Great Weekends Riding

I spent the weekend riding with two NZ Champions - Stu Houltham and Anton Cooper. Anton came up from Christchurch to stay with Bex and I so he could check out the 2010 XC Nationals course, so, with me being new to the Wellingtons tracks, the best person to ask to come riding with us was Stu. I only got to know Stu this year after I roomed with him in Canberra for the Worlds Champs, I have raced with him a few times and was 2nd to him in this years XC Nationals in Nelson. I have a lot of respect for him and his achievements in mountain biking with 6 NZ Titles to his name. We met him at Te Papa and we all cruised off to do a few easy laps of the course which is going to be a great Nationals course and it will produce some exciting results.

Sunday we met up again at Makara Peak to do a bigger ride. I have always loved the Christchurch trails but what Makara has to offer is brilliant, we covered all the main and best tracks from top to bottom at a nice casual pace going up, but going down we let the flood gates open and let it flow back down to the car park. Stu was keen to shoot off so Anton and I did another loop climbing back up to the top and then down the advanced track Ridgeline which was like a wind tunnel testing bay. If we had a kite we could’ve flown Anton back to Christchurch from Makara!
Anton was pretty amped after riding the tracks in Wellington, the little pocket rocket had the descents nailed and certainly made me work to hold on to his gravel roost!
After a good two and a half hours riding it was time to hit the tarseal and ride the windy road back to Ngaio and for some well earned food.
This was my first real riding weekend since I’ve been here and I can’t wait to be riding my new Bergamont road bike next week. I will be looking to do the Wellington Hill Climb Champs on Tuesday up Horokiwi.
It’s going to be a big bike building week with both my Bergamont Fastlane Team and Bex’s Fastlane 9.9 arriving along with the road bike. Looking forward to swapping my trusty Intense for the new machine and blasting the trails in preparation for the NZ Cup Series.