{"id":97942,"date":"2025-10-24T04:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T04:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/97942\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T04:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T04:57:07","slug":"whaka-100-palmerston-north-dad-overcomes-broken-back-to-race-in-rotorua-mountainbiking-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/97942\/","title":{"rendered":"Whaka 100: Palmerston North dad overcomes broken back to race in Rotorua mountainbiking event"},"content":{"rendered":"

The three-day mountain biking marathon starts today and is expected to inject millions into the local economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jones will be among them, racing in the Canopy Tours 50km on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\" Blake Jones is riding the Whaka 100 in Rotorua after breaking his back in a motorbike accident last year. Photo \/ Julia Sabugosa<\/p>\n

\u201cI hadn\u2019t ridden a pushbike in 20 years, but after my accident, I was pretty grumpy and fed up, so I bought a cheap mountainbike and thought I\u2019d give it a go because what else was there to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Jones still remembers that fateful moment he flew off his bike as he misjudged the cliff drop.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I was going over the cliff, I managed to separate myself from my bike. I was falling through the air thinking \u2018this is going to hurt\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones flipped through the air and landed on his helmet, his body folding into his sternum with the impact. He was knocked unconscious, though he doesn\u2019t remember this.<\/p>\n

His friends found him at the bottom of the bank and picked him up, not knowing he\u2019d broken his back.<\/p>\n

Still pumped with adrenaline, Jones managed to get back on his bike \u2013 though he admitted to being in a \u201cworld of pain\u201d \u2013 and rode 40 minutes back to his ute across rugged farm terrain.<\/p>\n

By the time Jones reached his ute, he collapsed off his bike in pain but surprisingly, managed to crack open a beer with his friends before making the two-hour drive home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realise how bad it was until I started driving. At that point, I was struggling to breathe, so I called my wife and told her I thought I\u2019d broken some ribs, and I was going to the hospital,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

\" Blake Jones and family.<\/p>\n

Jones was whisked away in a wheelchair by hospital staff once he arrived. They found he\u2019d suffered six compression fractures in his upper spine and bruised both lungs.<\/p>\n

He was told the compression fractures were at about 30%. If the damage was over 50% he would have needed stabilisation surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sort of made me realise, I was really f***ing lucky, you know. I could have quite easily been in a wheelchair or in a bed for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the best possible outcome for breaking a back, I guess. I was really fortunate not to have damaged the spinal cord.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first month post-accident was brutal, both physically and mentally.<\/p>\n

After five nights in hospital, Jones spent four weeks in bed and had to wear a back brace for three months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just sore and fed up with not able to do much. I\u2019d put on a bit of weight and wasn\u2019t in a great place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy physio recommended cycling as part of my recovery, so I bought a crappy, cheap pushbike on Trade Me. As soon as I hopped on, it just felt right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Riders set off in last year’s Whaka 100 race. <\/p>\n

Jones has now upgraded from the second-hand bike to a flash one and trains four times a week on his indoor bike, with a long ride on a Saturday and a recovery ride with his son on Sunday.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s lost about 15kg and has regained the strength in his back, all thanks to cycling. He was looking forward to giving it his all at the Whaka 100.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can always do a bit more than what you think you can when you get yourself into a bit of a suffer-fest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so lucky with my injury, and I know a lot of people don\u2019t have the same outcome that I did, so I want to make the most of every opportunity to get out there and give it a crack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Whaka 100 is a \u2018bucket list\u2019 event for mountain-bike riders all over the globe,\u201d event spokesman Matt Thompson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe event\u2019s signature terrain combines endless single-track with relentless climbs and descents. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough but rewarding. You won\u2019t know whether to cry with happiness or pain. You\u2019ll most likely do both.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2013 Supplied content<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The three-day mountain biking marathon starts today and is expected to inject millions into the local economy. Jones…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3548,74,1863,1643,54174,72123,13912,12636,49325,36896,8231,72124,1445,106,78,2176,12638,72122,111,139,529,69,1523,72121,6292,7798,1327,8808,4499,213,20110,210,61,72120],"class_list":["post-97942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-3548","tag-after","tag-back","tag-bank","tag-blake","tag-blinking","tag-broken","tag-cliff","tag-dad","tag-dazed","tag-event","tag-flipping","tag-friends","tag-head","tag-in","tag-jones","tag-motorbike","tag-mountainbiking","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-overcomes","tag-palmerston","tag-race","tag-rotorua","tag-running","tag-small","tag-sports","tag-thought","tag-through","tag-to","tag-whaka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}