looks like we spend our weekends mostly camping and riding enduro (natalie and i anyway, mum is shuttle & catering). time well spent as fa as i am concerned.
this weekend we only went riding and did not include camping in our plans. i had other plans to spend my sunday and they included crawling around in the bowels of the karavan to further my elaborate plan of total energy domination.
green valleys near shell harbour played host again, only this time the more serious tracks were used, dirty south and plantation, the same we also rode during the green valleys round of the rollercoaster series.
the trails are not extremely technical but definitely more than enough to challenge 10 year old up and coming female mountain bike stars.
there was a bit of a rub: the club had clearly not expected many females to attend and had wrapped them all up in one category from 0 to 17. needless to say the younger ones did not have much of a shot at a podium. not nice, guys, try harder next time!
luckily there were other more interesting challenges like stick wrestling with odi the puppy, while waiting for the traditional enduro queue to advance.
first the junior males, then the junior females. the organizers were kind enough to leave sufficient time after the girls so they would not be caught.
natalie had two half serious crashes, hence the slightly crumpled race number. she did carry a bit too much speed and got out of shape … happens to the best of us. i am pretty impressed how quickly she dusted herself off and kept on going.
more importantly, she really embraces the obligatory after-race smalltalk like a pro. she is turning into a real enduro biker! and we all know how tough those are …