Blake Delaney and Reece Potter represented Golden Bay High School at the South Island Secondary School MTB Champs in Blenheim 9 & 10 Oct (3 others pulled out - pykers). Weather was cold wet & windy which didn't make for a pleasant time between races. The event included a X/C on Friday

(3 by 6km laps), and Uphill & DH on the Saturday. Blake's brakes jammed on and he pulled out of the X/C at the end of the second lap. Reece finished all 3 in 20th place with 1 hr 28 min - winner 1 hr 08 min and last 2 hr 14 min with about 20 DNF's. The mud was atrocious and the best strategy would have been a carbon fibre bike and to run with it over the shoulder.

On Saturady, Blake entered the Uphill (no results yet) and Reece withdrew to save his energy for pushing his bike up the D/H event

The D/H event had no contingency for rain and when they couldn't get vehicles up to the top of the course they required all bikers push their bikes up for practice, runs and timed race. This wasn't going to work so they abandoned the seeding runs at the last minute and held just the timed run. Unfortunately Reece had a spectular wipeout on his one race and finished around 6th or 8th (results not out yet). I was standing in a particulary muddy patch and saw 3 over the handle bars, and another 5 dissapparing into the gorse including Reece. Reece was really disappointed as his main rivals in Nelson, who he can normally beat , came in around 4th - next year !!

All in all a great event with lots of students and a good learning curve - roll on 2010.

Martin Potter