The Life and Times of KJ

Tuesday, 17 June 2008

First Kiwis to Visit Me

Well it’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted which is not really all that long but I have been up to a bunch of stuff in that ensuing time. First and foremost I had my first Kiwi friends visit. Was great to see both Emily and Chris for 5 days before they took off in their Blood Red Rental Chrysler PT Cruiser for a great few week road trip from my place, through Las Vegas, to the Grand Canyon, up through Utah to finish in either Idaho or Montana before Chris competes in an Adventure Race.

They were not here for a weekend which was bad timing but I managed to take them to some yummy places for dinner, and on a Mtb ride in the local hills, as well as a little climb up to Forrest Falls.

The highlight however was taking the day off and heading to Six Flags Magic Mountain. A theme park which can only be described as one thing… Roller Coaster Mania!!! It’s essentially all we did for the whole day after a large 100 mile drive out there. Man I still cannot get over how many people on the freeways are in their cars by themselves. Despite the traffic we had a pretty clean run out there as we could use the single transit lane (you need 2 or more people in your car to take advantage of this lane). So here we are zipping along at 70miles while 4 or 5 lanes of traffic right next to us with single people (or dumb people) were chugging along at 30 miles. Go figure aye…

Anyhow I have a few pics of Magic Mountain and a video also. I was lots more brave after getting use to big rides on the Gold Coast earlier in the year, and with the addition of my small camera, well I had the guts to hang onto in on a few of the rides. I loved ‘The Riddler’, a standup coaster and the ‘Viper’ with 7 loops (both have video). Well in fact I liked most of them bar a very tame water ride. By far the scariest was the last ride we did with a line of 45 mins. It was called ‘Tatsu’ and is essentially a lie down coaster. It’s so scary because you are at the mercy of the machine completely the way it holds on to you, also because you cannot see where you are going. Freaky but real fun. It was the only one that I actually did not want it to last longer. No video of this sorry bar a little from the ground. J One thing missing was themed rides. They are often surprising amounts of fun like the ‘Scooby Doo’ ride on the Gold Coast at Movieworld, however I suspect all these rides and no doubt better ones are at Universal Studios.

Anyhow I had a great time with Em and Chris and I hope to entertain more of you with the delights of an oversized, overpopulated, smog ridden metropolis again soon J. Who will be next to visit me???

Sunday, 1 June 2008

1st Race in the States...

First up I have put a video on youtube of some fun riding up at Big Bear. It was more technical track than last week and I had my big bike with me this time so it was great fun. Link is here. Make sure you have the player turned to high quality otherwise it does not look that good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl2KNyipuhM

Righto so I was meant to go to Sequoia and Kings Canyon Nat park but had been feeling bad for a while. Bronchitis has been doing the rounds and the feeling it in my chest last week so was not super keen on heading away for the weekend. However on Sat I improved a bit, still not right but enough to give my first Mtb race a nudge over here in the States. It was the Big Bear Shootout. Part of the Southern California MTB Champs. Anyhow it went real well. The whole race was above 2000m so that was interesting and the temp was 20 degrees so perfect for racing really. I entered the Sport Class, I will end up in the expert eventually I imagine. Anyhow I lined up on the start line for the race and was a little worried. People over here really have the gears, flash bikes, full matching lycra and here I was on my trusty steel stead with baggies on and an old torn Dons Bikes Race top the boys who are sponsored by them wanted me to wear.

Anyhow the race started and we were off. One guy shoot off and I thought "Arh,,, here we go... Pain, Pain, Pain". I just stuck with the group for a few mins and let the legs warm up then decided that it was strange as I thought the pace would have been harder. Anyhow I moved up a gear and pulled away and caught up with the guy that shoot off. He had blown-up (predictable) hang with him for a bit then decided to move it up another notch. To cut the story short I did not see anyone from my class again and bet 2nd place (yep I got first) by about 4 mins.

So yeah a great wee race to kick things off. With more prep and a few more sport races I will be keen to move into the faster Expert division. We shall see.

The last downhill was awesome. Most people seemed to ride it pretty well. I passed a bunch of people, it was real technical and pretty scary at speed. Very cool :-) Big Grins

One thing I have noticed, its hard to tell yet but the fields are tighter. Basically less 'Sunday riders' than at home. The people that participate seem to be pretty into it overall really and its there passion. Back home you get some real 'slow' people but they are giving it a go which is great which spreads the field out. Over here those that enter appear are a bit more serious. So yeah its good and bad I guess. Good for racing as it might be more competitive, but maybe its a less inviting more formal environment which scares some people away that would have raced had it been in the NZ scene. Don't get me wrong though. The top guys back home are as fast as the top guys here. Just and observation form my first race. I may well change this opinion.

Race Stats: