Hey!
We are hosting a Giant Bikes demo on St Valentines day – Feb 14th 2012.
We will have the following:
XTC hardtail in 29″
Anthem XC in 29″
Trance Freeride/Tail in 26″
The all mountain Reign in 26″
The Talon in 29″
Its all happening at the Deans Bank track accessed from the Albert Town campground. The tent will be up and the BBq will be steaming, so come down and check Giant’s awesome range of bangforyourbuck bikes.
What a very big week last week was. In fact since New Year the anticipation and interest grew with the final week being an all out work frenzy. Every bike (and helmet) was checked and stickered by The Mechanics and invariably a service or some extra need was the result.
The shop is very proud of all our customers who tested themselves in a gruelling series of events from the kids 1:2:1 Tri introduction on Friday all the way thru to the full Ironman. Our sponsored racer Simone Maier did her self proud with a 3rd placing, cracking her self imposed 10hour benchmark. She was in 6th position after the bike leg and put in an incredibly gutsy run to move up to 3rd.
Full Challenge results can you be found here.
Shown here are a series of images which have also been posted on our Facebook page. They were all taken on an iPhone 4s and put thru Instagram for filters and effects. Its really incredible what you can do with a phone nowadays…
We currently have a post Challenge promotion giving 20% discount for online sales only via our web site here. And whilst you’re there give us a Facebook ‘Like’ too…
This is Jack. What can be said about a chap dressed in pink from head to toe running for a female cause? Simple: Champ.
Friday night looking out the window of the Kebab shop - the athlete's rocket fuel.
Men:
1 AARONFARLOW, 08:41:53
2 JAMIE WHYTE, 08:51:53
3 KIERAN DOE, 08:57:17
Female:
1 GINA CRAWFORD, 09:44:06
2 BRITTA MARTIN, 09:47:39
3 SIMONE MAIER, 09:57:42
Racers Edge and Wanaka's very own Simone Maier fashionably optimistic!
OK… Poor title but I couldn’t resist. No, Simone Maier is not about to get married, but with the Sione’s Wedding film sequel about to hit our screens soon, its a nice lead in for Simone’s own sequel this coming Saturday.
Last year she killed it with a second place at the Challenge Wanaka main event. This year she wants a podium but is naturally coy about stating a time and a final position. All she will say is she wants to beat her own personal benchmark of 10 hours.
The bike leg last year was a killer with the tortous wind – everyone suffered, but added to that Simone lost her entire food/nutrient bottle only 45km’s in which she admits hurt her. She says that will not happen again.
She knows it will be tough going this year with 6 pro’s in the field but she’s feeling strong, confident and her equipment is in race ready condition. “Looking forward to it…”
Our four Mechanics, rather like the dashing Four Muskateers of old, have been slowly but steadily churning through the near 900 bikes split across the individuals and teams for the half and full Iron Man distance of Wanaka Challenge. Their sabres rattling and flintlocks cocked, the boys have been conducting the mandatory bike and helmet checks since 4th Jan but by Monday night of this week only some 150 had been done. They literally did not have time to even go to the toilet let alone stop for a coffee.
Asked to comment on the week ahead Hazen Simson could only manage a simple “ F&%$(4# H3#@ “ which actually said it all.
From left to Right – Dave Drake, Hazen Simson & James de la Cruz are putting in crazy hours at the workbench this week ensuring all bikes for Challenge Wanaka are in top fettle, officially checked and stickered. Doors at the store are open 9 to 6 but these true professionals are spannering hardout until all the bikes dropped in each day are ready. (Mechanic Nick Kemp not present)
29.09.Thursday after work, late afternoon 3pm Wohowww started with a beautiful ride to Makarora,first day ever this spring for me, that I have been ridding in Icebreaker GT bike shirt + my new Racers Edge bike shorts yeaaaa summer time hear I am, it felt just so good and I was so happy really. But funny heee I got a lift back to Wanaka this morning, temperatur outside: 1C and yes I did not take any warm clothing to ride back in the morning silly really but it was my day off anyway instead I had a great massage from Kevin Gingell-Kent at body-workshop here in Wanaka. Thanks Kevin!!!
After a good massage, well rested and happy day at work I went for a quick paddle with my friend Jess.Ueee Pretty funny waves this evening but well I thought, I wont get better or get my confidence back from ridding my bike alwaya ha ha … so we went for a paddle in some choppy stuff. Big Thanks to my great friend Ailsa Rollinson, for giving me her Kayak to play with until she gets back from Nelson!!!
Made a little movie again, Ohhhh how I love my Canon Power Shot D10 waterproof camera !!! I take it pretty much everywhere, where I am yessss…
Sam Lee Freeski USA 2011
This year I went over to America on the 10th of January and stayed until March 1st travelling most of the time with fellow big mountain skier Zak Hogg.
Training at Breckenridge
We started out with two weeks in Breckenridge Colorado, sleeping on couch pillows, in a house with eight of the Kiwi Park boys.
I wanted to ski a bit of park to improve my spins and flips which are starting to become a feature of Big Mountain and to some degree achieved this. We also spent a couple of days at the Woodward indoor training facility at Copper Mountain and that really is a big help with flips.
We had a lot of fresh powder so ended up doing a bit more freeski stamina training than planned. Apart from Breck we also skied Arapahoe Basin which was a bit more alpine with some more natural features and steeper terrain.
Jackson Hole Freeski World Qualifier
One of the advantages of being in Breck was that we were closer to Jackson Hole the venue for one of the FWT comps we were doing. When I say closer, it was still a 9 hour drive away from Denver, so probably 11 or 12 hours of travel all up from Breck.
We set off on our way to Jackson Hole Wyoming on the 24th of Jan going from Breck to Denver on the famous Gray Hound bus service where we picked up our rental car, a Ford Focus we named Freddy.
We drove the whole 9 hours in one go with a couple stops along the way for food and fresh air arriving in Jackson Hole at about 1am. We decided to save money that night and sleep in the car.
It was very cold. I only had a thin summer sleeping bag so I had to pile on the layers pretty heavy.
We spent two days skiing at Jackson Hole before the comp. Our minds were blown. Jackson is probably the coolest most bad ass mountain I have skied in my life to date. It is absolutely chocked full of cliffs, lines, chutes, terrain nuggets and the odd pillow here and there. On top of all that the ski field is steep and really long, and lastly there is no one there. Even on weekends lines are only slightly bigger than midweek, not enough to bother you though.
The competition day was blue bird and uber hot. I had to hike to the top in my Tee shirt because my down SOS jacket is made for mega cold; it was like wearing an oven.
Sadly the day didn’t end up so well for either Zak or me.
Zak crashed in his run out after skiing a sick line that would have qualified for sure.
Me? Well I didn’t even get quarter of the way into my run before getting lost and skiing into the closed zone of doom. I ended up skiing down a tongue up to the edge of very big cliff with ultra-death rock lying below, I also released a mini slough on the way in. After realising I was in the wrong place and deciding there was no way down I proceeded to hike back up the way I came. All I can say is I now understand why they close stuff!
So with lessons learnt we spent the next 3 days riding the RAD-GNAR of Jackson Hole.
Jackson was great but expensive. We dropped the famous Cobets Couloir the hard way, straight over the cliff. That was a cool experience.
Kirkwood Lake Tahoe
So then it was back to Breck for 3 days before heading off to Kirkwood, Lake Tahoe California for the Rahlves Banzai race. The Banzai is like a mix between skier cross and a Chinese downhill. It’s basically a skier cross course set down rugged, choppy, uneven off piste runs. The first part of our course was an icy mogul field. It was loose.
I got into Kirkwood the night before the comp and what do you know the airline lost my ski bag! That sucked a bit. So what did I do? I skied the BANZAI in jeans, borrowed 150cm poles and a friend of a friends race skis. It was all quite lucky really, because I ran into a guy who I met in NZ last season who was also in Kirkwood for the Banzai, and his buddy had tweaked his knee in practice so he said I could use his skis as he wasn’t competing anymore because he didn’t want to make his knee any worse.
I qualified 19th out of a field of about 60 to get through to the finals day of 32. 8 heats of four with the top two progressing. That’s as far as I got. I had a bad pull out of the gate and started last, I spent a few seconds in 3rd but couldn’t hold it so finished in 4th. Probably the scariest race I’ve done!
Then it was back into training before the Kirkwood FWT starting 24th of Feb. The week before the event we had the most snow I have ever seen in one place in such a short time. It snowed 4 metres in 6 days. It was unreal.
Whether I would end up competing was a bit touch and go for a while as I hurt my calf quite badly about 5 days before the comp. So I spent that time trying to fix my leg. Luckily it was pretty much perfect the day of the qualifiers so didn’t bother me at all.
The day one venue was a bit boring and short but I found a line. I skied my line almost how I wanted, I got all my features and landed everything, but I felt like I could have been a lot cleaner and faster. A lot of that was probably to do with not skiing properly for 4 days before hand.
I went into the Kirkwood comp with the intention of trying to finish about mid-way up the cut in the qualifier. I really needed to get a clean finish on the first day because I never finished Kirkwood in 2010 nor did I get through Jackson Hole this year, so I needed to ski a line that I was 99% sure I could nail. This would give me a gauge and a feel for the level of skiing needed to qualify in an American event. I finished 15th out of a field of 60 men and the cut turned out to be 14. Zak finished a few places below me with a clean run also.
The judges said that it was the deepest cut they had ever done, and it was entirely due to the fact that the Freeski and Freeride World Tours were merging for the 2 finals days. That meant they had something like 65 pre qual athletes in total coming in from both tours.
I would say I did pretty well considering usually the cut would be around 25 to 30 in a regular comp.
The good news is that I now have a really good feel for how much harder I need to ski if I want to qualify in the same comp next year.
I would have been more in my element on the finals venue as it was much longer and had a lot more technically challenging options to choose from so I think there would have been potential for me to do quite well there.
I learnt a lot out of this trip and gained more valuable comp experience. I feel my skiing has improved a lot also. So all in all I have made a significant advance in my skiing and mental game.
Bring on the New Zealand winter!
I plan to do the NZ Open, Chill Series and the Xport extremes. In between I will be back working as a ski instructor and hopefully doing some coaching at Cardrona resort.
Ispo Germany – The world’s largest WINTER TRADE SHOW. The business end of the world’s leading brands. Yes I was there talking shop and smoozing the CEO’s and product managers.
ISPO – how do you describe it? Think about 1 elephant, multiply it by a couple of thousand. Add some funky techno breaks to the rumble of the heard and then paint them all in bright colours combined with prints, plaids and anything you can imagine. Then add Euro sophistication and you have the most innovative clever, architecturally mind blowing and professional show in the world.
Dalbello Boot Hanging Display
Tecnica Stand Ispo
Head Secret Wall
These stands are to the value of $2-300, 000 dollars per stand, not a dollar is spared on unique displays. Many of the best athletes hang out there to see what their new swag looks like. I was hanging out there to inherit information, seek out new trends, fashions and find out the strengths of the new ski products and of course – drink Bavarian beer!
My girlfriend and I viewed all our clothing ranges that Racers Edge is so well known for stocking. I can assure you not only does Racers Edge stock the best brands but for 2012 the clothing we selected is amazing. Fantastic colours combined with the best brands, cuts, contrasts, details and technology, is coming to you. If you want to look good on the slopes this winter visit us on either www.raceredge.co.nz
Volkl Stand at ISPO
Volkl Stand 2
or 99 Ardmore St, Wanaka as of April 2011.
From ISPO I headed to St Anton with the International Volkl crew for a Volkl ski test. Stay tuned for St Anton ski test action…….what’s hot from Volkl this season!
