wet week, singlespeed, nice weather, sunday ride, snow, VEGAS...

aannnnnd another week off. more rain, devastating destruction of the hills, slips etc... firstly, took posession of my singlespeed. DMR Switchback, 18 inch, with my old marzocchi forks, titec bars, some cheap tektro brakes, second hand wheels, and a bunch of goodstuff that Kris put on for me. have spun it a little around river, tweaked positioning of seat etc for comfort, still one or two tweaks to do. might run Freud with it this evening after work.

so, sunday, nice mild norwest day. spun to Pete's, drove to sumner, rode up Evans Pass Rd on account of there being Track Closed signs on Capt Thomas (which wasnt stopping runners...). then hit the singletrack out to Godley. Cleaned more of the first section that i expected to, but still blew it on the worst rocks. cleaned pretty much the whole rest of it. not bad nick the first few kms. was round on the flatter grassier bits, looking down into taylors that the trail's a mess. mud mud mud mud, near those boardwalk bits. black sticky grassy mud amongst tussocks. then the downhill from that flatter area to the first col was SO rutted as to be impossible to keep
upright on without having the feet out on either side. then i was on a good roll til i got a snakebite pinchflat. bang! fiss fiss fiss fisssss fisssssssssss... jumped off and ran the rest of the way down to the col. slipped in my new tube, and we all rode on. (i patched the snakebitten tube yesterday, it had two biiig splits in it). the next section was really good til the last bit down to the Breeze Col. then up and over the last hill, cleaned most of that too, down to the loo's and trees. very mucky down the last section of that too. then back round the single below the road to Breeze, then down Anaconda. i ROCKEd it. it was so flowy and smooth. bombed it. riiiight up the sides of the berms. then over Taylors, down through Nicholson, to Dot Com for coffees... excellent ride.

now its snowed again last night (monday) and the porthills are covered. they look beautiful, but now the tracks will be saturated again for another week or more... not to worry, we leave thursday for Rotorua, WORLD CHAMPS!!! and will watch Friday Saturday Sunday, and ride monday tuesday wednesday, Whakarewarewa, Whirinaki, Craters of the Moon, next week before flying back again on thursday... Switchie is pretty much packed in a box, ready to fly.