Tekapo 10 Hour 31 Jan 2016

Last year, we raced this excellent course as a 4 person team.
And we came away with the win in the vets grade + 3rd overall.
I've never been so dusty.

This year, in preparation of bigger things; I solo'd it.

My good friend Peter Page also rode solo, but with gears, so that was the soft option.

Tekapo is about halfway between Christchurch and Wanaka, so an easy drive for both of us.

After an ok sleep in the local campground, we had a cruise down to the start for a 9am kick off.
Unlike John Mezger who woke up late in Wanaka and was turning an easy 3 hour drive into a frantic 2.5 hour pre race-race against the clock.

I had two bikes for the day - the Chinese Mystery hardtail with gears and Hard Eddie; set up all single speed.

4 laps on the geared bike to get things rolling was all good, then I thought it wise to swap to the single speed.

Well - what an eye opener that was.
The handlebars sucked - Salsa bend 2's....actually they're great probably for bike packing, but the stem was too long to race on.
After a couple more laps I decided the wheels needed a swap around so off came the gears, on went the single sprocket and back out I went some 30 mins later.
I know it was a slow pit stop as Peter passed me twice and commented accordingly.

He was lapping it up on his Pivot dualie 29er  running 27.5+ wheels. 
What an over achiever.
John Mezger was killing it on his Epic.

I swapped bikes for the later part of the day to bring it on home - it seems a 10 hour that started at 9 finishes at 7pm, not 5 pm ( thanks for sorting that out for me Pete ) so the last couple of hours was a bit of a struggle.

The results say I chopped 18 laps at an average of 32 mins and a total of 127 km.

With the racing done I headed back to the motorcamp for a shower.
I wasn't staying the night, so had to be a bit stealth....
Parked up next to a tent site, hit the showers to find I left my wallet in the car - required as showers were pay first.
Got dressed, head back to car.
Ok, now have wallet and ready to shower..........
No change in wallet.
Got dressed, drove down to office, get small change.
Park up, hit the showers, put money in meter and finally have shower.
Phew.
Thereafter I arrived in my driveway, not really recalling many details of the drive back.

An excellent weekend and a great chance to iron things out prior to the 24 solo worlds in Rotorua the following month.