sunny sunday sanguine sideswipe smash

Expecting to see just Steve and Pete, arrived at Steves, 9.30 sunday, to find Matt and Tony and Steve and milan. no pete, kidney infection, no good...

Hot norwest beautiful sunny day. headed up Rapaki, swapped with Steve briefly to try the Nomad on the hill... sure is cushy, but felt to me like it had a flat tire, just the cush. man, you'd get lazy sittin in an armchair like that all the time. he didnt like the rough ride of the hardtail so we swapped back promptly. on we tootled up rapaki, Tony doing very well. cruise cruise, to the top. waited for Steve, then off to the left. along singletrack, feeling pretty good. then along road, then bombed down Castle Rock singletrack to bridle, keeping a healthy distance between steve and me. he's certainly faster on the technical downs on the Nomad than he ever was on the Scott. then along summit road to John Brittan's reserve, round the singletrack in there. seems to be a bit neglected by bikers, not a lot of evidence of a lot of use.

then onto the Richmond Hill singletrack... yummy. climbed up nicely from the road to high point. down to the trees for a quick feed and drink and rest. then, into the descent. flying. steve hung on a bit but i made some space between us, i was creaming the whole trail, just flying, round the hill over the slats, past the tree to the little climby bit, and stopped just before the downhill to rest and wait for the others. steve cruising up first. then not too far, ie, a lot less than he would have been in the past, behind him was Tony. then matt and then milan. i heard later that both matt and milan had been over their bars, low speed...

then on down. me workin' to keep steve and black-betty off my tail, i was pleasantly surprised by a white helium baloon wafting by, about 5 m off the ground, just quietly floating by... anyway, on wards down, switchbacks left, right left right over through the fence, into the wee valley, around and towards the bit that used to have a nasty off camber drop to the left which was fixed not that long ago, i come flying into it, see its all rutted, then lose it. barely keeping control i'm all askew falling falling, smaaacckkk scraape into the bank, clay and rocks. points of contact, shin, knee, elbow and two random bruise scrapes in my inner thighs that must be from the bike. YOW! but i leapt straight back on the bike and kept it rolling. a bit sore, slowly at first, then a bit better, steve catching me a bit now. then on down, out to the road where i stopped and had a good look at my wounds. nice bit of dust and blood. the others all eventually arrive and we chatted a bit, but then i realised i was seizing up so off we went again, down the Capt Thomas. this time i was a little more careful, but my balance was a wee bit off, making for one VERY close call in the second of the rock sections. cleaned every bit of it, including all the bits i used to baulk on, thankfully, and steve did too, for the first time ever. awesome run down, even rode the fence/stile gap which is nice and wide now. and on down to Dot Com. coffee and laughs comparing wounds to two other bikers in there that day sporting similar scrapes and bruises to me. cruise home, arriving just after 1.