Friday, November 28, 2008

Old skool's well cool.

Fiiinally got out. time and light short, leaving home at 7.45pm, drove to Bowenvale Ave, rode up Old Skool. right at the start i bumped into Angrywadder James finishing a ride, caught up with him briefly and while talking to him a dude on a Cotic Simple stopped and chatted too...

anyway, headed up through the new switchbacks up the Old Skool. Cleaned everything and was in middle ring all the way til the pylon. its alll good up there now, with post winter repairs all good. cruised, coughing my lungs out and emptying the snot pressure of the remains of a lurgy, grannying all the way the 4wd zigzags to the top gate, chasing the last of the sunshine up the hill. never quite caught it.

then turned around and headed back down the way i came up. glasses off as they were steamy, and down all the techy lines, well worn from the return of other riders, and then down the singletrack. nice flowy descent and home by 9.15.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

lonng time no riding...

hard to believe the last ride was that post election sunday... i've been away in the depths of the south coast of fiordland from 16th to 24th. walking in the bush several hours every day, counting birds, setting traps, examining fuchsia flowers, checking tracking tunnels... i reckon a 36inch wheel balloon tire bike would be the go for some tramping tracks, as for the bush itself, no way could you ride a bike in there...

took O for a bit of a tagalong spin round the river last night, but thats the total of it... will ride again SOON

Monday, November 10, 2008

post election Sunday, vic witch vic nun out

the country is now on its way down the tubes under the new Nazional government. hoo fucking ray.

saturday afternoon, i pulled the cranks off the cotic, took out the bottom bracket, cleaned everything, re-greased, re-assembled, thereby getting rid of the looseness and creak before any damage was done.

Sunday morning... nursing a few too many Leffe's under my belt and a rough night crashed at my folks (left kids there while at Paul's 40th party at Kiwi), i headed up from top of Cashmere into Vic park, gently easing into it, to be confronted with blue tape crossing the skidder site from the gums to Dazza's for local DH racing. Middle ringed it up good to top, getting out of the way of the motherhucking downhillers, and then booked it round the summit traverse towards rapaki. nice flowy ride round, into the wind in spots, and over vernon, with a bloody good flowy down to top of rapaki where i found Marie, Fi the swearing irish optometrist, and Nicole, shortly followed up by Steve, then Pete, AndyRandy and Waynus. We headed back up round Vernon, good climb, overtaking some guys strangely walking near the top (gotta start somewhere i guess), and then good bomb round to Vic. dodged a few more DHers, and headed into Thomsons, kiwi, where pete discovered his rear wheel had come loose, Chris King hubs too, very weird. he bailed down the road.

the rest of us headed up round road to top of Marleys, and had an awesome bomb down Flying Nun, enjoying the crap out of the new bits. then my phone rang. it was T, saying she didnt have a key, so i had to bail then. the others went back up for another blast down the new bits. i bombed it down Old Dyers, (overtaking the two guys that were walking on Vernon), and then blasted it down Dyers Pass Rd (overtaking 1 car and having the rest of the road to myself). was home by 11.30 or so, to find no sign of T, H or O... who arrived later.

Friday, November 07, 2008

Tuesday Night, Singlist Thomas the Green God Snake

Wounds all healed. Cotic's bottom bracket is loose, so singlespeed it was. Nelson and i hit Slumner, and ground up Capt Thomas, cleaning lots, and puffing a lot.

At Evans we headed up Scummit road, nelson pulling waaay ahead, me struggling. Topped Greenwood Park and hit the single. he blew the first rocky bit and i pulled into the lead for a while, leading into the top descents. nice flow, good riding, the singles behaving nicely. couple weird front wheel washouts but mostly a good flight. got down into the lower reaches and we stopped so nelson could hit this jump just after a sheepstop. he got good air, and on we went.

At Evans again, i thought we were gonna head back down Thomas, but nelson had other plans. the sun had pretty much set, but there was still plenty of light, and i relented and we hit Godley. wasnt long before i lost sight of him ahead. i was slow, he was fast. good ride nonetheless. they've cleaned up a bit, build some groovy rockybits on what is wet in winter, and tidied it further round. ended up we bombed all the way out to Breeze and when i got there he was already well on down the snake, so on i followed, lower back getting more and more sore. still enough light. bombed it into Taylors and hit the climb out, flashies now on.

Down into Scumner via the road on account of it being too dark to do Nicholson, and back to Nelson's truck.