7x7 and Not The World Cup Cup
Yeah Racing. Its hard.
Especially when the odds are stacked against you. For instance we recently partook in the 7 Hours at 7 Mile race here in Queenstown. For those that don't know our area, 7 mile is a trail centre which has been dug over the years by Lance Brown, volunteers and contractors organised by the QMTBC. Its a great little squiggle of trails, nothing too difficult and we love it.
So you race it for 7 hours. 20-30 min laps on a real fun course.
The Bikeaholic team was Justin and myself as the boys were working in the shop.......... did offer.......... anyways. We turned up and we aimed to be just 'cruising' and we were 'going to stop for lunch'. We even bought pastries. After 4 laps it turned out we were in the lead. Them pastries turned out to be a bad choice. Dammit. So we didn't cruise or stop for lunch. We just kept going. As hard as possible. Which hurt. Think we did 18 laps all up. But we got beaten by another team. Rules are that you can have up to four people in the team. We had two. Team Rebel Foods had four. Still to make up my mind on whether they were cheating or if we were stupid........ In the end we were second and pretty stoked too. Great day out and some good wheelies were done!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oBiwC1UmKc Here is a little video made by Paul from Outside Sports.
So taking from this event we decided to do a more relaxed kind of race. Its a do at your own pace kinda race. Lasts all winter. We have added a few deadlines and a there are a bunch of different tracks. Its called the Not The World Cup Cup Queenstown. Bit of a mouthful but that's the point. The deadlines are the World Cup Downhill races which are held in summer over in the Northern Hemisphere, here in NZ they are in the middle of the night in the middle of winter. Each WC race has an allocated trail and the winners are kept on a noticeboard in the shop. Its a social kind of race. There are rules. Breaking the rules result in instant disqualification. It sounds heavy, but really its tongue in cheek and just an excuse to ride bikes through the winter.........
Rules go like this;
- If you take it seriously, or are caught Stavassholing you are DQ’d.
- No E-bikes - if you think about it or mention it, you might be DQ'd.
- Times must be presented via Strava or something similar and within 24 hrs of riding.
- All riders must consume a Snickers Bar and bottle of Chocolate milk en-route and submit photo evidence of consumption. 5 (10??) minute bonus for the best photo per round.
- If you take it seriously, your are DQ'd.
- 5 minute bonus for hardtail.
- If you cheat, you suck, DQ.
- If you win a round, you are exempt from winning another round until next year.
- The rules may change at any time.
We have just finished the first round and we had some results. Check out the facebook page for full on (probably too much) information. https://www.facebook.com/notwccup/ We had 8 starters. Out of 8 there were 3 people disqualified in the first round. It appears it may well be cooler to be DQ'd than actually win! We all meet up and watch the world cup in the DEAD of night, drink beers and cheer on the ridiculously fast DH boys and read out the results. Pete won this time, but did he take it too seriously!?!
Things learnt so far;
- Some people really don't like strava.
- eBikes are much faster.
- It takes AGES to drink a litre of Chocolate Milk.
- Taking it seriously is hard to police.
- Writing on a glass mug takes ages and is easier with a dremel.
- Lots of people think its a good idea, like the page, but then don't actually do it.......come on guys!
- The middle of the night is a hard time to be awake.
Next round course is up now and there is a month to complete it before the next WC round. So bring it on. Get your leisurely race on. This one shouldnt hurt. You can go at your own pace. Its gonna be hard not to win one through the course of the winter. Its also gonna be hard to get to the trails come the middle of the winter too. Boooyah!
The race continues. But take it easy. You may get DQ'd.........