Hawkes Bay Trail Series Race 3, sided with some magnificent wine!

Last weekend, High Beam travelled down to the beautiful Hawkes Bay as a sponsor of the Hawkes Bay Trail Series. While Hawkes Bay is renowned for its stunning weather and quality wine, it certainly did not disappoint. We were fortunately treated to both sunny weather and magnificent wine, a fantastic weekend combination!

The main reason for the visit to the Hawkes Bay was for the third event in the series, which was held at the Pukeora Mountain Bike Park, a few kilometres south of Waipukarau. Approximately two hundred participants attended the event and had the choice of short, medium, or long course option. As the park is not big and the lap was only 6km, this equated to one lap, two laps, or three laps respectively. I (Reece) was lucky enough to take part in the long course option and found the course achievable, yet challenging at the same time. I say this because although it was not the hilliest course I’ve seen, the constant acceleration, deceleration, and changing of direction made it a reasonably tough run.

The Pukerora MT Bike Park is a thoroughly enjoyable run, and I suspect, even better mountain bike. While there are no particularly difficult sections, there are a number of tight, banked corners and fast rolling flats. Most of the park consists of beautiful, dry, open pine forest with an underfoot layer of hardpack soil and pine needles.

If you happen to live in the Hawkes Bay, or you happen to be travelling through, I highly recommend you take a brief visit to the Pukeora Mountain Bike Park. You’ll be glad you did!

The remaining event in the Hawkes Bay Trail Series will be held at Cape Kidnappers on August 14^th. Please visit the website here for more details.

Fitness Locker and inov-8

High Beam and inov-8 are happy to announce that Benjamin Eitelberg has joined the team as an inov-8 ambassador. Benjamin is a firm believer in the inov-8 range and is a loyal user of multiple inov-8 products. 


When Benjamin is not out trail or road running, he operates Fitness Locker <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fitness-Locker/126211380788251> , a fantastic source of information, training sessions, tailored coaching, and more. 


If you would like more information on how Benjamin can assist you and your road running, please don’t hesitate to contact him through his Facebook page, blog <www.fitnesslocker.blogspot.com> or at kiwizulu@gmail.com

Sam Goodall and his inov-8 roclite 295's

I have raced in most multisport events across the country, over all imaginable types of terrain. Finding what I considered to be a good offroad shoe was near impossible. 

What I look for in an off road shoe, first and foremost, is sole flexibilty. The shoe must have good grip. I believe this can get quite specialised, but something with a sticky sole, and not too much 'tread' seems to work best in most cases. A shoe that fits your foot shape is very important, and from experience, most athletes tend to have wider feet, which also means you get a wider sole, and more grip, and stability.

I was looking for a shoe to do all of my winter training in, so of the inov-8 range, the roclite 295 model suited me perfectly. It met all my criteria above, the first true off road shoe to do this. I have had 2 weeks of running in the shoe, and really enjoy it. It provides great feel for the terrain, very good grip in the mud, and soft underfoot conditions, and it is durable, and comfortable. I am looking forward to trying some of the more race orientated shoes as we head into the multisport season.

Off road shoes can be so specific, with certain shoes suiting certain types of terrain. This is where inov-8 have you sorted, a shoe for every situation!

Report from the Queenstown Winter Festival

Reece from Team Inov-8 is currently on leave from his regular day job, and enjoying the fun of the Queenstown Winter Festival. "Winter" and "Queenstown"  generally evoke thoughts of snow and skiiing (and perhaps apres-ski ) but there are also some great runs around Queenstown for the visitor. There is nothing better than the cool alpine environment for an invigorating run - except perhaps the mid-winter mud of the Waitakeres !

Today Reece decided not to take the gondola, but to run the Tiki Track - a 25 minute run starting from the gondola building at the bottom, to the top of the gondola.

He reports that it's mainly hardpack and broken up slate rock, through beautiful pine forest. It's steep - although runnable, with plenty of stairs. There are magnificent  views from the top, although the cold makes the lungs burn.

And Reece reports that his Roclite 295s performed brilliantly on the icy rock and steep, technical descent.

Expedition over Mt Pirongia

Team inov-8 joined up with the Sunset Coast Multisport Club expedition over Mt Pirongia on Sunday. The day started out drizzling, and steadily deteriorated  to wet and cold. There were some good runnable sections on the lower slopes, both up and down, but the upper slopes were more fastpacking, which in some cases was “slowpacking” through mud and roots.

The trek included a detour through limestone caves. Once again it was proved how necessary  emergency gear is, as all the jackets, beanies and polyprops were needed before the summit.

A good adventure, for many to a place they had not ventured before, but next time we want to see the views !

Mountain biking Totara Park - at night!

For a little change from running, we tried mountain biking the Totara Park trails by night. It’s a different experience by night – and just as well the trails were dry. The only slippery parts were what the cattle had left behind. There was one very close examination of a swamp after taking a bridge too fast at the wrong angle – but nothing broken, so we’ll be back again.

XTERRA Auckland Trail Run Series - Shakespear Regional Park

Another great day at the second of the Auckland XTERRA trail series on Sunday. This time at Shakespear Regional Park, was something completely different from Riverhead – but inov-8 shoes still made the difference – especially in the long and superlong courses with slippery beach sections.After a gloomy start, the weather played it’s part with a mostly fine day, and even a little sun.

Scott McGregor and Reece Billington from Team inov-8 were 5^th and 6^th in the open superlong, Emma McCosh won the Open women’s superlong, and Pamela Ens won the Masters women mid course.