Fin

No we dont know if God exists or who cuts Mel Gibsons hair but the life long mission of whistlerdiaries and NZDiaries has been answered.

Yes thats right Duncan Riffle has spoken to us, we had to goto elaborate lengths to comunicate with the snappyest dresser in the US but after writing our questions on a postcard marked Santa and throwing into the steaming volcano at the top of mount doom, we have an answer.

Diaries: How do you keep your socks so high?

DR: Years of practice…constant attention, it all comes down to your dedication. How bad do you want it?

So there it is from the mouth of the riffelator himself, not quite what I was expecting, but definitely something for the diaries scholars to ponder.

Duncan also answered another of our questions to:

Diaries: Why does Decline magazine love you so much?

DR: Ha. I love Decline magazine. Maybe it’s a mutual plutonic love. I have known Scott Hart or maybe I should say Scott has known me since I literally first started racing. I ‘introduced’ myself by asking if he was in my class. I guess he found it rather funny that the little grom worrying if he had to race against him kept showing up at races and found his way all the way to where I am today. Shawn Spomer, Ralph, Mark Jordan, Scott, all those guys are super cool and have always shown there love. Thanks boyz.

So there we have it, I almost feel as if this website has now lost all purpose.

Big thanks to DW for making our dreams come true

SAM

Round five saw me drive all the way back down the country again, via the goat island, through the egg village, via pikey nun ville, past the art deco capital of the world!!11one and back down to levin.

The week saw me not ride at all because it was too hot, I kept up with traditions by drinking coffee siting around and asking people where to buy pedals.

Any hopes of riding on Thursday at levin were dashed when yet again they were doing course maintiance the day before the race, these people clearly never ran with the boy scouts. Anyway the usual course maintaince technique of cutting out interesting roots, making other bits more dangerous, ruining my sneaky lines etc was in full affect. Interestingly there is apparently a rule that the back side of a jump must be at 45degrees, quite how landing into a 45 degree slope instead of about a 70 degree one will help you when your coming up short on a 50ft double was not made clear, however it seemed to keep a few people busy and out of trouble for a while.

Course conditions where looking good on thursday, but when we woke up at our campsite/boyracer donut circuit on friday morning it was raining, this was about as welcome as a dead bunny at easter.


more to come when i rob an old lady to fund my internet habit

The course was good, although some of the modifications made the day before the race could only be described as "bizarre" digging your own braking bumps is a definite first. Much of the jump construction would best be described as pikey and someone definitely got a bit over zealous with the chainsaw.

Thankfully this track wasn't in England, otherwise health and safety would have
put a stop to the race before it had even begun, laying logs across the track? hello? anyway most of the logs rolled off when the more pedestrian of the riders hit them.

But despite my whinging I really enjoyed the track, fast, a bit loose and tricky enough to mean I didn't have time to smoke my Sherlock Holmes pipe or drink any tea on the way down, contrary to what any commentators had to say.

Riders wise the usual people looked fast and the other people looked slow, no surprises there, race results are available on some other website that you checked before you looked here anyway.

Joe Barneseses poomerow finally gave up the ghost with a bust main pivot, fortunately James shirley had put himself out of the game with a tree hugging incident so he hopped on James vp-free and promptly broke that too.

A quick note for Si Paton, I've broken another set of your pedals. Big thanks to the philanthropic James shirley for the lend of some pedals.

In other British news Alex stock seems to have recovered from his mauling by Pc Pooch with a solid result there.

Coming up shortly is the final round in Levin where I'll be keeping it realer than a Brazilian Bureau du Change (work that joke out if you can be bothered).

Heres Pro rider and fast guy Sam Blenkinsopp with a trick I like to call the "Monkey Whip" as Buddy Holly once said "If you aint got it, dont bother". Sam demonstrated his complete lack of style and elan again later when news filtered through that he intentionally put in a slow race run to make sure he didn't win the champs and therefore could continue to wear his sponsors rubbish jersey.






Photo stolen from a website

Coronet opened for their "season", how anyone can call 25 days a season is beyond me but, regardless. A full track review with pictures will be available in our post race report in just over a week.

Initial impressions are good, the course is like the bastard child of A-line and Fort william, sounds impossible? nearly. Its certainly an immensely entertaining course to ride, track conditions change constantly and serious braking bumps could be the order of the day, come race day.

Futher news, Adam has come down with the ImRT Super bug, side effects, include lazyness, Speaking in tongues and a compulsion to eat tuna.



Sam "I think its the headset not the headtube" G

Click for larger image

Things aint looking too hot for round 1, that looks like alot of fireroad to me! Obviously our foes riding friend was onto something with his whole "you gotta be able to ride gravel, man" speech.

Im still looking forward to this one though, if anything it'll be a chance to take off my peak, buy some lycra and express my inner roadie.

First off, news has finally reached this side of the planet that Uk based window licker Brendan Fairclough has signed up to ride for international lawn mower manufacturer Honda, along side Greg Minaar and Matti Lehikoneionsonnigh. The current fashion on the internet forums and elsewhere is to boast how long you've know about this move for, well for my .02 roubels I've known about the option for this move ever since Richard Whitley told me back in 'nam.

Further more Honda have ditched the Norba series and will be competing extensivley at the UKs NPS series, something of a coup for General Paton. I suspect its more likely to be to do with global warming and the fact that the UK is mostly likely, going to be one of the few places you actually do need a lawn mower soon, rather than in the US where by 2050 the eco-beards(to quote the clarkson) are telling us that we'll all be using brooms to brush up the dust rather than lawnmowers and as Seb will tell you, theres no money in brooms. Anyway I digress, this can only be a good thing for UK dh etc blah blah blah

The New issue of dirt (10th anniversary no less) has reached these shores too, since I've not read my copy yet im going to review it based purely on the cover, A montage of old dirt snaps. Im guessing most of the articles will involve steve jones getting misty eyed over the good old days when we all rode bikes our dad had made from bits of motorcross bikes he found down t' pit(or maybe thats just steve barker). Most notabley theres a picture of the window licker being licked, obviously more lawn mower related waffle inside. Plenty of pictures too reminding us of the days when mountain biking wasn't full of lesbians and instead just full of models who couldn't really ride bikes properly. The only bike pictured is one i used to own, meaning not only do i have exceptional taste in bikes, but also that theres probably going to be buggerall about bikes in this particular issue of dirt.

Finally the much anticipated NZ national series kicks off in a week or so, expect us to be flying the pink and brown NZDiaries flag in the pits. Im sure we'll all have much more to talk about then, after all they'll be uplift queues to moan about and we can continue our own search for the New Zealand version of Alistair McClennan.

Sam.