6th of August, 2017 (Sunday), Valley Road, Paraparaumu, Top Pub (bottom carpark)
John Lawton came up to Hunterville on Friday and I went home with him. On Saturday we went for a ride in the Maungatuks.
Sunday was awesome. It was supposed to rain all day but only drizzled a bit in the morning. John lives only ten minutes away so I got a sleep in. There wasn’t anything really scary but there were some bits that were hard. Most of the sections were under trees and on hills. They were all tight corners and banks with a few hill climbs. One, two, and three were the only ones in the creek along the bottom of the hill.
I rode with John, Mark Sidebotham, and, for most of the first lap, Andrew Templeton.
My favourite section was nine. It had an uphill, round a pine, down across the farm track, a little turn against the bank on the other side of the track, back across the track, up another hill, around a pine, down again, onto the track, a circle and back up the hill, a little bit along the side, then down and out. The first up and down was easy. The second up and down was a little bit harder. When you got to the top there wasn’t enough room to turn so I had to run my front wheel along the side of the hill a little bit before turning down. This cost me a point on the first lap when I under-estimated it.
Nine felt like it would be easy to get wrong so when I cleared it it felt like I achieved something. Plus it’s fun to do hill climbs.
There wasn’t really any sections I didn’t like though one and ten were frustrating. I could clean all of one except for this bank on the side of the hill. It was a bit slippery and once I was past the flag on the side of the hill I had to turn to come back down. I never quite managed to keep my feet on the pegs.
Ten was basically a downhill, with an off-camber turn back up the hill. I got the downhill, but the uphill got worse as the day went along.
It was quite cool because there was four women there. Mum, Emily, Kelly, and me. There isn’t very many women who ride so that doesn’t happen very often.
The trial may have been set a bit easy but they were worried that it might have turned into a wet trial. In the end it worked out pretty well. Thanks to setters Kevin Tither, Chris Presto, & Neil Sturmfels.
