Round one of the Wellington’s Underground Super D went down tonight with a solid turnout of 39 riders showing up to a sunny Wrights Hill car park. Cowboy had planned tonight to be a bit of a throwback to the first one of these that Paul and Jim threw way back in 2008/9 (which Cowboy won with some creative riding). We kicked it off from the same spot, and scanning through tonight’s names and it looks like a good eight of us may have been here in the beginning (and at pretty much every event since, even Jono’s doomed winter Super Dark editions). The field was pretty darn stacked with fast XC riders like Eden Cruise, Tim Wilding and Ed Crossling showing up and on the other side of the coin you had Daniel Meilink, Jay Lang and Hadley Boyce (who hadn’t ridden in a year!) and riding the All-Duro wave in the middle you found Ricky Pincott, Jonny Waghorn and Miles The Pool Boy.
Off the start riders were thrown down the little-ridden (for good reason) Johns Track, complete with a two pinch climbs, some corners that just faded away and a couple of trees that were closer than 750mm to each other kind of got riders warmed up before dropping into the always awesome Deliverance, which didn’t disappoint.
Being a school night, half of the people bounced before Bernie Cruise had tallied the results, but in Cowboy’s absence there wasn’t a massive shock with Wunderkind Eden Cruise taking the win ahead of Ed Crossling and then the living legend that is Hadley Boyce taking the third spot. Underground Super D podiums keep on going though with Miles the Pool Boy taking fourth ahead of Daniel Meilink in 5th. The next race in the series is on Sunday, if you didn’t show up tonight you are out of over all contention but don’t let that deter you. Race info will be announced on the Underground Super D Twitter account HERE on Saturday night.
A slight correction – Wright’s Hill was part of the second year of the Underground Super-D, with the any-route-down last minute rule. Cowboy won it by hanging onto a car down Karori Road. Still makes me smile. I’m going to make the next round, brilliant to see it still going strong(er).
Another cracking event Cowboy, Bernie and Mr Smith. I still got some work to do, and I thought I had a home track advantage…