singlespeeeed

spun across to bottom of rapaki this morning on the Switchback (18inch) singlespeed. met andrew, and off up we headed. fuark thats hard work. i cleaned all the way to end of trees, then up past first corner, then just blew and walked for a bit, then rode a bit, then walked a bit, then on the flattened out bit i rode then made it half way up the straight of the last slope, walked to just round the bend then rode the rest of the way. haaaaarrrd. very very hard. anyway, got on the singletrack, walked the first switchback section and then hopped on again, round to top of Farmtrack, walked up, off piste, next section to just after the upper switchbacks, then rode rest of way. from there on, it was a blast on the singletrack. slightly faster than the usual pace round the singletrack, and you hold speed more and it is just fantastically quiet. no chainrattle or clunk chunk of the gears... exquisite. blew a spoke at top of lavaflow, didnt realise it til a bit further round... wobbly back wheel. then down through gums, down to 'my favourite' which has all changed, new berms and jumps and new lines all the way through, then out valley to k2 and out. messy down bottom of valley, there'd been slippages and trees down in that last month of storms. then said my good bye to Andrew and headed down Colombo for a couple of spokes. fixed them up this afternoon... work tomorrow. will clean more of rapaki next time. an excellent work out, upper and lower body. gonna buff me up real good.