Queenstown's first cyclocross nz champs a success

Queenstown's first cyclocross nz champs a success

As part of the winter festival, the Queenstown Mountain Bike Club hosted the nz cyclocross champs for the first time at Jardine Park on Saturday 2nd July. This is the first time that the nz champs have been held in the South Island, with the event traditionally being in Hamilton. Just over 50 riders from all over the country turned out to give it their all. The 2010 world single-speed mountain biking champion, Garth Weinberg, flew in from Rotorua to take on other riders in the field. The New Zealand women's Singlespeed champion Anja McDonald upped the ante in the female field. Scarlet Hagen also stepped up to the challenge on behalf of the local female riders.

Cyclocross is a way for road riders to maintain their fitness through winter. A cyclocross bike is like a road bike but with wider, knobblier tires with lots of wheel clearance for the inevitable mud. The race course was about a mile long and included, road, wooded trails, grass, obstacles such as a wooden ramp, logs and barriers plus a steep muddy slope to negotiate. Racers will generally dismount their bikes, carry their bikes over the barriers whilst running and then remount their bikes. The race is judged on the number of laps that entrants can do in just over an hour. Races are fast paced, healthy, muddy fun with full noise and participation encouraged from spectators.

A cold start to a sunny day meant we had a course that thawed throughout the day giving out to almost knee deep mud in some places. Dan Warren from Hawke's Bay won the mens, with Alex Revell from Wellington coming in second and Mark (Cabin) Leishman from Rotorua taking a close third, all riding an impressive 9 laps of the course. Anja Mcdonald from Dunedin took out the women's with a cool 8 laps, with Melissa Newell from Christchurch coming second and Camelia Nicolau coming a close third both on 7 laps.

Amongst those entrants racing with a more relaxed feel, we had a few costumes such as Animal from the muppets and a cow which were really popular with the kids as well as some interesting looking lycra skin suits. There were a few close calls between racers and spectators, notably being photographers trying to get the best of the action on film. Cyclocross is a fun sport that is open to everyone, the course is still in situ and you can give it a go. We also opened the race to mountain bikes to give everyone a chance to enjoy and participate without needing a special bike, so that we all could get a feel for this off the wall sport of cyclocross.

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