This picture sums up exactly why the future of mountain biking needs to be looked at carefully. Seriously, do you want your beloved sport being taking over by Timothy from the country club bringing his spoilt little yachting heritage to the trails or by dumb little kids that are so influenced by what they see the Riffleator doing in Decline and by there chronic lack of social awareness. Not sure which one this little monkey is but I don’t like it.

Apologies for the lack of updates to the 25 people who check out the site regularly. nzdiaries.com is suffering a bit of a crisis of confidence and identity. Partly this is down to having no internet connection and partly because it seems futile to bother riding into town on our high horses to find an internet connection when we have a readership that is smaller than an ants testicle and we could be riding rather than shaking the digital salt shaker. So just in case there is anyone out there bothered, here is the news.

The first round of the NZ national series kicked off in our hometown at Treble Cone. The course was reminiscent of the days of old when biking down hills on old reclaimed cruisers was considered a new thing to do. If you think mountain biking should regress to the days of klunkerz and joe breeze then you would of loved it.


the course

Sam and myself had to hide our hate at the TC course because we are still trying to make friends here on the race circuit and NZ riders seem to be of a rather different opinion to us about what constitutes a challenging course. As a peaceful protest we both did slow race runs just to deprive the kiwis of our presence on the podium and the opportunity to thank no one whilst up there.


Not Adam

Despite looking like he was going to self-destruct at any moment on training day Adam thrived on the course come race day. He finished exactly half way up the results board.

Ginger Si was spotted riding a borrowed bike all weekend and eating lots of orange coloured foods. He posted a good time that gave him the fastest UK rider in senior. Expect more prop driven comedy from Carrot Top at Coronet.

The newest member of the nzdiaries.com/Hades Havarti Bicycle Gang household, Matt Weir, took a considerable tumble in his seeding run and broke his Talas bone into 16 pieces. This hammer blow could put him out of action for 18 months but we will see if that is the case now he is staying with us in our intense R&R facility. Get well soon buddy.


That bit in the middle should be one piece not lots of specks of dust

I have retired from any form of biking after my terrible result at TC. Unable to shake the two wheel buzz I have taken up extreme Segway riding. I also finally tried so hard to put my head up my arse that I actually managed to do a back flip. Whether or not this was on the Segway I’ll let you decide.


Segways arent just for fat yanks

The pro men was won by Sam Blenkinsop who would of shaved his legs before the race to be more aerodynamic but couldn’t do so because he still hasn’t reached puberty. Second place went to Fabien le Frenchman, the hitchhiking Commencal Rider who almost upset the Kiwis by “tacking ohm ze whin”. Glenn Haden got third despite riding a bike that looks like a race version of Josh Benders two shock bike. Fourth went to Nathan Rankin. The fifth place on the podium went to fast Brit Alex Scott. The manufacturers title goes to Foes whose bikes are ridden by approximately 96.2% of the riders. For full results go elsewhere.


The Pro podium

Round two at Coronet this weekend. Course is a fun one. It’s sort of like an alpine A-line. It’s going to be a close race. Tune in next month for our next update.

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

Anyone who has spent any amount of time digging dirt knows that you don’t just call a spade a spade. Which is why we have began our long-term test on digging utensils.

Embracing our newly found suburban lifestyle we spent a happy Saturday morning exploring what the aisles of the local hardware superstore. Alongside Turtle Wax, Beer Can Chicken Cookers (Google it), sponges, tool-boxes, garden hoses, deckchairs, and other manly suburban necessities, we found ourselves in possession of two brand new spades.

Sam and myself spent a long time choosing our weapons, debating the pros and cons of flat heads over spoon blades, traditional wood shafts over modern materials like carbon, the best blade angle for digging. In the end we agreed to disagree, bought two very different spades and vowed to objectively rate each one for your reading pleasure.

Here we have them, firstly Sam’s choice – the Spear and Jackson Old Man Spade. It comes with a 15 year NeverBend guarantee, features a forged steel 8-inch flat-faced blade, Cedar shaft, and riveted polytechnic handle.



I think its fair to say you are all familiar with this type of spade, it’s the same kind everyone’s Grandfather uses to attend to his patch of Runner Beans and Begonias in his perfect little English Country Garden.

My choice – the Xcel Garden. It features an all steel construction, sturdy welding on the crucial blade/ shaft junction, the head is what I would describe as an Ace of Spades shape, it has bits on the stamping part of the blade to stop you destroying the soles of your Wellington boots, has little holes in the handle at the side that make swooshing sounds like Bruce Lees fists when you are giving terra firma some aggression, and most important of all its white!!



I hated the shitty name so I lovingly changed its name to the St. Georges Earth Broadsword. I’m going to paint a red cross on the blade in dragon’s blood so I can really look the part.

The garden spoons have gone through several missions already and both are looking like strong contenders in terms of functionality, but everyone knows that in this day in age form rules over function and content is styles bitch, so my choice is sure to be the outright winner because I can take mine to Redneck bars and D&D conventions alike and look cool.

More updates on the Battle of the Land Axes (as I’ve just decided to call it) when we have more to report. Until then the local trails shall quake in fear.

Posted by SEB

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.

Recently we stumbled across an old film studio. We climbed through a broken window and inside we found the remains of the set from that famous movie that was made in N-Zizzle. No, not Once were Warriors, the other one. It looked ripe for a bit of bicycling so we decided to send the two newest members of NZDiaries.com to report on it. Here’s what two small town hick good old boys had to say about it…



Skipper’s Canyon is like *STOP*









*Hammertime*

Posted by NZ Diaries newest contributors and Wanaka locals Oscar Wood & Tyler Orleans

Christmas didn’t come this year. This is my second Christmas south of the equator and so I can safely say that I don’t think Christmas actually exists in the Southern hemisphere. It’s more like a jumped up bank holiday. Not much is geared up to making Christmas actually seem Christmas like.

Maybe it’s the weather, Christmas doesn’t seem right if you are sat out side with your top off rather than being tucked up inside in front of the fire wrapped up in garish woolen knitted jumper and still being cold enough to keep your beer chilled. It certainly doesn’t seem right when people are talking about burning their Christmas lunch on a BBQ rather than in a convention oven. Especially when the traditional turkey is substituted for lamb burgers.

Maybe it’s because we were forsaken by the figurehead of Christmas, the reason we celebrate the 25th December, and the person by whom we take all of our life’s guidance and values - Father Christmas. I think all of us in the NZ Diaries camp must have been really naughty boys all year and so Santa decided not to unload the contents of his sack down our chimney.

Either way, Christmas was just a crappy day when all the pubs were closed and there was no way of downloading the Podcast of the Queens Christmas Speech. Sam buggered off to Auckland to hang out with family so Adam and Myself were left to drink ourselves through a couple cases of beer. Christmas lunch consisted of crappy $2.50 pizzas and the sausage rolls Sam left behind.

To kill the boredom and bitter loneliness Adam and myself attempted to built a massive dirt quarter pipe, but we had to admit defeat when we realized that it was such a massive construction that we would still be digging it this time next Christmas. Instead we returned to our new suburban dalek home to read Sam’s issue of Aussie FHM and try making a serious dent in the beer supplies.

All in all I want to thank Jesus for being born and for all the religious funda-mentalists who proclaimed that we should celebrate this day forever more. Thanks for giving us a day where we are forced to face up to the monumental loneliness of not having the everlasting love of Jesus Christ in our lives. Let there be peace in the Middle East at least.

Posted by SEB

ALSO: there should be a photo accompanying this crap but the some techinical computing thing went pop and so photos are a no-no. you'll just have to imagine the sadness of me and adam sat around eating pizza and drinking beer with tears of boredom and lonliness rolling down our faces. oh yeah and there was a naked chick in the background humping the christmas out of herself. sweet