| I watch you from the bushes at Pukete and take photos with my digital camera to publish here on our very own web page. I'm such a technocrafty little possum! If you manage to dig up any dirt on any club members just drop me an email so I can publish it here.
Scroll miniatures for captions and click to see the full pictures:
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What caused Smiffy's crash and burn at the Moonride? It took a lot of sleuthing round the forums to find out but it finally turned out to have been because of the extreme trauma he suffered when he arrived early at Jim's house and she hadn't done her hair yet and so he got to see her hair in its normal state. It was pretty bad again after she had ridden for 24 hrs in the mud of Rotorua but here she is in the end after she'd tidied it up a bit, getting her silver medal on a good hair day. Poor old Smiffy eh! No wonder he was traumatised. You just keep your helmet on Jim - we never knew how much it suits you til we saw you with it off. |
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THE EVIL BANANA
Jerry was not impressed when Rachel found a stickerless banana in the banana box. These stickerless bananas are considered evil - they have no identity and could have come from anywhere. They could even be one of those unmentional kinds of bananas beginning with 'b' that had snuck into the box for a bit of social climbing by trying to ingratiate itself with its superiors .Not a proper Dole banana at all. Jerry grabbed the evil banana from Rachel's hands and threw it as far away as he could. It landed right in front of the wheel of a passing rider and immediately caused a terrible accident. Jerry said, "I told you it was an evil banana!" |
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This is Dave Stevenson (AKA Moneybags) preparing to ride for his team at the Cateye Moonride. He didn't think the conditions on the course were challenging enough, even with all that rain and mud, so he decided to put slicks on his bike, tie one arm behind his back, wear a blindfold and double an obese granny on his cross bar, for his next lap. Here he is putting his slicks on the bike. |
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I always expect respect from the Hamilton riders especially at events like the Moonride. I would prefer these two to be bowing a lot lower than this as as they offer their obeisance to me. They must be taught better "form" in future.
I'm also a little miffed that your idol-makers have made my image look so much like a gorilla. Couldn't you have made it more possum-like? |
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He said he almost bonked from running running on empty in the Moonride but this photo proves otherwise. It would appear he'd eaten too much - whoa back on those pies before riding Wazza - for Chrissake! Your team-mates are depending on you. |
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Rachel Algar met a new bloke at the Cateye Moonride. The romance blossomed. Gems was insanely jealous and ready to commit murder. I, your own irreplaceable club possum, managed to snap the moment when she told Gems she had met someone new. (Click the pic to see it.)
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BTW I don't need to tell you, ('cos everyone knows already) that Tui and Rachel got into the sherry with 2 hours racing still to go. There they were, thinking that no-one could smell what was hidden in their "coffee mugs" . Were they completely oblivious to the fact that Rachel, as chief team "reserve" could have been called upon at any moment to go weaving drunkenly around the course on her bike? |
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It's lucky this particular axe murderer is so incompetent. Gems tried to procure his services to despatch Rachel's new bloke (me) but this murderer is way too slow to get his axe to the neck of the Great and Glorious Pukete Possum. |
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Message from the Censor:
The following Patrick story has been heavily censored to protect the good names of several other club members from this reporter's libellous assertions. |
Who's Engaged?
There are rumours flying everywhere at the moment - someone in the club has got engaged! BUT WHO! How delicious - we haven't really got a clue so that's all the information we need. Which of the many couples I see canoodling in the bushes at Pukete contains the one who popped the question?
Could it be that CycleTime person called Wazza? There are plenty of rumours that he's the one. But we have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out who the victim is. She could be any one of a number of possibles. However, we know that pies are a very strong motivation for Wazza - he loves them. So that narrows it down to someone who cooks pies. Maybe we should warn the girl, he only loves her for her pies.
The name Gems Gurney has also arisen in relation to this mystery. But who's his victim? We can't necessarily assume it's Rachel until we know if Gems has the sense to pick someone like her. Of course these days the woman might even pop the question herself. That makes the Gurney scenario look unlikely - Our Rach might not be that stupid.
Then we have that other sinful old couple who aren't married - Jeff Tucker and his wicked floozy. He'll never marry her 'cos reliable sources tell us she's already married to some other bloke who doesn't even own a bike. Tut-tut!
And once we start on the possibility of bigamy it could be even more anybody. Cocko might even have found a new bird - imagine Heather's relief!
In writing this, I do notice it is easier to find the bloke it might be, than work out who the girl is. Must be more guys than girls around at Pukete. Sounds like fun for Jim and Rach! They get to pick and choose. Don't rush into anything ladies. The end of the world is nigh!
BTW if it wasn't for our (censored) club censor - there would be a lot more clubbies names mentioned in this story.
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Lovely Sunny Night for it
Rusty organised a night ride in full sunshine. Certain people had just spent hundreds on flash new lights specially for the occasion, bringing them in from overseas and paying mega duty on them and the sun shone brightly throughout the ride. GO RUSTY! Don't forget your sunblock now, before you go to bed tonight.
BTW we noticed there were more crashes on the "night ride" than we usually get for the races themselves. |
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"War on Mountainbikers" Eascalates
The peace talks have failed . All hope of reconciliation is over! The "War on Mountainbikers" has escalated. You heartless humans have cruelly killed my favourite nephew! Not only was he killed after innocently straying onto the track, but he was subsequently run over more than 200 times by everyone in the race. Some individuals among your A-graders were witnessed squishing him 3 times! But you can be assured that the revenge of the possums will be sweet!
That's his beautiful mother (my sister) grieving over him in the photo! |
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Madge the Mad Magpie Attacks Race Leader Jason Savill
Forget the "War on Terrorists" (or activists or whoever else you want to fight.) As you can see from the photo (Click to see the whole pic) we possums are delighted to have recently conscripted Madge into our "War on Mountainbikers" efforts. She has been dutifully attacking all comers especially around the area of Troy's Ridge . That's up where the tree fell on Troy.
In this pic she is terrorising Jason Savill from R&R while he leads the last of the winter races. He very nearly lost an eye. Go Madge!
If you have any good stories about Madge, drop me a line. The email link above should be working again now. |
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The Odyssey
Heaps of us possums followed the Odyssey. We saw and heard everything that went on. For example - this is not a happy couple - click it to see it was really a happy triple. Very kinky we thought. Justin "forgot" his tent and had to share with the two girls - poor fella. Reckons he wouldn't agree to sleep with them until they promised not to molest him (yeah right), but you can read a lot into the tired smiles and satisfied expressions in this photo - it was taken in the morning when they were supposed to be fresh. That's the sunrise behind them - not the sunset. However the happiness of the threesome didn't last - by lunchtime at Broadlands school at least two of them were already scrapping and having their first punch-up. |
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Did you hear what old JT did on the big off-road downhill at Colville Connection?
Forgot about that drop-off thingie coming up half way down and went straight ahead into it at maximum velocity, ignoring all the big XXX's and the marshalls yelling at him to watch out, went straight ahead into immediate orbit, failed to take the right at the bottom, stratosphered right off the track, did a perfect 2 point landing into the big gully down the other side but had to use crampons to clamber up out of this big ravine to get back on the course again. The organisers are going to disqualify him for doing a Lance Armstrong off-course shortcut.
Reckons when he was in mid-flight he was thinking "Hope the suspension copes "
Click the pic to check out what the G-forces did to him. |
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OUT ON THE 72 K COURSE AT COLVILLE, CHRIS SMITH "KINDLY" GAVE SCOTT THORNE HIS TUBE . . . .
. . . . THE ONE WITH A HOLE IN IT . . . .
SO SCOTTIE 'DNF'ED. (AFTER ALL THAT TRAINING)
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Michael Jonson did Karapoti last week and wondered why he hit the wall at Colville a few days later. Somebody please tell that man about hard weeks/easy weeks and all that techy training stuff . That wall he hit at Colville was the only thing that's ever managed to almost wipe the MTB junkie grin off his face. |
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Craig Goulsbro told us possums all these lies about Jemima Brindle sleeping in and missing the race at Colville - he just couldn't handle it that she'd found out about him thinking he was going so fast 'cos his new bike computer was reading 48kph and 58kph even on the uphills - he thought his training was going great till Grange told him it was cos he had put two magnets on the wheel instead of one. Talk about fooling yourself. Great way to get the average speed up though Craig.
And we knew that Jemima was just freshening for her big roadie tour coming up in this week.
And we heard there was this old hag out there on a white giant who was getting up the hills okay with no computer at all ! ! Those old bats are all such technophobes. |
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No Hope 4 that Rock
Did you hear about Doug Hope being the first person in the history of mountainbiking to get a puncture while pushing his bike? He was half way up the big hill on the off-road section of the Colville 72k and he was so frustrated how slow everyone around him was walking he flung his bike down in a rage and punctured the tyre on an innocent rock. What a bully! Poor rock! But he got his just desserts 'cos he broke his chain twice after that and that seems fair to us after him being so cruel to that rock.
Bit stoopid really 'cos the word going round was he was pretty damn fit till he "lost it" like that and ruined his own chances. Then the heartless BEEP (censored) had the cheek to say he'd had a fun day anyway! No fun for the rock! |
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There's the whole club expecting great things of Sheldon's knees at Colville and a few days before the big race he goes and falls off his scooter completely destroying a pair of perfectly good Hamilton MTB club knees!! Can't ride his bike for weeks most likely! I guess he thought it would give him a chance to lie about and eat all the food in Coromandel while the rest of his clubbies are out there on the course in the hot sun, trying to defend the honour of the Hamilton MTB club without him.
A scooter for Chrissake! ! ! Is that one of those mobility scooter thingies that the wrinklies all ride around on when they can't get their licenses any more, 'cos they can't read the road signs? Guess so!
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Lefty the Puketekitty - Cat of POWER
This is Lefty -He's the one-eyed black cat who has lived in the park since the track was first built there, so he's part of its history. He lives in Pukete and annoys us possums by thinking he owns the place - a bit like the MTBers. He eats the rats, mice and ferrets which is good. He likes MTBers which is very tasteless of him. He brings them good luck. Phshawww! BUT he also watches out for anyone who sabotages the MTB tracks and whenever he sees one he magically expands to black panther size and gobbles them up instantly. I have to admit he has some pretty powerful magical qualities so even we possums have had to learn not to get on the wrong side of him. |
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More on Ben Knight
Do you notice something missing from the picture on the left? This is the same guy we were talking about a week or so back in the Whatawhata ride. (See below) He's recently becoming seriously entertaining to us possums.
On a recent Wednesday night race he must have er . . . passed wind . . . so hard his seat got blown off. It certainly wasn't there anyway when we snapped this shot., and something must have made it fall off.
He rode 2½ laps witho no seat just standing up and finished the race ! ! ! ! - no mean feat in a challenging off-road situation. We possums were most delighted and very impressed. |
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Ben Knight at the Whatawhata Race
Did you hear what happened to Ben Knight on the Waka-Roc Whatawhata Road/MTB Race on Waitangi Day? He punctured on the road leg but found he'd packed the wrong kind of tube so rode on a punctured tyre for 8ks to Glen Murray where he lives. By that time his tyre was shredded and the wheel looked like a pretzel but he didn't care.
He grabbed another tube from home, got it on the pretzel somehow and rode it to transition. By the time he got there his MTB had been sitting in the sun so long the inner tube expanded and the whole tyre exploded. His language was unprintable - even offensive to possums.
He gave up at that point and went home. We love bike carnage so we reckon he should have carried on and pretzeled two wheels in one day.
Meanwhile the other racers were back in the Whatawhata pub wondering why he hadn't turned up yet. They were just about to call out the search parties and helicopters to go and find him but decided to have another beer instead.
First things first as we possums always say.
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Wife in Pub with Anchors while Father Races!
We were down the road at the Cock and Bull the other day keeping out of the way of all you mad riders cluttering up the park on a Wednesday night. We spotted Denise Irvin skulking around in there with Andy's anchors while he was racing at Pukete. We even heard her desperately phoning him to bring the nappy bag with him after the race. So the real question is, "Did you get there with the nappy bag in time Andy? "
Otherwise this could explain why our sponsorship from that pub seems to have dried up. No wonder they don't like us any more!
Now if only we could persuade more of you to follow Denise's lead, peace might be restored to our park on Wednesdays again. |
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Patrick Multi-choice Question Quiz!!
Tim Bray was spotted wearing this natty little headgear ensemble recently.
Is he . . . .
a) the perfect candidate for nappy testing due to his naturally copious ear secretions
b) developing the new "soft shell" MTB helmets.
c) recovering from a losing altercation with "the plank"
d) trying to block out the sounds of his family complaining about the time he spends riding his bike
e) setting a new trend in ipod earplugs
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As a possum I always love it when one of my fellow creatures gets one back at the humans who torment us. This is the foot of 10 yr old Sam Gaze after it was bitten by a teensy little white-tailed spider. That brave spider put Sam in hospital for a week!. They wouldn't let Sam take his bike to hospital so he was bound to have driven the poor nurses spare. The bite had the entry wound you can see on the top of his foot and an exit wound underneath where all the poison spread right through his foot. Sam has been told keep his foot up on a cushion all day for a week or two - that must have been the reason he was seen tearing round Pukete winning his grade in this week's race just after coming out of hospital. It'd take 100 tarantulas to slow this anchor down!
But we possums are hoping the spider is still okay. |
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Kevin Lindsay is pictured here feeling frustrated while everyone around him prepares to race in the last race of 2006. He'd just bought himself a nice new XC boing-boing when he was crazy enough to enter a BMX race and what would you expect to happen? Now the boing-boing (and the BMX) are sitting gathering dust while he waits for his injuries to heal.
(NB: boing boing = dual suspension bike)
We possums love it when you humans smash yourselves up. |
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4 out of 5 members of the wnning Moonride 24 hour mixed team named "Nuclear Pussy and Tom Cats" were from the Hamilton MTB club, including Bryce Dickinson, pictured left after the ride. He was careering out of control down a greasy slope at midnight without lights, (typical!) when he shoulder planted in the death-cookies and smashed his collarbone. Hence the sling! He reckoned his team lost heart when he was hurt and gave up so he had to do the rest of the ride by himself with a broken arm.
Fortunately for the reputations of the team we found out the real story from the report on the News page. |
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