lisa morgan

The weekend just been was the biggest in NZ cycling - on the last Saturday of November every year 10-12,000 people descend on the sleepy town of Taupo in the middle of the North Island to ride around New Zealand's biggest lake.  Except a few hundred who elect to slog it out in the forests and dirt roads since the organisers added an off-road option to the weekend - the Huka! 

First introduced in 2008, there are a few options for entry - some do it as the first leg of a 5 leg relay where the last 4 are the traditional 4 legs of the round the lake challenge.  Some add 22kms of mountain biking to their 160km road challenge.  Unlicenced/non-competitive riders enter the Huka Challenge (same course but separate start) and elite/licenced riders are the first to embark on the 80km race at 7am in the Huka XL. 

Under UCI rules a marathon mtb event must be at least 60kms, and they can range to over 100kms.  Last year the Huka was 70kms and this year it was increased to 80 (on paper - my speedo read 79.6 so allowing for the couple of minutes before I rememberd to hit the button they were pretty close to bang on).

Like last year, up until a couple of weeks out my participation in any of the Taupo events was up in the air but I've been putting in some decent miles and a couple of weeks ago asked Robyn what she thought about me doing the Huka instead of the Challenge because I'm just so in love with riding the Felt that 80kms sounded like the best idea ever!  To my delight she said yup, ok.  Worst case scenario was that it would become a long training ride where I would find out how I would last putting in effort hour after hour. 

As it turned out, for the most part the course suited me quite well but unfortunately I wasn't able to capitalise on that.  Something triggered a pretty severe asthmatic episode whilst training during the week and my lungs never really cleared up.  The first hour of the race involved the most consistent climbing (and one very cool, long descent) and I struggled my way through with legs that were oxygen starved and heavy as the Challenge riders came past like I was standing still (for the record - when you're passing people in a race it's bad form to expect them to take the rough and give you the smooth line - man up and ride the rough!).

But all was not lost and after an hour, and second long descent, things started to fall in to place and feel right again.  There was one climb that was in the race twice and I just felt like a completely different person from the first time to the second time and that gave me a lot more confidence for the rest of the day.  I think over half the course was in the Craters of the Moon forest area which included lots and lots and lots (and lots) of tight, twisty, sometimes rough, sometimes gnarly, sometimes spirit crushing, sometimes grin producing singletrack.  The concentration of quality track in what is really quite a small area is pretty impressive.  I'd ridden most of the tracks we did at least once, but over a period of years.  This time I was doing them all in one day.

After that first hour I started catching and passing people who had come past me earlier, and playing 'catch, drop and get caught again' with about 3 guys for a very long time.  We spent around 40kms hovering around each other - which is a long way when we don't even usually race that far!  A lot of that was in some of the windiest (as in corner-corner-corner, not gale force wind) singletrack many of us had ever ridden.  It was tough to maintain momentum in it and really rewarded good line choices and a bit of finesse on the bike.  I caught and passed the guys again through here and they each jumped on and took advantage of my lines, giving me a thanks for the guided tour when we finally popped out the other end after what felt like a pretty long time!

The legs were still feeling good though so I continued to guide them through the remaining singletrack in the forest and through some crazy, soft trails, dropping them occasionally only to hear them come back soon enough, as we headed back under the road to the Helicopter where the feed zone was.  I was staying with Taupo native Cam Wood and his family and his Mum was there with a bottle of coke for me at the 50k mark.  From that point there was a lot of fairly flat riding and a fair bit of gravel road as we headed out to Aratitia Dam before coming back up the other side of the river.

The guys were content to sit on my wheel and draft roadie styles - suited me - the race hadn't started well for me so it had become that long training ride after all.  I finally shook them for good where we had to dismount and run across the bridge at the dam - I ran, I guess they walked, and they didn't make it back up to me after that.

Surprisingly though, with about 20km to go MJ appeared on my back wheel - she'd started in the Challenge and come past me early on on a climb, before I got her back on a descent, before she got me again on the next climb, and then I had her in my sights for k after k until I lost her somewhere along the way.  We never worked out what had happened but together we caught a small group of riders.  They were descending alright but taking the climbs a bit easy, but the track was too narrow to get past them all and then suddenly the opened a gap!  It was weird - I was feeling strong and riding really well but couldn't get back to them - meanwhile MJ had let her own gap open.  So I finished off the last few kms on my own, still able to power out of the saddle on the climbs and just about getting taken out by a roadie bunch where the mtb course joined back on to the finishing chute.  People were lining the barriers and making heaps of noise which was really cool.

I finished feeling really good which surprised me, but I guess I've been underestimating myself post-injury and it's obviously time to raise the bar.  I was told I was 5th woman but the results disagree placing me in 6th.  None-the-less, I had heaps of fun (after the first hour) and was happy to come home just over the 5 hour mark.  There's a ton of room for improvement so I don't think that will be my last Huka.  It's going to be a tough decision in future - I still have unfinished business around the lake, can definitely go better on the dirt, and am keen to have a crack at the womens crit and road race one year - guess I'll be at this for some time to come!

Chatting to Robyn once I'd got back home she asked me if this was the longest mtb race I've done (excluding the Moonride 6hr earlier this year).  Thinking back and excluding the other solo's and teams races I did in my pre-competitive days I was pretty sure it must have been and suddenly realised my first Karapoti took 5:02, and this took 5:03.  Just with an extra 30kms and a significant amount of extra climbing!  I'm a way off my peak just now, but it's always cool to remember how far you've come - and even better to think how much further you've got to go!

All up - a huge thumbs up for the race, and it was cool to bump in to seldom-seen friends during the weekend and whilst heading down the road for gelato after the race

And I nearly forgot - the Makara Peak Rally is back on my calendar so I hope to see lots of you out there on Sunday - it'll be my first time on heaps of those tracks since last year's rally!!!