the race was held, and the fourth race of the national series. Helped by excellent conditions, Lynch took 38 minutes off the course record (set the previous year) and beat the previous year's winner by eight minutes. Lynch entered the last race of the national series as the clear favourite. The conditions in Riverhead, near Auckland, were "atrocious". Lynch had never raced in mud before and her time was 79 minutes slower than the winning elite man (compared to 37 minutes at the Karapoti Classic), but she was still 52 minutes ahead of the second-placed woman. In her first year of competitive mountain bike racing, Lynch had won the New Zealand championship. 1990 Commonwealth Games In the winter of 1989, Lynch concentrated on road cycling. The road up Takaka Hill, one of the toughest climbs for road cyclists in the country, was her twice-weekly training ride. Towards the end of the year, she competed in a qualifying race for the 1990 Commonwealth Games on a hilly course that "suited [her] perfectly" after her hill training. She finished half a length after Madonna Harris, which secured her a place in the New Zealand team. Lynch was assigned as Harris' domestique and did a good job at the Games by covering the breakaways well. At the end of the race, Lynch put on a sprint to the finish line that Harris could not keep up with and Harris dropped off her wheel. A "furious" Harris came fourth, and Lynch faded in the last and came ninth, 2.5 seconds behind the winner. 1990 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships By the time she went back to mountain biking after the Commonwealth Games to defend her national title, Lynch had already missed the first two of the six rounds. As the four best results counted towards the title, there was no room for error. Lynch was in top form, won the remaining four national series races, and retained her title. With this accomplished, Braggins and Lynch travelled to the United States to prepare for the inaugural UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in 1990; prior to this, there were two separate events run by NORBA in the US, and by Grundig in Europe. At the final NORBA race, Lynch crashed badly. She took a couple of Aspirin, unaware that she was allergic to the drug. Just before the UCI World Championship race, Lynch needed hospital treatment