For the final round of the 2024 Huttcross season the weather forecast was promising some very wet conditions. For this round we were back to Moonshine for a second time. Despite the weather I committed to riding out, but I knew that I wouldn’t want to ride home after the ensuing cold mudbath, so I was thankful that Emily offered to pick me up. The ride out was a good indication of the weather to come with some heavy downpours soaking me before I even got to the venue: I need to re-waterproof my jacket after a winter of weather and washes!
The course for this round was quite different to the previous Moonshine course and the organisers had done a great job at mixing things up despite the need to reuse a venue. For this course there were some long drags on the grass that ended up being a proper slog in the wet conditions. We also dropped down to the riverbed at the south end of the course, but thankfully we weren’t using the long run along the river gravels that has ruined bikes and shoes in the past. In general the course wasn’t very technical, and that lack of technicality was enhanced by the slow speeds that we were able to achieve in the rain. With those low speeds the corners were all straightforward and the lap was pretty long for a Huttcross lap.
I forced myself out for a warm up just as another band of torrential rain came through. Thankfully the rain wasn’t that cold, but I still chose to wear my fleecy 3/4 length tights and arm warmers which helped to keep some warmth while soaking wet. A good sized field lined up for A grade, with some fun fancy dress being worn by some (I failed at getting my fancy dress ready which is probably a good thing given that last time it involved face paint which is not well suited to rain).
I got off to probably my worst start this year having selected a gear that would have worked well in the dry, but led to me just wheel-spinning and standing still on the filth. That put me down in about 8th spot off the line into the first corners which meant I got to have some fun overtaking through the early corners including just hopping off and running around people to get up to second. We were then onto the long drag south where I just dug in and rode hard.
Coming into the race I wasn’t feeling good again. I still hadn’t gotten on top of sleep and wasn’t feeling very motivated. In spite of those sensations, I was glad that my heart rate was back to behaving normally, and once I got going the body and mind responded well. As I pushed on on the long drag south I was getting good power out and getting my heart rate up to the high 170s. Getting traction was a constant battle, so I spent a lot of time sat right on the back of my saddle trying to keep as much weight on the rear tyre as possible while letting the front do what it wanted through the slop.
I got a good gap on that first drag south and decided to just keep pushing on. I was still frustrated after my body didn’t really show up at nationals the week before and wanted to try and work now that it was back to being responsive. For the rest of the lap I continued to try and work hard and ride smooth, not that riding smooth was really that possible in those conditions, and the only way to keep moving forwards was to ride hard. I quite like these conditions, they really embody the “it doesn’t get easier you just go faster” idea: I don’t think it would have been any easier to go slower through that slop, so I just went as fast as I could.
The rest of the race went by much the same, although the southerly picked up around lap 3 which dropped the speeds a bit. Combined with fatigue and the continued deterioration of the course, my later lap times slowed a bit. I was somewhat glad that the organisers stopped the race after 5 laps, although that did mean my race was only 45 minutes long. It made sense to get people off a little early given the conditions, and with a lap taking close to 12 minutes for some people, the people that I hadn’t quite lapped ended up closer to an hour, and would have been quite a long way over had we done another lap.
All in all, it was another good race. It was nice to come away with another win by a good margin, and great to get a mudbath race in this season. My bike is not grateful for it and is in dire need of a new BB and headset, as well as new brake pads (again). I’m so grateful to the Huttcross team for continuing to put this series on.
And just like that, the CX season in NZ is over for me for another year. This was definitely my best CX season yet, and I have been doing it a while now (see video below for a bit of 2011 Moonshine). I’m now looking forward to two UCI CX races in the UK in September and a Gravel World Series race the week after before a week completely off the bike. I’ll then be back to NZ and back to some less structured training leading up to the Whaka 100 and Edition Zero Gravel. Right now I’m recovering from a bone graft in my jaw to repair some damage around an implant from a bike accident 18 years ago.
Banner photo: Don Johnson.