Don’t get me wrong. 2011 has so far been a very enjoyable year on my bike. I started with two new bikes, the most significant of which was the Scott Scale 29er. This took me from 140 ml travel at both ends to 100ml at the front. The big wheels compensated for this though.
The season started well with the Whirinaki Quest being on the day after I got the Scale. I was pretty happy with my performance, particularly as I came in under the previous year’s time in an event that was 4 km longer. The bike performed well, and I was looking forward to seeing how it would go in the next Auckland race.
However, soon after Whirinaki, I had an accident which damaged my knee. The pain was excruciating for a couple of weeks, but subsided to a bit of an ache, more of an annoyance than anything. So I set about getting fit for the Huka Challenge.
Summer came and went, and although I had a great deal of fun, my race results weren’t bad, but weren’t particularly good either. Choosing the highlight of the summer is pretty difficult with Team Avantiplus having some pretty good efforts, but my peak of fitness came with a podium result in the ‘Motatapu Icebreaker’.
From there I had
two months off racing during which time I moved my business from Glenfield to Whenuapai. This required a pretty major effort and my riding suffered, partly because work became pretty absorbing and partly because my three times a week bike commute reduced from 32 to 22km each way.
So I wasn’t expecting too much from the first winter n-duro, but my effort could best be described as embarrassing. Still, we learn from this sort of thing, so I began putting some real effort in for the second, giving myself a month to gain the fitness required for an effort that I could be proud of. Not enough though. Still not a particularly good result, although I had the fitness, just not the speed. And I was able to enjoy the ride.
Then came the Craters classic at Taupo last weekend. All was well, a perfect frosty morning and a good start saw me in fine shape until the first hill. But I simply did not have the power to climb it. The event would have been great fun, but my knee pain was getting worse and every climb became a struggle. I was getting toward the end of the race, and was pretty much over it, when bang! I did a pretty good job of using my body to protect the bike from a tree, but still managed to bend the stem and buckle the front wheel. It was a struggle to the finish, but finish I did. It was not a mistake to do the ride, but boy, I need to sort myself out.
I went to the doctor to get my knee checked, and an x-ray showed 
that my patella was still broken from November. I am now advised that I need an operation to “fix it”. The doctor also commented that my right thigh muscle is considerably stronger that my left. So I measured them – my right is 52 cm in diameter, my left 48. I have been pedalling with just one leg! No wonder I have been struggling. I am now looking forward to having the operation and getting back to form.
On a positive note, though, the fishing has been good!
