North Island Cycling Championships

The starter went and the Haumoana team was away. This was on Thursday the 29^th of August and the Haumoana team was racing against year 7’s in a cycling challenge. There were 2 sorts of races an individual and a team time trial. The team time trial was the first to start off. The girls went first and then behind them the boys.

They were cycling on a motor racing track and had some tough competition. Most of the Haumoana team was quite sick so they weren’t at their best so they had an extra rider just in case, and they did need him. There were seven teams in the race and the Haumoana team had five riders but Noah, which was one of their team members, was too sick to race. So the Haumoana Team had only 4 members to race with. The names of the Haumoana team riders were: Wesley, Will, George and Reif.

The course was difficult but only had a bit of uphill, the corners were vicious and they turned round like when you go around a roundabout. The course only had one straight bit that was when everyone made their move to pass. The total distance of the race was 13km long.

They went around the course 4 times and on the fourth everyone sprinted their heart out for the finish. Haumoana came in 4^th and they only had 16 seconds and they would’ve had nicked 3^rd place on the podium.

Soon after all the year 7 team’s had finished the year 8 teams were on the track. Everyone had a great race. After the year 8 teams had destroyed the track the mixed teams came through.

In the mixed teams were HNI with a few ex pupils in the team from Haumoana School. They had a great race but ended up being too generous to the fourth rider. They probably should’ve taken it all out and that would’ve made space for them to be on the podium. But still they had a great cycle.

Next up was the year 7 boys individual race there were 44 cyclists in the race. Wesley, who was the only Haumoana pupil, had started off having a great race zooming everywhere but on the 2^nd lap he had a dramatic crash Wesley was riding in the front pack and someone swerved out in front of him and he went tumbling to the ground. His seat was out of place and he had some bruises and scratches on him but he still got to his feet and zoomed off trying to catch up to the front group. Wesley got quite close to the front group but was just behind and couldn’t catch up to the lead group by himself. 

Wesley crossed the line in 15^th position even when he was hurt and fell off his bike at 30km per hour he still did really well.  The Haumoana team was still proud of their results.