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NZ National Championships - Blenheim, October 20, 2002
posted by Robyn on Monday, October 21, 2002

1 Rebecca Cullen 02:15:17
2 Robyn Wong 02:19:11
3 Lisa Savage 02:23:34
4 Emma Bawtree 02:25:41
5 Genevieve Whitson 02:38:12
DNF Bronwyn Harris 00:32:00

posted by Robyn on Tuesday, October 01, 2002

Home Sweet Home - October 1, 2002

Hello Wellington! And what a stunning day in the capital… despite the wind that I’d conveniently forgotten about. Yep, I’m now home and it’s time to find a job.

Sorry about the lack of updates since Les Gets. Those keen enough to have found the results from another website would have surmised that I didn’t have a good race since I DNF’ed. Again I had mechanical problems…. again in the first lap… again the same problem. I was gutted since I wanted to end the season on a good note. Prior to the race I spent quite a few hours with the Shimano mechanics to sort out the mechanical during the World Champs Race and to prevent the same thing happening again. A brand new chain was put on. And the front derailleur tweaked, tested, tweaked again, tested again, tweaked again and tested again. I think you get the message. On race day I was pretty confident that my bike would perform.

The course was definitely a downer. It didn’t help that a thunderstorm hit on Saturday night so come Sunday morning, though clear and fine, the 6.5km grassy course was a bog. It was a figure eight circuit that looped up and down the side of a grassy hill, with a section of single track in amongst an adventure park. There was one technical rocky “canyon”, then a loop through the village on the tarmac. It was a good course for the spectators. But for the riders, there was a hell of a lot of running!

Since Les Gets…

Christian and I went on holiday for 4 days to the Costa del Sol in Southern Spain and the city of Malaga. We planned this trip to coincide with the “Vuelta Espana” (tour of Spain) and stage 6 finishing and stage 7 starting in Malaga. I just loved it. Seeing Mario Cipollini in all glory taking the sprint over Zabel, seeing all the pro’s up close during the warm up – Roberta Heras, Oscar Sevilla, David Millar, Francesco Casagrande, Oscar Freire, and the list goes on. I’ll get some pics up on my gallery page soon. We managed to get in a little riding, finding a very nice 15km hill climb. Of course we also had to spend a few hours on the beach to work on the tans. Then we had to sample the local paella and fine red wine. To top it off, it was awesome to have Eurosport in the hotel to catch up on the day’s action in the tour.

After Spain we headed to Nurnberg, Germany to visit Christian’s relatives for 5 days. We timed it well to celebrate Christian’s birthday on the same day as his Great Aunt who turned 90. We celebrated with a 5 hour Greek marathon eating and drinking fest.

Soon after it was time to pack up the flat in Switzerland and head home to NZ.

So now it’s time to find another job. I’ve also got to concentrate on some extramural study for a couple of weeks since I have 2 exams at the end of the month. I have been studying a couple of sports papers through Massey while abroad.

My upcoming racing takes me south to Blenheim for the New Zealand National Mountain Bike Championships on October 20. And then onto Invercargill for the New Zealand National Road Championships on October 24 (time trial) and October 26 (road race).

Finally there are a few people I’d like to thank. Many, many thanks to my coach Andy Reid, who has always been there and who is just awesome. Also Trek and Gary Fisher, and Penny Farthings for their on going bike support. Thanks to Tama for his help with this website and to VORB for hosting the site.

I welcome any feedback on this website. I will endeavour to keep posting to the site while in NZ, though I’m sure things are not as exciting as being overseas.