The 2007 Makara Rally is done and dusted - and I do mean dusted! It's rare for the Park to be so dry at this time of year, and the race was held in record heat with the looming rain not arriving until after the prizegiving...
The event seemed to go very well on the whole, with around 130 competitors riding in either the Creek to Peak morning race or the Tour de Peak in the afternoon. There were amazing spot prizes and despite suffering in the sweltering heat, most of the entrants were wearing huge smiles at the finish.
I was a marshall for both races, egging on the riders from the entry to Sally Alley in the a.m., and the top of Lazy Fern in the p.m., so I got to see everybody at some point. Being a more social event than a full-on race, it's one of those great chances to catch up with people and have a laugh and a sausage (!?) together.
Competitors came from Levin and Palmerston North and joined Wellington's riders to make for some great racing. All the various class winners thoroughly deserved their accolades, no matter what their final placing, and the non-winners deserve mad props for managing to cope with the fierce concentration that riding Welli-track requires...
Despite the effort required to simply race, some folk went out of their way to make things harder on themselves - one guy dressed as Father Christmas, and looked like he was going to expire from heat stroke, another did a lap of the C2P on his full-on DH big bike, and Team Roadworks rider John Randal rode around with the help of his stoker-bike propelled by his lovely daughter Kaitlyn! Team Roadworks was also well represented by Alex Tashkoff and Matt Isaac, so thanks to them all for flying the colours.
The Makara Peak Supporters did a fantastic job running the show, aided by many able volunteers, and raised a considerable sum that will go directly back into building and maintaining the trails that were raced on, and that we lucky Wellington mountainbikers get to ride whenever we like, so thanks to Ben and John from MPS for all their impressive hard work on the day and for all the hard yards they had to put in to make it all come together!
Results here and inane banter from prior and post race here on Vorb, NZ's finest MTB website.
Cheers, Oli
P.S. Some great pictures of the day are viewable here...
