This was an event to which all of the members of the AvantiPlus MTB race team were invited, and it was a beauty.
We were all quite surprised at the cold, despite having read the weather forecast before arriving.
The track at Forrester Park suited me, a little bit slippery and a couple of short climbs, one of which was on a metal road. We had a nice little start loop around a football field up some track onto and through another field. We then tore down a slippery zig zag track through a forest, across the some ‘off camber’ grass in the lower part of the park, up a shingle track and own again. Then into some forestry tracks through the forest. Nothing too scary, except for a slightly slippery bridge that was to prove my undoing in the fourth lap.
My race went well, apart from the aforementioned incident on the slippery bridge. I finished in fourth place, a bit higher up the list than expected, but only 30 seconds off the podium.
The morning racing went well for our group, with Sadie winning her category, Hiskey getting second in Masters, and Hattie (JAFAkids) getting second Under 17.
The afternoon racing was exciting to watch, particularly the race for the women’s elite title, with Karen (Team A+) battling Rosara Joseph for the win. The men’s elite was dominated by Carl Jones, in my opinion and that of many others, a well deserved victory. We watched the big star from Christchurch, Anton Cooper overtake the whole elite field during his race )which was a lap shorter than the elite).
Piki (Team A+ and JAFAkids) finished a creditable seventh in the Elite Women’s race, Nick Millar (JAFAkids) 13th in men’s elite.
We wound up the day with dinner in a restaurant just off the Octagon, a very pleasant evening marred by lousy service.
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