photostory friday - mountain bike madness

karapoti is the southern hemisphere's longest running mountain bike race. it's practically all off-road through a mountain range, including unbikeable hills, river crossings and pine forests. riders cross the finish line caked in mud and barely recognisable.

there's the 50k (kilometre) classic and the 20k challenge.

i've been involved for 4 years, mostly volunteering. this is the registration desk, where i would usually be (at 6.45am!) but i was taking the photo, so try to imagine me there handing out race numbers and registration packs

these are the finishers medals.
we had to unwrap (from bubble wrap) over 1000 of the suckers...

one happy volunteer!

it rained HEAVILY all through the night before and the morning of the race. the conditions were ATROCIOUS to say the least. i've left the photos large so you can see the detail - it's raining in this pic where a UNICYCLIST is being interviewed.

YES - this crazy man does rides the ENTIRE race on ONE WHEEL!!!

the starts are staggered over an hour and every vantage point is taken to watch. the bikers in the foreground are queued up waiting to start

oh yeah - did i tell you, you start AND finish this race by carrying your bike through the river???

so, as i said before - it rained HEAVILY all throughout the night, so the river was SWOLLEN to say the least; ie the SHORTEST distance across the water wasn't always going to be the EASIEST

and because the starts were staggered, you would have to be an IDIOT not to have seen others go before you and end up NECK-deep in water trying to take a short-cut!

click on the photo!

but then the sun came out...this is the first woman home being interviewed.
check out the MUD on her. this is standard, heavy rain or not

this is the kennet brothers coming home, on their THRANDEM (that's a word)
the kennett brothers STARTED karapoti 24 years ago

oh yeah - did i tell you i did karapoti a couple of years back...

I. AM. LEGEND.

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Ukeleles, Tail End Charlottes and Leap Year Babies

saw these guys perform last night

they were

awesome awesome awesome
hugely talented, and
funny
7 ukeleles played by
7 brilliant musicians;
1 of whom was a champion whistler (this point will become important momentarily)

they got their (la) freak on
they were teenager dirtbags
they were good
bad
and ugly

they played david bowie's 'life on mars', 'my way', and 'born free' - ALL AT THE SAME TIME! just their voices and their 7 ukeleles, ranging in size from the very small to the slightly bigger.

folk, jazz, pop, rock - they covered it all

they were in new zealand as part of the $14million NZ International Arts Festival,

and if they ever come to a town year you - GET NEAR YOU!!!

after a late night, i had an early morning start to get here.

karapoti is the southern hemisphere's longest running mountain bike event, and possibly one of the toughest!

all off-road, it's through rivers, up hills, down dales, over rocks and all that other great mountain bike stuff. there's the 50k (kilometre) classic and the 20k challenge. i did the challenge last year in around an hour and a half.

i have been volunteering at this event for the past 3 years, and today i got to be a 'tail end charlotte'. this basically involves coming last with style. we wear high-vis vests and ride out with the last riders. fresh air, exercise, fun and lending a hand. my kinda day.

here's my bike ready for action

this is what i usually look like in my cycle gear this picture was taken at karapoti last year after a training run

event photographers lurk everywhere and i thought this sign was too cute not to photograph

under the heading of useless information and random facts:

130 kiwis were born yesterday. along with the 200,000 born in the USA, they help make up the total of 4 million babies born on february 29, 2008.

just thought you would like to know

Clean Cups

as she was emptying the dishwasher yesterday, miss 11 insisted that this

be my photo of the day. kids. go figure! nothin' like a clean tea cup. i guess!!!

anyway - here's today's. tara giving instructions to a couple of tourists as to the whereabouts of the cable car (it's on my blog banner!)

that's tara in the helmet. that's my bike in the foreground. we had just finished the 32km (20 miles) bike the bays council-run free event. last week round the bays, this week - bike the bays! it was very sedate and picturesque and tara noted that as a tourist you couldn't really ask for more; great weather, friendly people and fun events happening all around!

Back from my bike ride

this got a workout today. it made lots of weird noises which i think was code for "how dare you leave me in the garge for a year woman?"

(the bike, not the car...)

and this was my view while riding

not bad huh??