Wiki Factory Racing

As many people now know, I have been experiencing issues with my heart over the past few months. Due to this I decided not to race in the Brass Monkey Series this weekend but rather help out by guiding novices and beginners down the river. For me it was a hard decision to step back and take it easy after several years of competing at a high intensity and relatively high level in Cross Country Mountain Biking and now Multisport. This forced break will be good for me as I will be able to sort out my priorities and focus on uni while I undergo tests to see whats happening with my body. The "race" itself was pretty fun for me still. A good river level with a couple of fun little features to ensure I was paying attention to what I was doing (unlike my near swim at the start infront of an eager crowd). In the end I think I finished around the 57:30 mark, but the time is irrelevant to me as I was helping out a beginner. I have to admit it was quite weird today having people pass

The second race of the Brass Monkey Kayak Race Series was held today in far from ideal conditions with strong wind gusts and rain/hail pelting all the competitors during the briefing. Once on the water however, all this seemed to disappear as you focused on staying upright and not falling into the icy cold river (I did however manage to fall in to the river while getting into my kayak). After yesterdays lesson from Adam at the start line, I decided to take it easy today and not worry about keeping up with him. Luckily for me my sedate start resulted in a perfect start where Adam received a time penalty for jumping the start line. The wind didn't seem to effect me too much and I had a pretty perfect paddle down the river and found a few cheeky short cuts on the way thanks to Adam and Ian Huntsman. With the river having dropped 10 cumecs compared to yesterday I was expecting my time today to be slower than yesterdays by around 30 seconds to a minute. So I was pretty happy to

The Brass Monkey Kayak Race Series started around 30 years ago. The race is held over approximately 12km of the braided Waimak river from the pylons to the State Highway 1 bridge. It has been used for many years by people as a way to learn how to kayak for more important events such as the Speight's Coast to Coast. I started my multisport career at this event 4 years ago coming 2nd in the junior field with an average time of around 57 minutes. The series has become very competitive over the years with many fast paddlers competing against each other down the river.  Only time I was in front of Adam during the race  The morning dawned overcast with a little bit of rain and a high river which resulted in pretty much perfect conditions for racing. Due to the amount of people racing, kayakers start in groups of 3 departing down the river every 30 seconds. I was lucky enough to start pretty much at the back of the field with my dad and Adam Milne which would mean we would h

This year I decided to finally participate in Twalk after hearing alot about it's reputation of being a tough event. And it sure didn't disappoint. I was in a team with my Dad and Steve for the 24 hour epic that would follow. This would be my first event after surgery on my jaw 6 weeks ago. After an early start in the UCSA carpark, we loaded on to buses with another 280ish competitors to travel to an unknown location. Our bus driver told us we were heading to Kaikoura, so as we started heading north we assumed that this location was indeed where we were heading. So as the bus turned off to start heading inland towards Ashley Gorge we realised we had been lied to. The start of the event was in fact at Glentui. After a chaotic start and somehow missing the first check point in the chaos of clowns, road cones, licorice allsorts and even a coffin we headed on to the general location of check point 2 where it soon became apparent in well known Twalk style we wouldn't find this

To complete my racing for the season I decided to head down to Wanaka for the Motatapu Multisport race. This was the second year this event was run, with last year being a test event with only a few selected people invited to race. The race begins with a 15km kayak down the Matukituki River, a 53km mountain bike over a ridge and through the Motatapu bike course and then a 15km run over the Miners Trail run. 46 people lined up to race this year with many top Coast to Coasters (both 1 day and 2 day) and Multisport Legend Steve Gurney. The 15km kayak started with a hectic mass start on the river with everyone was lined up on the bank waiting in their kayaks for the start. I had a pretty bad start, with several people around me getting a push off the bank in front of me. Because the Matukituki River was fairly shallow and narrow in places it took me awhile to work my way through the field and pass the slower paddlers (my dad included) that had got in front of me at the start. I knew I ha

To finish off the weekends events I decided to enter the Mountain Bike race on Sunday morning. I was expecting a relatively small race, with pretty much only the same competitors as the previous day in the multisport race. So I was pretty excited to see a lot of the local nelson boys had come through to race. The race was 2 laps of the track from the previous day so I knew I would be fairly capable of keeping up in the single track as I knew the course fairly well. in total the race would be 40km with almost 1000m of climbing on sealed road, 4wd track and plenty of single track. I had a good start and was positioned in the leading bunch up the road and up the sealed section of the climb. As soon as we hit the dirt though the pace picked up and I couldnt respond after racing the day before. I held my position for the rest of the lap feeling stronger as the lap went on. Heading in to the second lap I could a couple of riders in the distance and thought I would be able to catch the

This year I finally made the trip up to Kaiteriteri for the Kaiteriteri Beach Adventure Race (KBAR) which doubles as the national multisport champs. KBAR is a well organised series of races over 2 days with multisport racing, a duathlon, a mountain bike race and a surf ski race to finish the weekend. The first event I raced in was the National Multisport Champs. I went into the event fairly confident I would have a good race after the training I had put in for the Coast to Coast and having a relative strength in mountain biking which was a major discipline in this event. The first run was a 2.5km sprint around an estuary and over a small hill with around a 100m of vertical climbing, followed by a relatively technical descent to the beach. After the descent it was then into the 8km kayak leg, 2x 4km laps of Kaiteriteri Beach to Ngaio Island. I had decided before the event I would use a surf ski as it would save me time in the transitions as I wouldn't have to use a spray dec

Its the silly little mistakes that cost you the most. This is the biggest thing I learnt after my first year racing at the Speight's Coast to Coast as a 2 day individual. After a great build up I was feeling pretty confident coming in to the race knowing I was capable of achieving a pretty good result. As always the nerves on Kumara beach were high as I stood around with the other competitors waiting for the horn to blast which would signal the start of our journey across the South Island  to Sumner beach. My 3km run off the beach went pretty good placing me in the top 20 and in a good position to be in the front bunch on the bike with many of the other top 2 day individuals. Unfortunately even though this bunch was full of the top guys in the event we didnt work together well and ended up getting caught by a large bunch in the last 10km of the 55km ride. This bunch also happened to have my dad in it much to his delight as he casually rode past me to take a turn on the front of t