Facing New Challenges
by Toby Meek
On Thursday evening, I waved goodbye to parents at Hong Kong Airport, armed with two bike bags, bound for my first international race event without them. My father, who is my trusted coach, mechanic and manager would not be with me on this adventure. At thirteen years of age the check-in staff were tentative about me travelling as an unsupervised minor but at 13, its legal.
After an eleven-hour flight, I landed in Auckland, New Zealand and made my way over to the domestic terminal for my final flight to Dunedin where the 2018 Oceania Downhill Championships were being held.
Nothing like hitting the ground running; my extended family on Dad’s side met me at Dunedin Airport and we drove straight to the downhill venue to squeeze in the course walk that afternoon. As far as race tracks go, this is one of the best. It’s steep with lots of rock gardens, totally gravity-fed with sick road gap jumps in the mix as well.
That evening a team of my extended family helped me put my carbon MegaBeast 26” race bike together. With my bike in order and my Loose Riders race kit ready, it was time for an early night. Plenty of excitement for one day and a slight touch of jet-lag.
Saturday was practice day and the track was super-fast and dry. We were told that forecasts for race day were not so good. I received my race-plate number for the Under 15 Category and spent the morning smashing out sick runs down the track.
Race Day
Early Sunday morning I woke up to the predicted bad weather. After one run in practice on my normal tyres I decided to switch to shorties (wet tyres) with semi-spike tread. This made a huge difference stopping my tyres clogging up with mud. The fast times from practice yesterday in the dry weren’t going to be achievable in these new conditions.
At 11am it was time for the U15 seeding runs. I fell off twice due to the slippery conditions but I was stoked to find out I had still managed to seed fastest in my category, fifteen seconds ahead of my nearest rival. Being first seed meant I got to start last in my race section.
Racing started at 11am starting with the girls, followed by Under 15 boys at 30 second intervals. My run was fast and clean until I caught up with one of the other riders. There was nowhere to pass and while the race marshals were yelling at him to get out of the way, he didn’t hear us. So, after a bit, I attempted to pass him on a high line but got hooked up, slid out and crashed. That was the only crash in my race run.
After all my race training and BMX racing as a kid, I knew to get back up on my bike quickly and I caught up on him again. Luckily, at that point he had come across another crashed rider and stopped, which allowed me to get around him. Coming down to the finish line I caught up on a third rider and finished with a time just three seconds behind the final first place rider.
Overall, I had a great race run apart from being held up by one rider. The heavy rain and mud didn’t affect my riding psyche because I often train in heavy, tropical rain in Hong Kong. I was stoked to get a podium and second place and obviously a little disappointed that I wasn’t able to take a clean first place but that’s racing and looking ahead I know have another few races in Christchurch to look forward to next weekend!