Huka Challenge - Sharpie's Victory Tales

After watching the Elite riders in Bushlove competing in the Huka XL (Tiger, Slacky, Wonderwoman and Dave Aldred) ride off in front of me while I was standing in the middle of SH1, I was keen to get into my work and chase them down. Unfortunately the punter race wasn't underway until about 3 minutes later, so it was gonna be a hard chase. I made good time up the first wee climb, clearing off from the pack behind me, in the hope I'd get through the traffic before the trails got too tight and twisty. Fail. After picking off a few people I kinda just settled into a fairly easy pace, and waited for 2nd place to ride up to me.


As it turned out, 2nd place at the time was Cam Durno - I'd had a great wee battle with Cam at the North Island Cup earlier this year, so I was glad to see him. We chatted for a good 10 minutes, catching up on each other's events, training, and finally talking bikes. Eventually I put a wee gap on him during a climb, and stayed away for a wee while. Once we hit the downhills he pulled me back - it was great for me to have a local to follow on the faster sections. We continued swapping places for the first 40km or so. Somewhere during this part of the race I pulled my Leppin out of my back pocket, opened the top and gave it a squeeze... nothing. I squeezed harder - still nothing. I had to stop, undo the lid and inspect the offending bottle. Turns out they're now using foil seals on the slingshot bottles, even when you buy them empty... odd.

Anywho, back to the riding. I yelled out when I caught sight of Davo in front of me on a climb - something must have gone wrong with his bike, cos he was walking and I was still in the big ring. Anyway, after a quick cup of the balls I carried on, and Cam and I continued our race within the race. Shortly after that I caught Slacky, and we rode together for a good 10km or so. During this part of the race I lost quite a bit of time - the trail was tight and twisty with lots of sharp accelerations. Not really suited to big wheels, and I was feeling a little flat which didn't help. Once we were out of that trail we were told "32km to go". Sweet. I knew the last part of the race included a good amount of easy fire road and 4wd track, so figured I'd be finished in under 90 minutes. Downed some more Leppin jism and carried on. Still had about half a bottle left from the 2 bottles I started with, so all going well on the fluid front.


"Bring out the gimp - But the Gimp's sleeping - Well you'd better go wake him up ftw"

After a blat out to SH1 near Wairakei we turned off the footpath and onto a gravel road. I came über close to making a farm purchase (Went unconditional, vendor pulled out at the last minute) when I got both wheels drifting sideways, and my right foot dragging along like an outrigger. Sweet move. Cam gapped me a bit, cos as I was trying not to crash my left quad got a twinge of cramp, so I got off for a quick stretch before I gave chase. What a girl.

Now we were on to the 4wd roads, and I had a good chance to really wind the big wheels up. I gained the ground back to Cam pretty quickly, then cruised at his pace for a couple of minutes. The 4wd track was interrupted by a couple of gates and a walk (!) section across the Aratiatia Damn itself. After that section I decided to put in a wee dig, to see how Cam was feeling... not great it seemed. I gave it the beans for a good few minutes, eased off a bit to look back only to see fresh air. Sweet. I knew I wasn't far from the finish, so kept smashing the 4wd tracks and taking any singletrack cautiously.

A few km from the end I saw a VIC Cycles rider in front, and assumed it was Gav. A couple of minutes later I caught sight of a Bushlove jersey - Tiger. I yelled at him and told him to hurry up. He informed me Jordan was just up the road, and that I'd catch him, so off I go. Sure enough, he was fast asleep as I blew by him. 5 seconds later he was no doubt awake, stuck to my rear wheel. He had a Tiger in tow as well. Crap. The last few km involved lots of sandbagging, attacking, sprinting and general tomfoolery - it was awesome fun. As we were approaching the final corner leading into the finish line a tourist bus started to pull out from the side of the road. Being safety conscious I slowed and pulled to the left, while the other 2 gassed it past the bus on the right to continue their battle - they were both in the XL race and riding for position, and I was just there watching after all. I rolled across the line feeling pretty fresh, in 4:04 ish or something for the 83km with about 3 minutes back to Cam.

Still a good chunk of time after the winner, but a fairly solid top 10 overall time from me, which I was fairly happy with given the lack of speed I've got at the moment - endurance is no worry, but I haven't done enough race pace stuff in recent months. Also, I was on a hardtail for the first time in a couple of months - I'd had 2 short rides on it before the Huka, and it worked out OK in the end in spite of my best efforts to do some mean crashes.

In the last few weeks I've rekindled my passion for racing, after being part of the winning Wild Wellington Relay team, having a decent race at the PNP race and having fun at the Huka. So, I've applied for my elite licence for the coming season, and hopefully I can get in amongst some good racing over the summer. :-)

Moar blogging on Taupo coming soon...

Dave