizing that there is no secret. It’s just one of those things that you have to believe you are capable of doing if you persist at it. I’m good at being persistent! :P

Playstation!

Teenage boys are always fast at DH. What do they have that I don’t? Computer games, hahaha! Anyway, apparently playing computer games helps your reactions and you ability to rapidly process and respond to visual data. So I got a second hand playstation.

Just an excuse to play games, right? But you know what, with the right kind of game you really do have to think in the same way as when you’re riding fast. Fortunately I got 11 games with my second-hand PS2, and one of them is car racing through a city. It gets that real feeling of speed going and there are loads of little hazards everywhere to try to get through in the quickest way possible. And just like DH, I find if I think hard about my technique, I learn stuff but go slower… but to really nail a race run I need to get into that zone of not focusing too much on one thing, just almost zen out and just do it. ‘Turn your brain off’, kinda… more like turn your conscious brain off, because when you’re doing stuff that’s that fast you just need to let your unconscious reactions take over. And I’m terrible at doing that on demand, but this game is really good practice.

Still skeptical? Well, I played it a bit and felt I was getting that ‘race brain’ thing happening, and went and rode my DH bike on a piece of track I session often and time myself on. I beat my personal best by two seconds, in only two tries, and felt more focused and controlled than ever down there. If I can get to the point where I really can think like that in race runs, or even just whenever I want to ride at my absolute limit of speed and control, it will be awesome. I definitely think too much about what I’m doing when I ride, great for learning but it’s slowing me down. Less brains, more BRAAAAAAAAAPPPP!

Nelson non-race!

I went over to Nelson to do a club ‘race’, although it was supposed to be a pretty relaxed thing with no shuttles, just push-your-own-bike! That’s cool though, I’ve been pushing my bike up a lot of hills lately. It poured with rain the day before the race in Golden Bay so I was expecting a very wet race. I put my mud tyres on my red wheels that have been hanging in the shed – my bike looks sooooo purrrrdy with its red shoes on!

Anyway, on Sunday the weather was good but the ground was wet and the first track was clay, so I was glad to have the muds on and was having a great time sliding around on the track. It was a cool little course, and I was having a good time, talked to lots of people I haven’t met before, and saw a young British dude knock a tooth out crashing in a berm… he kept on riding! He was a bit gutted though, he is moving to NZ and his fullface and real DH bike are in a chipping container on their way here 

There were three women entered, me and Amanda and Kelly who I haven’t seen since 2008 Nationals, because she hasn’t been riding since then. Nine years or something of racing DH and she decided to take a break – fair enough! Was cool to see them again. Harriet and Live turned up all rockstar-late and just did race run, beat us all – haha!

But the day wasn’t over, we then headed to another track that was a similar length and also push-your-own-bike, this one was more forested and rooty, really good fun again! After six runs of the first track and four of this I was pretty nackered, and was being silly at the start line about it not being a serious race. I rode fast enough though, and got third out of us five. Overall it was a super fun day, and I’ll be back to ride these tracks again now that I know where they are!

Rita vs. The FEAR

Woot for winning a mind-games battle yesterday. I haven't crashed properly in ages, but have been riding HEAPS and pushing myself, so it was just one of those things that happens. I had a massive stack right at the start of a downhill I'd pushed up for, and I mean MASSIVE like high speed over the bars thanks to a rut I wasn't looking at, head first into the ground at a lot of k's an hour, exploding bits of helmet visor everywhere, bike goes flying to land safely in a gorse bush waaaaaay down the track, I roll and scrape over the rocks and lie there for a bit going 'hmm that was dumb, I wonder what I've hurt the most?' I got my helmet off and checked that my nose was still straight (I'd gone face first into a rock so hard on one side I thought I might have broken it, I've done it before and know what it feels like), but that was ok, and then checked everything else: sore but all working. I wasn't wearing armour just a jacket, long pants and knee pads, and had some nasty knocks and scrapes on my shoulder and all down my forearm that I wouldn't have if I'd had armour. Anyway, I collected my helmet bits out of the dirt (just the visor was broken and my goggles garked up), and set about to ride down.

Now the woot part is that normally I crash like that and get all like 'oh my god! I'm such a muppet! what was I thinking trying to go that fast!' and then ride extra slow for like, several weeks :p But this time I was like, 'ok, you know what you did wrong - tried to ride like Steve Peat in his world cup run in the first ten seconds of your ride. Don't do it again, just get into the feel of it, then ride fast and smooth!' and so I carried on down the track, giving myself time to get into the flow of it this time. And it ended up being a great run down, by the end I was totally buzzing probably from all the extra adrenaline and riding awesomely! Or maybe it was having no visor that made me go fast :p . Anyway it was an awesome ride, and I rode well. So it's really good to be able to do that, even though it might not sound that smart, getting back on after a crash and riding fast and well again straight away is something you have to do at DH races ad practice days, and it's something I'm usually useless at being far older and more sensible than most n00b downhillers!

Anyway, Rita: 1 The Fear: 0 YUSSSSSS!!!!! :D



Oh, and I put my visor back on with zipties, and it's now known as The Frankenhelmet! The rest of the helmet is unharmed.

Riding big bikes in Nelson

The last two weekends I’ve been over to Nelson riding with teenage boys! It’s really cool, on of the Nelson guy’s dad shuttles us in a big Hilux. It’s a two hour drive from the bay and Rhys and I head over early in the morning to meet up with the others.

The first time we went, we hit up Kaka Hill, the track from national champs that I kept saying was my favourite track. Well, it’s not as fun anymore! After all the racing since I first rode it nearly 18 months ago and all the rain at the Nationals, all the awesomely sketchy loose rocks are gone. No more gnarly driftng… instead, all that’s left are rocks that are firmly imbedded in the (steep) hillside, making it really rugged and unforgiving. You can’t get sideways in many places now or you hit something that doesn’t move!

After that we met up with some other people and headed up to a new track, Maitai face. Complete opposite of Kaka – all tight corners made of super drifty dust into tiny mini-berms, and insanely steep! I fell off a lot, it’s the hardest track I’ve ridden in ages, not scary hard but uber-technical. I’d love to go back and learn to ride those insane little corners! Then we went and sessioned a longer track with more than a little pedaling and for the last run of the day (the eleventh full-on DH run!) we tried another track that resulted in me and two others getting dead-ended into some logging, and having to push our DH bikes up hill and over trees for FORTY MINUTES to get back to a road. So exhausted!

This weekend we rode at Ben Nevis, where I raced in December. It was very cool – we rode that track again, and some others as well. There are some really great tracks up there and we got to ride a range of different stuff all day, from sketchy steep gravel chutes to flowing berms and north-shore structures, and also fire-breaks and rocky native bush stuff…. Heaps of variety! I was stoked all day. We saw some crazy big jumps too, that people have been building for photo ops and just because they’re crazy… pretty impressive. We happened to meet up with some local guys who build the trails there too and rode with them for a bit, giving them uplifts too. It’s cool to meet the people who create what you’re riding. You get to say thanks, and good on ya!!

Christchurch trip

I went down to Christchurch this week, to scout for work and do a few hours helping out on a school holiday program. Oh, and to ride my bikes. I took three of them down, unfortunately I didn’t get to use the big red one though!

My Heckler has had a make over and with some new wheels ad forks it’s noticeably lighter and rides great. I took it on some missions out on Godley Head, and also rode with Laurence from Ground Effect who had a Heckler just like mine, same colour, Gravity Dropper post too. We rode up the hills behind his house and then down a track called Anaconda – sooooo cool!I also took my hardtail, and managed a night ride around Bottle Lake with some of the Vorbettes. Really really fun ride! And I also took it for a play at the skate park with some BMX boys. Man those guys do some tech stuff – one dude was tail whipping over this tiny hip, he had to do it SOOOO fast, but he was pulling it off! And it’s a cool kind of riding, everyone just hanging out and trying stuff and egging each other on.

Post season wind-down

So, after all that racing it's been awesome to put my big bike away and do some random riding. I've been on crazy night missions, single speed rides, played on other people's hardtails a lot and done some wheelies on the beach. Actually, I've done a lot of wheelies, everywhere, and am definitely getting better at those!



It's been cool just to chill out and ride for fun again instead of always thinking about the next race, the next track, the next BIG jump. It gets pretty full on, and getting back to riding other bikes gives me challenges that push my skills in other ways that aren't all about going bigger and faster and riding at the very limit of my abilities till I push to far... For the next wee while I'm going to be riding a hardtail for a bit, less squish means more technical difficulty and more thinking about what I am doing with my body while I ride, and not just letting the bike do it. My Heckler now has a little bit less travel too, and a lighter build, so it's less freeride-style and more enduro/trail. I'm loving it, only put the new wheels and forks on yesterday, will post pics soon. And after seeing how the pros train I'm all inspired to get fit and strong for next season and am starting now with strength training and early morning runs. That's a lot more fun than it sounds when you live by a beach!

I've been doing heaps of writing/interviewing/editing videos for Martha Hucker too, you can check that out on MarthaHucker.com. It's going to be very cool watching people I've met this year battle it out at the World Cups. I'll have to get myself to a fast internet connection to watch it all unfold on Freecaster. Woohoo!

National Camps - Race day

Thank you to Andrew from BikeHQ for letting us stay at his house and not have to sleep in the muddy van the night before the race! It poured with rain overnight again, so we knew the tracks would still be muddy for race day for more of this kind of mess….

In the morning I was still looking forward to hitting the track, as crazy as it may be in the mud. Unfortunately the shuttle trucks were less enthusiastic, and we had to get off and push them up the hill at one part! Pushing a truck up a muddy slope is HARD. But worth it for the ride down… we also had to push our bikes up the last section to the top, as a little warm-up!

The track was worse than Saturday with lots of sticky mud that was being spread across the rocks making all surfaces more unpredictable than ever. I stayed on my bike for the practice runs and got some tricky lines I’d been struggling with the day before sorted including riding fast off a drop further down the track. I was feeling pretty good for racing!

In seeding I started fine and then fell over in a corner that kept getting me in practice, and managed to get my bike all tangled up and couldn’t get up! After a lot of swearing I got back up and on my bike and pinned it for the rest of the run. Apart from the fall it was pretty good, but I was frustrated at coming off so stupidly! However, everyone else seemed to have crashed too, and I hadn’t seeded last. Woohoo!

For race run we ended up waiting at the top for ages and I got pretty nervous. Actually, I think all the Elite women were nervous – the fast Kiwi girls had seeded badly and wanted to make the next run count, Dawn had seeded well and just needed to keep it consistent and do it again, and the French riders Sabrina Jonnier and Emmeline Ragot mainly just wanted to beat each other! So everyone was circling around warming up and looking serious. Not Very Serious(tm). There were no motorbike noises or other stupidity… maybe I need more of that next time! :P

So finally I got to start, after Harriet Harper and Amy Laird and before Gabby Molloy, with the rest of the field following. I was very nervous and just saying to myself ‘ride smooth, ride smooth, it’s all good!’ However, the conditions were changing constantly as the course got a bit dried out and the mud moved around, and I bounced into a newly formed hole in the top section and lost all my speed, ending up having to push my bike up a small rocky uphill that previously I’d pedaled up while others had complained they’d had to push. I tried to get it together but was all jumpy and nervous and trying to control my bike by sowing down instead of flowing the track, and I soon got passed by Gabby, but also passed Amy who had crashed off the side of the track. I kept it together for the rest of my run but was disappointed that I was a LOT slower than my seeding time when I’d known I could have gone faster.

The Elite podium.

But there you go, that’s my first year of racing in Elite done and dusted! It’s been a wicked summer, and yup I got my arse kicked by the more experienced riders but that’s cool, now I’m a bit more experienced too… Harriet won the National Champion jersey which was well deserved!

Also, there was a prize giving on Friday for the series points. I placed second in the North Island series, third in the South Island series, and second in the NZ series over all for Elite women. Woot! Persisitence pays off I guess. Literally in this case – there was prize money for each of these. I got to thank my sponsors Santa Cruz, the Quiet Revolution Bike Shop, Kore, Vesrah, and Fly Clothing three times which got a bit repetitive for everyone… so by the third time I also thanked Emmeline for teaching me to ride faster and hassling me for riding slow, my parents for helping me this year, and the Two Dollar Shop for my ‘Steve Peat’ eyewear. :P

Emmeline and the $2 shop glasses