Ooh la la. Number 9 already. Where do the weeks go I ask? Well I’ll tell you where this week went. Down the friggen toilet. At one point I thought there must have been a meteor strike somewhere on earth, or similar impact, forcing the world off it’s axis and into deep space. The main reason for this conclusion was the fact that Queenstown recently seemed to have returned to winter.

The sun buggered off for a two week holiday and instead got his friend Mr Continuous Downpour to babysit, meaning riding has continued to be really boggy and wet. I’m always the first to defend riding in the rain. I farking love it, but even my enthusiasm has been hammered lately. Then the cherry on the cake was snow! Ok, not quite as bad as Englandshire, but remember it’s supposed to be summer here. I was forced to put on my ski jacket, along with a double layering of socks and woolen boxers. Nice little mental image for ya there.

But then… like a shining beacon of light came the first LoG of 2010. If you read last weeks Midweek Enzed you’ll remember we were blessed with the presence of Red Bull duo Gee Atherton and Stevie Smith, along with Caleb Smith from Spoke Magazine and Darcy Wittenberg of The Collective.

We were all wishin’ and a hopin’ that they’d rock up for the V Line chainless, but alas it was not to be. In fairness if I was here with a professional job to do and very limited time, and it pissed it down everyday for that very limited time, I wouldn’t be too concerned about missing it either.

Numbers were a little down on previous LoG’s, blame Mr Continuous Downpour for that, but none the less it was a wicked evening. V Line was riding a little slower than usual, but considering the mega-tonnes of water that had been dumped from the sky into the Southern Lakes District, it was still riding fast and mostly tacky. The V-Line chainless was also acting as a seeding run for another event coming up… The Meeeegavalanche.
Like the mega, but with more e’s than a London nightclub. The Meeeega will be a mass start race down the steep and technical Ant’s track and then along into Turd and all the ensuing Turd follow ons. It’s gonna be pretty gnarly… The date for that one is yet to be confirmed.

So after everyone forked out the ridiculously enormous entry fee of two dollars, we all set off one by one with only our pumping skills and ability to stay off the brakes carrying us through to the bottom.

With not much sunshine my sun dial wasn’t turning out to be as effective a timing method as I would have liked, so I had to rough it and use a stopwatch. Anyway, I always find it amazing how fast you can still go without a chain, and it sort of makes you ride properly, smoother basically. We didn’t finish right at the bottom of skyline for common sense reasons more than anything else (the last part of V Line shoots you out onto a brief section of firetrack then straight into the road at the bottom, not necessarily ideal for large volumes of mtbers!).

Huge thanks to Revolver for hosting us again, post LoG. We all cruised down after and got our drink on and had a watch of Callum Swift’s new film Made. Boombatty got the official LoG results sheet out (big white door and marker pen) and it soon emerged that yours truly took third in 4 mins 19, Blair Christmas took second in 4 mins 17 and Si Smith took the whole thing out on the Protec in 4 mins 15:78 secs (look at that, split seconds included! Yeh boi!) Even after attempting the Huck of Doom towards the finish, and casing big time, he still managed to pump the beast to gentlemanly gold. Nat Munns was fastest sheila of the evening in 5 mins 15 secs, also getting her huck on down the last few doubles before the finish.

A fun evening was had by all, so thanks to everyone who came out and braved the weather. Again massive thanks to Graeme Cooper for all his organising efforts and tape collecting mid-run. That’s what you call efficiency.

Now I’d love to have a report on the Chch national for you, but unfortunatley for me I didn’t end up going. Christmas bled me dry of moolah, that one tiny thing that makes the world go round. Balls. We’ve all seen the results but if anyone’s got a race report send it in to Dirt at [email protected].

So this weekend sees the Wynyard Jump Jam at mini dream take place, and also another National which is out of town. Dammit which one to do?! Either way make sure you tune in next week, whatever happens it will be a blast. Also next Thursday sees the fourth LoG of the season with an old school duel slalom entitled “Snakes in the Grass” down on Frankton beach. Get excited. It will be awesome.

Take care and mind that ‘orrible weather over there. Man it looks cold.

Happy riding

Jimmy