The fundraising Poker Run, then Big Night at the Pig & Whistle plus auction last Saturday July 5 was a huge success!
Very, very cold, though, with snow on the trails the following day. There are some of Graeme Murray's great photos of the Poker Run and snow in the forest on the NEWS pages of www.riderotorua.com.
The day could only have happened with the support of Zippy Central, Dave Judson, the Pig, Agroventures, ForteBody, Bike Vegas (and Niner bikes), Nzo, Burger Fuel, NDURO Events, bluedogTV, Graeme Murray of filteredvision, Marcello for the boxers shorts (you had to be there!), J A Russells and Galaxy United Travel.
Plus all the locals who gave up their time to run everything, the riders, drinkers and auction bidders. Air fares to San Francisco for 2008 New Zealand Singlespeed champs, Garth Weinberg and Annika Smail? Done.
They will both have a serious crack at winning the world titles. And that has to be good.
Also on board this week, Sabine and the team at Rotorua's Jade Factory who have donated a beautiful greenstone/pounamu pendant. This will be presented to Napa race organizer, Curtis inglis, as a unique Rotorua thank-you for all his help.
• You can still contribute: check out the exclusive, one-off fund-raising T-shirt by Gaz from Nzo...
The design is on this website and you can download an order form - orders close on July 15, with delivery asap after that.
The orders are coming in.
Annika is racing this Sunday, too - it's the last big hit-out for our champs before the worlds late in August.
Here're some words from the guys:
Annika (Poker Run marshal and Big Night bartender):
Thank you all so much for all your awesome support!! I feel very privileged to have all you guys behind me and am super excited about heading over to Napa and give it the best I can!
I was blown away by the amount of people that were willing to bear the freezing and wet conditions at the poker run (I bet the hot shower afterwards was a joy!) and also by the huge crowd that came to have a good time and few (or a few too many?) drinks at the Pig’n’Whistle in the evening! I hope the heads were not too sore on Sunday and you all managed to head out to the forest and see the snow!
I am really looking forward to switching over to my brand new Santa Cruz chameleon single speed supplied by Bike Culture after this specific block of training is over.
Once again thanks to everybody for your fantastic support!!!! 
Garth (who was in CHCH in the weekend on a long-planned and well deserved family holiday. 4 Garth cut-out mini-mes deputized for him as marshals and assistant bartenders):
The support is completely overwhelming. I don't know what I did to deserve so much attention.?I'm not going to argue, though, many thanks to everyone.
Christchurch was a great trip. Took the kids to heaps of attractions and rides. They even got to see snow for the first time in the city. For the last 2 days we stayed at my uncle's place up at Amberly. We took a drive on one of those up into the hills behind there and made snowmen and stuff. Awesome.
Unfortunately, I never managed to get out for any training at all. I tried one night, Friday, I think. It was 9:30 and I was all geared up with polypro, running shoes and reflective gear. I left our 7th floor room and went down to the front door of the hotel and walked out onto the street in the howling wind and rain. A guy came past, took one look at me and said I was bloody mad. I had to agree with him and went back upstairs.
Hopefully, the extended rest doesn't affect my performance this weekend. I've been doing a bit of running as well. To give myself a benchmark on my running fitness level, I did the N-duro/Xterra run on the 29th of June.
It was a pretty groovy course and got even better when they changed the route at the last minute and made us run up the Doctors Orders track which comes out quite a ways up the back side of Tokorangi Pa rd. That's what I call adventure running. It went really well. Oliver Shaw and I ran away from the rest of the field and he was doing pretty well until he needed a nature stop. Poor little bugger. I never saw him again but he still beat the rest of the runners to finish 2nd about a minute behind me. 45 and a half minutes was my finish time but I think it was closer to 11km rather than 12.
While I was in Chch, I managed to catch up with the two guys from Niner bikes, Al and Brendan. They were pretty cool and gave me an update on my new frame coming from the Niner factory. It is still in transit and theoretically it was coming into the country this week.
They have some Industry Nine wheels built and some DT Swiss forks are on the way at the end of this month. Hopefully I can get it all together and have some riding time on it before I go to Napa. The size and geometry is exactly the same as the s.i.r. I am riding now, but it will be a heap lighter. I have found out some info on the race location, but still need advice on what sort of terrain we will be riding on.
There's a couple of ss legends that ride for Niner bikes, Deejay Birtch and Fuzzy John, so I'm hoping they will be able to shed some light. I'm aware that they have been told to "contact me" by Niner, so I'm looking forward to perhaps hooking up with them.
• THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE WHO HAS HELPED! |
