Hey all.. this weekend we did the Geomondi Bike, the race of the Bianchi president! Its more of a fun affair, although I still tried to do well. My legs and head didn't agree though, and after 30min of hanging onto Jose Hermida I couldn't hold it anymore, and cruised back into the 30's for a cruisy ride home together with Julian and Ralf Naff. There was a short timed section in the middle with some good prices, so Julian and I gave it a good effort and I ended up winning a big TV.. nice :)
Afterwards it was a big party at the Bianchi camper, with Champagne and cake for Julian's worlds victory, and lots of old guys yelling in Italian!
I'm now back home trying to sort out my team for next year. Nothing to be said just yet! Otherwise my motivation for riding is about zero, so I've been running a little, and at the gym, just to do something different. The only riding I feel like doing is long mtb rides in the mountains... next week I plan on a 3 day trip with Susi and friends, so hopefully that should be a fun adventure!
all the best..

Salut tout le monde..

My dad has been nagging me to why I haven't updated my site, so I guess I better get to it!
The world champs was already 2 weeks ago now. I ended up 12th, which I am happy with, but at the same time I know I should have done better.
The weekend prior I had great form at the Swiss Cup finals in Bern. With one of the best fields I have seen in a Swiss cup, and probably the best overall event. There were heaps of spectators, good weather and hot umbrella girls at the start ;) Jose Antonio Hermida attacked from the gun, and it was Susi and I battling just behind. My legs opened up well, and with a few laps to go I was the strongest one and managed to bring Jose back. Finally we ended up in a sprint, which I lost... but it was a lot of fun to feel the strength in the legs again!
Worlds this year were high in the alps, just across the swiss/italian boarder in Livigno. New Zealand had an awesome team this year with 27 riders and 5 staff.. this is the biggest I have seen in the 10 years I've raced worlds. (yip, I'm getting old!). Not only did we have numbers, but some very decent riders and two defending world champions. We all stayed in a great hotel, just 200m from the course.. couldn't have been much better.
The racing started on Wednesday with the team relay. I was the first rider, followed by Marcus Roy, Clinton Avery and finally Rosara Joseph. Not a bad team for little old New Zealand! One of the fun things with the team relay is that every team can choose the order they send off the riders (as long as there's one senior, one u23, one junior and one female). We opted for the fastest to slowest method, which was a little mean on Rosara, but meant we were holding a good position for most of the way. In the end we ended up 10th.. not too shabby. Personally I was very content with my lap, as it was the 5th fastest of the day.
Sunday finally rolled on, and after a 10min wait on the start line, we finally got underway. The mad dash up the opening climb was stupid fast as expected. I managed ok, entering the first single track in around 15th place, but then with my exhaustion I took a bad line and my chain jumped off and got all tangled up. So after stopping and untangling I was back to the late 30s, with a lot of work to catch up again. The course was super long, with long flat sections, meaning it was important to ride in a group if possible. But the climbs were very steep, so it really took its toll. Many people were having punctures on a rocky river bed section and the tech zones were very busy. I slowly worked my way up, so that with one 12km lap remaining I was in 10th place. But then I hit the wall and really suffered through the final lap. It was only due to 3 people with punctures that I was able to still hold my resonable 12th position.
Up front Julian pulled off a super close victory ahead of Susi and Jose (yes... the same guys I was battling with last week!) It sounded like a dramatic finish with both Julian and Susi having punctures on the final lap, and coming into the same tech zone together! They showed the whole race on Italian TV.. must have been a great show! But otherwise MTB is getting almost no tv time this year, which is really not good.

Other great kiwi results :
Scarlet Hagan - DH Junior 2nd
Vanessa Quinn -DH 4th
Rosara Joseph - XC 16th
Nathan Ranken - DH 8th

As every year, the worlds party was one to remember :) I went out with a good bunch of kiwis and meet all my racing buddies.. always nice to have that race over with.. especially if you finish okay!

Since then we've been in Scotland for the world cup finals... a rather non-eventful race for me.. perhaps because of some asthma, but also I think a bit of low motivation.. still it was beautiful up there as always. This weekend I have been in Sweden and raced the 08XC Stockholm Marathon. For the first time in my life I managed to finish a 4hr + race without completely blowing! In the end it was just myself and Philip Tavell, sweden's best marathon rider together. We were both pretty dead at the end, but he was the leaser tired of us and won the final sprint by about 1m. Now I still have 3 more fun races left.. Geomondi Bike, another Italian race and finally the Roc d'azur.

Caio,
Kashi

The finish of 08xc this weekend... after 120km, it sucks to loose the sprint!