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Wednesday, February 5, 2014

2014 NZ CUP #2 Nelson.


The second and final round of the NZ Cup series took place in sunny Nelson. With a pretty good race record here in the past it has become a favourite venue of mine and it was good to be back again in 2014. I felt I rode much better in Nelson than the previous round in Wellington. Had a solid race and improved on my result as well moving up from 3rd in Welly to 2nd behind Anton Cooper.

It was a fast start to the race with Anton, Sam Gaze and myself getting away from the rest early on. Anton led and set a pace that was right on the limit for me. I was struggling a bit to stick with the other two and after about half a lap the slight gap that had been opening and closing between us became too big and I lost contact at the bottom of one of the climbs making a slight mistake on a tight switch back corner.


Before I knew it they were well gone and although I chased hard for the next two laps I couldn’t make any impression on the gap and fell further behind. Heading into the third lap I caught Sam who had run into trouble trying to stick it with Anton and so rode into 2nd position. Nothing really changed from there for the rest of the race. I had a decent gap over the boys behind and just had to focus on my own race and keep pushing to the finish.



The course was fast and dry as usual and I enjoyed riding hard and mindful of the fact that this will be the last big race before Nationals I wanted to make sure I put in a good honest effort. The last laps were uneventful with no issues and I finished comfortably in 2nd place.

Less than two weeks to go now till National Champs at home in Rotorua so I will be doing some fine tuning with my training making sure I finish off my preparation the best I can.  This Sunday we are having a “mock” race on the course racing a reduced number of laps and this will be a good final test of the form. I have been pleased with the progress made over the last month and all going well should be in pretty good shape for Nationals.

 

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