After a long 11 month break from downhill racing I had my new 2018 Santa Cruz V10 downhill bike arrive last week, just in time for me to get it built for Gravity Canterbury’s annual New Zealand Open downhill race.

With the bike up and rolling two days before the race I managed to squeeze in about 5 minutes of riding on it before the race on Saturday, just enough to get the brakes bedded in and help my brain remember how to ride a big bike.

With a classic mixture of trails through Victoria Park used for the race I was lucky to have a bit of local knowledge but it was a double edge sword as the organisers had thrown in some tricky corners and sections that were a little different to what I usually ride. This caused a few off track moments early in practice while I was getting used to the changes.
After a long practice hold from an injured rider it was decided to skip a qualifying run and send us straight into race runs, I had been looking forward to using the qualifying run to get up to speed a little more but I was feeling good by that point and ready to race.

My race run started off a little bit messy early on but I managed to compose myself and put together a really solid second half coming across the line in second just 1.16sec behind World Cup regular Sam Blenkinsop. This time held for the last few riders and I was stoked to pull of a solid result against a group of full time World Cup downhill racers!

Next up for me is the NZ Enduro in the Marlborough Sounds in early March and then on to Crankworx!