2 in a row

This weekend just been was gunna be a big one, 72k Colville Connection on Saturday followed by the re-schedualed N-Duro on Sunday. I have riden road races day after day and ocasional mountain bike race after a road race the day before but never doubled up on mtb so it was going to be interesting.

There was a little bit of concern Friday night with the horrible events of Japan and concern of possible tsunami especially since our 72k was to be along the coast the whole way. Fortunatly for us it eventuated to nothing.

Saturday was an epic day, bright blue sky and light wind. It was also due to be a scorcher. We were off on our way at 10am the hills came thick and hard from go, as well as the pressure. 2nd climb of the race and Scott Thorne and fellow Hawkes Bay rider Andrew Barlow were putting the pressure on early.
The race split early with a lead group forming of Scott Thorne, newly crowned National Champ Carl Jones, Comm games rider and all round Warlord Gordon McCauly and another young strong fellow from Auckland. Second group on the trail contained Justin Kerr Andrew Barlow Myself and another rider from Hamilton region. Groups didnt last long however with the constant climbing and decending taking a hard toll on everyones legs the groups shattered. With all the climbing I was pretty pleased to have my Ultra light and effeciant Carbon Competitor with Custom DT wheels and Ultra Fast Kenda Small Block tyres. By the 35k mark I had pushed clear and was chasing solo. By 40k I had moved my way in to 3rd on the road pulling back Gordy and dispatching him up a long climb. with around 15k to go I had closed down close to 2mins on Carl and Scott and had them in sight. I started taking time checks on them and rappidly dropped the time from 45s at my initial sighting to 20s in only a few ks. I knew I had to catch them before the road and the final climb so I could recover for a hard attack. I was confident that if I could ride across solo to the strong pair if I could recover and attack hard on the road climb with 1k to go I could win. Allas, with the final climb looming I was at 10s and they had hit the climb, I could see Scott attack and drop Carl, and with weary tired legs, My day and chase was done. I had to be content with 3rd.
Congrates to Scott for winning after being runner up last year. And good luck to Carlos for Oceania games this weekend coming.

Pretty Pleased with the effort though especiallyafter I have been strugling with form for the last few weeks.

N-Duro
Next up on sunday was N-duro, I rode to the start line from Scott Greens and could feel the fatigue in my legs. I was hoping I had recovered enough. Pretty quickly the legs told the story, I moved in to the single track 3rd behind Dave Mann and Dirk Peters. However I could feel the zipp wasnt there and I was slowly giving way to the pressure that Dirk was applying. I pushed on hard byt slowly gave way and over the corse of the race lost 2 more places. I couldnt push my heart rate up and rev the legs out like I had yesterday. I crossed the line 5th in 2h9m about 7min behind the winner Dirk.

Josh