On the weekend of 4th, 5th and 6th October, Mountain Biking Otago hosted the New Zealand Secondary Schools Mountain Bike Champs at Signal Hill in Dunedin. Juliet F competed for Mt Pleasant School in the Enduro on the Friday, the Downhill on Saturday and the Cross Country on Sunday.

 Arriving on a rainy Thursday for a few scary, wet, slippery practise runs on the Enduro course the sun finally came out for Friday morning. The course began to dry out and the riding got a bit easier. 

 Enduro racing involves racing stages of timed downhill runs. Between each timed stage there is an untimed liaison section where riders commute, mostly up hill, to the start of the next timed stage. The NZ Secondary Schools Enduro Champs racing started at 1pm from the top of Signal Hill. There were 5 stages and about 1000m of climbing between stages. 

 Juliet had a fantastic day, riding to 2nd place in the U13 girls category.On Saturday everyone arrived early at Logan Park for practise on the Signal Hill Downhill course. It was a freezing cold, wet day and the Downhill course was extremely wet and slippery making for a day of difficult, technical riding for all. Juliet teamed up with her U13 and U14 friends during practise to work out where the lines were and how to stay on their bikes on course. 

 During practise the rain stayed away and the course started to dry out enough to make the riding a bit easier. This held off through the early seeding runs, where Juliet placed 3rd, only to start up again while the seniors came through. Race runs started mid-afternoon on an extremely challenging, wet slippery course. Concentrating on staying safe and controlled through her race run, Juliet managed a fantastic ride in the conditions. She slid out on the wettest steep clay section out in the open, but mostly stayed on her bike through the majority of the course to take the win in the U13 girls category. 

 On Sunday the day dawned sunny, clear and extremely cold for the Cross Country event. The U13 girls were due to start at 8am, well before the sun was due over the hills to warm the valley at Logan Park. With frost glinting on the grass next to the start area, the girls stormed into the forest for 4 laps of the course. This involved a climb through native forest up into the pines followed by a traverse into an open area and a fun downhill section back to the events centre. 

Juliet rode a brave race with freezing fingers and feet, staying with the front 3 riders for most of the ride. She eventually finished 4th in the U13 girls category after a spectacular sliding crash around a gravel corner into the final finish loop. 

Thank you to Mt Pleasant School for all the support and for the help with the entry process for the event. Juliet had a fantastic weekend flying the Mt Pleasant colours, taking second place in the overall points category for U13 girls over the whole weekends racing. She learned loads, made new friends and is super keen to keep riding her mountain bike. 

 We’re looking forward to the next event, next year’s South Island Secondary Schools Mountain Bike Champs at Mt Hutt. Hopefully we can add a few more keen riders to the Mt Pleasant team for this one.