odd glass of wine and watching the event, maybe taking the odd photo and a few notes were well and truly shattered. I was going to be competing! The rest of the NZ team was made up of great riders. I deemed Chris Power our influencer because he can talk coherently to a camera, which is a lot better than this old farm boy … he is also a brilliant rider. Mark Newton is a super friendly bugger; he was excellent at breaking the ice with other teams and creating event camaraderie, not to mention that he has ridden dozens of Romaniacs hard enduro events and definitely knows how to twist the throttle, with Scotty Brooker from Taupo completing Team Kiwi. The afternoon prior to the start all riders met up at event HQ for a look at the sections( challenges) of the next day, find their bike, put numbers on etc. CFMOTO had printed stickers with rider names, national flags and cool little flags to attach to the bikes. It really was a very polished setup and that’ s without mentioning the huge efforts put into the excellent challenges themselves. Even at this early stage the standout features were superb organisation and friendliness of staff and all of the other riders.
DAY ONE Ten challenges awaited us, most short and sweet, some were about speed, some balance and skills. Team Kiwi started at section two. The idea was to ride clockwise in a circle with the clutch hand only on the bars and with your free throttle hand grab a tennis ball atop a road cone and throw it in to a large CFMOTO bag in the middle. Easy, how hard could it be? Well, for me bloody hard. I stalled twice and with my right hand I can’ t throw with any accuracy at all. Comfortably the worst Kiwi. Not a great start, but the others all did well. The next section was a gentle S bend about 100 metres long and two metres wide that had to be ridden blindfolded. Yes, blindfolded, in opaque goggles. At this point I figured out why all the riders had been given a Sena coms unit( yes, given) at the hotel the night before( along with a CFMOTO goodie backpack containing all sorts of cool stuff). One rider was to wear the blindfold goggles and another would guide them through the course on the Sena coms. Chris rode first with Mark calling instructions and they were perfect. Scotty was keen to ride with me calling the way. Unfortunately, we couldn’ t match Chris and Mark’ s efforts and went off course – bugger.
42 KIWI RIDER