Makara peak: the Grand Loop Challenge

My Saturday night was a very late one so I slept through most of the Makara peak festival. However I did make it up for the Grand Loop Challenge. The format was simple: racers were released at 20 second intervals and had to complete a short sharp lap of the park. In theory the fastest riders left first so there was no traffic, just good times. It also meant there was always someone to chase, a great motivator. Best of all, no one was taking themselves too seriously, setting up a great atmosphere.

Due to a horrendous overestimation of how long it would take me to get around the course, I seeded pretty poorly and ended up leaving second to last. On the plus side, this gave me a whole lot of people to chase after. I went out hard and started making up time from the outset, starting to catch people a few minutes into Koru. I held a strong pace up through the track and rode cleanly, reeling in several during the initial climb.

By the start of missing link I was breathing like a steam train and needed the break of the downhill into Missing Link. As far as downhilling goes I’m not much and my descent was a bit sketchy in the ultra-dry conditions. Luckily for me there was plenty more climbing to be done and I soon got my lungs back into that good burning feeling.

I have it on good authority that I was still going strong up the 4wd into Aratihi but popped soon into the track and had to back off a bit as my legs were starting to feel as though they’d been well curried. On the way to the summit I pulled in a few more people. The top section was tough going because of the noteable wind rushing the top sections.

By the time I got to the start of Ridgeline the air was pretty determined to go in a different direction to the one I was going, and was pretty keen to take me along for the ride. It was tricky to hold the lines I wanted so I was particularly pleased to get to the start of the descent proper with only one foot down moment.

From here it was all fairly placid going as I rode as hard as I could while making sure I got to the bottom. Ridgeline was pretty rough on the rigid but as always I had a blast. The top of Ridgeline extension was only marginally less rough the Ridgeline and I was a happy man when I got into the flowwy stuff on SWIGG and starfish. SWIGG is probably my favourite track and I had a great time pumping my way to the bottom.

 After the race I indulged in some banter while we waited for everyone to finish. The vibe was great; it seemed like everyone had a good time and there were no major stacks. A big ups to everyone involved with the race and the festival – organisers and the marshals in particular. It was great to have the chance to tackle one of my favourite loops at full noise, and I was well pleased with my time of 43 minutes flat. I look forward to more races like this one to come.