While removing brakes to aid mud clearance will garner you some extra speed, I'm not sure the race officials will condone brakeless setups,

...except in the fun race.

...or if you're riding a fixie

(If riding a fixie you may find yourself getting the "hipster" award - which will involve the Pain Train painting your whole bike white with Bunning's cheapest house paint and sticking cards in your spokes).

Awesome fun was had.

I'm sure the course was harder this year, more so after the rain 10minutes before the start of the main race.



What was the number of riders in the end?

yeah that cold front that blew across just ahead of the start was RUDE. Other than that the weather seemed pretty kind.

Harder than last year? Certainly longer, but there were some pretty hard packed/rest areas included to give riders a chance to recuperate before they hit the mud again, last year i'm pretty sure there were zero rest spots!

Final numbers to come, Waz is working on results...deciphering the muddy lap/timing sheet.

Datsane, here's your favourite hill

Somehow that looks a hell of a lot steeper when you are at the bottom of it

Also worth a mention, Brutal Freeride's unfortunate mechanical which took him out of contention early on, a real shame given how far he'd come, Ken - we had some beer's for you as a spottie/to commiserate, but you'd already gone! So we drank them

But...we will send you a beer voucher

It was an awesome spectator event! The boy and the wife both enjoyed it too. It was such a shame that James had borrowed my cross tyres and I couldnt race...

RussS wrote:Somehow that looks a hell of a lot steeper when you are at the bottom of it

You got that right.
It was more the "Crap I have to climb up here again. Shit I have to carry the bike up also" Then the clicky clicky noises of a camera.
Why none of the photographers wanted to swap my bike for a camera is beyond me though.

clicky noises of the camera?

I'm surprised you could hear over the blood pounding in your ears, sounds like you were going too easy.

No that was drowned out by the wheezing and constant swearing.
I only got told about the camera noises. I just assumed they were using digitals

Another wicked day, although was glad to be holding a microphone rather than mud covered drop bars this year. probably coz I'm soft

Thanks to all the crew who chipped in and helped out on the day, and to all the riders for showing up. Hamilton turned on some Belgian-esque freezing rain which I think probably scared off a few on the day entries.

Stealth Mode in the camo suit made the front page of the Waikato Times There is also a full page photo spread on page four.

Results are all ready to go, just having the guys look over them to make sure everything seems correct and will get up here later tonight.

And here they are the official results. There were some great battles out there yesterday. And Garths come back after the puncture was hugely impressive, another lap and the results may have been different. Congrats to Ron and Mel for taking out the Mens and Womens titles. Was a great race to watch, pity I missed any action from the Rhino pit.

That's an awesome write up in the paper. It was a fun event to watch. Pretty pleased I managed to rustle up some loan gumboots since i'm such a townie that I don't even own a pair.

Despite the rain we had heaps of photographers on the day, links below.

www.meadnorton.com

www.fotoengineers.com

Just heard yesterday that there were several Aucklanders who came down to do the race but couldn't find it, so they ended up continuing down to Rotorua to ride.
Oops.
This may explain a decreased field.
At least they would have saved some wear and tear on their bikes, mines trashed, again.

Still, it was a great event and I don't regret it one bit. Congrats to all the other competitors and the organisers.
Oh, and all the best for wee man Chucky.