Striders Kayaking Action

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Mat Z news

I will get Mathew to email over the next couple of days. He is still riding the Giant but the frame is about to be replaced with a 2011 one on warranty. It has chipped very easily and we were able to line up 3 badly chipped bikes the same so Giant are coming up with the goods which is great.

He has been having a go at track and rode in his first track carnival this week after the Yunca Junior tour. The Yunca wasn't a particularly good tour for him but he had a really good last day and the selectors are still happy with him.

He has now ditched his U17 gearing as that was the last race he had to do on that gearing and so he can move onto U19. He had great pleasure in removing those enormous heavy cassettes!

He is looking promising as a team pursuiter or points race rider on the track. He has been riding his cousins bike but he has had to give that back so we are on the lookout for a cheap option for him. There are some club bikes he can ride in the meantime.

The Dunedin tour last month was a disaster as he crashed in the first stage. That was the weekend that Invercargil had all the snow so we missed the worst of the weather but conditions for racing in Dunedin on the Saturday were grim with rain and sleet. He realised afterwards that he had his tyres on backwards which doesn't help them grip in the wet. So he only rode about 7 kms of the first stage and then he was out with a damaged wheel and a grazed hip.

The boys were very excited to come back to the farm under about 6 inches of snow and spent the monday (I kept them home as the roads were dodgy) having snow fights and towing each other around the paddocks on a fertiliser sack behind the quad. The mud was pretty yuck after the melt though and we did lose a few cows from being stuck in the mud and being cold and wet.

We have had a week of billets staying here for Yunca including his coach from Whangarei and Mathew has enjoyed having his development squad mates here with him. Boy can they eat!

Anyway he will get back to you soon. Hope you are all well. We think of the striders often and do get the emails from Graeme Rye.

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