What a blast the last few months have
been! My career as really taken off in the recent months with what
seems like non stop personal bests on and off the bike. It all stared
last year in mid September at the Bike Nz Cup/Classic.
The first of what would be a full on
action
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| Racing Sam in the Sprint Semi Final |
packed three days started off with sprints, I managed to pull
off a pb in qualifying to qualify 9th and won my first round ride
against my team mate Ethan Mitchell. I raced my way through the
rounds to end up 6
th, with this my confidence grew and it
set the tone for the for the following two days of racing. The next
day was Keirin day, I snuck through the first round straight into the
semi final which was that evening. The semi was staked full of fast
rider,one that would expect to see at a World Cup let alone a tier
one event! I finished 5
th in that after running out of gas
putting me into the 7th-12
th final where I would
eventually finish 10
th. To say I was pleased with these
two days would be an understatement but what would come on the 3
rd
day would blow these two days out of the water! It started with a
massive pb in the sprint qualifying a 10.397 over a tenth of second
off my old one set 2 days earlier! I race Ethan again in the first
round and though he pushed me close just managed to pip him on the
line. The quarter final was against Eddie Dawkins the man you had
just ridden a 9.8 second qualifying that morning smashing the
previous NZ record! The first ride his speed was far superior to mine
and he easily passed me in the front straight, the second ride I was
able to get an opportunity and catch him by surprise and it was just
enough for me to be able to sneak out a win and make the quarter
final go to a 3
rd and final deciding ride, in the 3
rd
I released that the only way to beat Eddie was to use his big gear to
his disadvantage and try to get the jump on him again and to my
complete surprise I managed to! This win put me into the semi finals
that evening and also made me the number 1 seed! The semi was against
the current Olympic bronze medalist in the sprint, Australian Shane
Perkins. I knew with the caliber of riders I was going to be facing
that evening that I would struggle to win unless I pulled something
out of the hat again, so I went in the the idea of trying to learn as
much as I could. The two races against Perkins really showed my
inexperience at this level of racing and why he is the Olympic bronze
medalist. The same could be said for my bronze medal ride off
against my team mate Sam Webster, he showed his class in both rides
and despite me trying to race mistake free the pressure exerted made
slight errors in judgment start to creep in and made me in two minds
of what I was doing in both rides. The key things that I took home
from racing both of these brilliantly tactical riders was the
experience and new found tactical knowledge of racing.
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| The photo finish of the Austral |
In the month of December in the week
before Christmas a group of 5 kiwi riders including myself traveled
across the ditch to Melbourne to have a crack at the Austral Wheel
race, this being the 117
th edition of the race, which
happens to be the oldest bike race in the world! There were also tier
one sprints and Keirins on offer. I managed to qualify 8
th
just allowing me to make the cut as it was top 8 through, the first
round was a one off ride and I drew one of the fastest men in the
world at the moment Matthew Glatzer with what seemed like a couple of
stomps on the pedals he was around me in the backstretch on the last
lap and she was all over. The night though would take an interesting
and very unexpected twist though, I had managed to win my heat for
the Austral and therefore qualify for the main event that evening. I
had been given a generous handicap of 105 meters. The race was 8 laps
in length, I quickly caught up to the front markers and sat on a
wheel to try and save myself for the last few laps. A train of riders
came round the group with about 3 laps to go and with a bit of
bumping and barging managed to get onto the back of them, before I
knew it the bell was sounding and I was in far from an ideal
position, 6-8 back and 3 wide not the best spot to start a sprint
from, never the less I decided to give it a go. By the time we were
half way around the last corner I was gaining at a rate of knots on
the lead riders and just as we crossed the line managed to roll two
riders in a close photo finish! The result was astounding and I still
find it hard to believe, I managed to become only the 3
rd
Kiwi to win this big race and the first for 50 years.
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| The Austral Trophy |
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| Me in second during the Team Sprint in Cali |
After the Austral I traveled home for
Christmas but there was no let off in training with a camp coming up
that had selection for the 3
rd World Cup on the line there
wasn't much of a break to be had. The training in the camp and the
trial days went as good as i could have hoped for and I was selected
to go off and race in Cali Colombia for my first ever World Cup.
After 2 and a bit days of getting on and off planes I finally arrived
on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in Cali, I had a few days
training there getting used to the track and making sure I was in the
best possible condition for racing. I rode in the team sprint on the
first night of racing, it was my first time I had ridden 3
rd
wheel so the nerves were a little high. We managed to finish 9
th
which considering two if the three members of the team were 19 or
younger made it a pretty good result with everyone pulling out
awesome times in their respective laps. I then had a day off before
my second and final event of the race meeting, I rode the sprints and
managed to smash out a pb and a big one too, 10.3 dead. I was over
the moon with the time but made a mistake during the ride which cost
me time. Cali is a very unique track it's extremely tight in the
corners with long straights, it has no walls and only a roof so you
quite often find yourself riding in a head wind, but the thing that
was my undoing during my ride was Cali has a pretty big bump halfway
trough the last corner which tends to spit you out to above the red
if you're not careful and I unfortunately wasn't careful enough which
led to me riding the majority of the last corner above the red, but
it was still a pb so I couldn't be too annoyed at myself.
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| During my flying 200 |
A week after I flew back from Cali it
was time for the last event of the season for me, the Nationals.
First up was the kilo which I was uncertain about, the whole week
leading up to the Nationals after Cali my legs seemed to have not
decided that they wanted to come back from Cali so I wasn't exactly
lighting the boards a light with fast times. Thankfully though they
arrived the day of the kilo and I managed to smash almost 3 seconds
off my pb to go 1.01.67 which got me 4
th, just 2
hundredths of a second off a bronze medal. The next morning followed
with what seemed like during the ride my best ever flying 200,
everything seemed to click and it showed in the time with another pb
this time 10.271 that qualified me 5
th, after a pretty
straight forward ride in the first round I drew Ethan which seems to
always be the way of late. He rode a brilliant race and I made a few
mistakes so he managed to blow past me like I was standing still and
that was that. I then had to front up in the ride off for 5
th
to 8
th, I ended up 7
th after leading out and
running out of gas in the closing stages. The Keirin was next, the
heat went perfectly, I rode from the front and ran away with the race
which put me straight into the semi, that however didn't go to plan
and it left me in the 7
th to 12
th ride off
which I managed to ride away with the win and secure 7
th
place. The final day was the Team Sprint and I had to slot in behind
the two current world champs in their favored positions in the team
them being Ethan Mitchell and Sam Webster. In qualifying I was
dropped and had to ride the whole race by myself off the back, we
still managed to qualify first by 0.1 of a second which I was stoked
with. I knew for the final that evening that if I got on we had a
good chance of winning and I managed to do that, we won by 0.3 of a
second and went 0.8 of a second faster than in qualifying giving me
my first ever elite national title which I was over the moon with.
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| The Start of the Team Sprint at the Nationals |
It's be such a cool and amazing last
few months and I can't wait to see what the next few months and
beyond have lying in wait!