Feeling like garbage, i just made it to Steve's as they were heading out. in attendance were Steve (wrote pfmtbc) , Pete, Tony and Wayne. At the bottom of Rapaki we picked up Fi and a friend of hers Nikki. tootled up the hill, me going slower than ever before on account of having had a rotovirus interfering with my system... i even DABBED on the way up, front wheel caugh in a drainage rut and stopped me dead... even today, monday, i feel like crap. anyway. pete dropped me entirely before the last climb...
top of rapaki, waited in the bitter easterly for Marie who was riding round from cashmere. she got there, we hit Witch Hill, had a good spin round there, then up road to Castle.
Pete led off and i sat on his tail... awesome blast down to first hairpin where i reminisced about Nelson's bike the other day, awesome blast to next hairpin. awesome blast to first grunt up and my legs were jelly. struggled up there (but still cleaned it all) and then had an awesome blast down to the end, until... smack! Fussshhh fusshhh fusshhhh, no more air in back tire. walked to shelter, took off wheel, took out tube, put in spare, replaced tire, blew up tire..."hmmm, what are these lumpy bits? rocks?" followed by... "hmmm, where's my other tirelever?"... "D'OH!" out goes the air, off comes the tire, out comes the lever, in goes the air again... then up road, down road fast, back round witch hill, up vernon singletrack. good climb, tho i was getting pretty wiped out by then. nearly lost it on last descent to road. regroup, and then we all headed off round the Traverse, and i peeled off down Old Skool.
Had a total blast heading down there. saw a guy ahead, so i went flat out and caught him. no wonder tho, he was on a rigid On-One SS. (i said, "good to see some English Steel!"). passed his mates who were waiting for him above the pylon, hurtled into the singletrack. bomb bomb bomb, ooop, riders coming up. OnOne guy and mates caught me up. climbers passed and i said "i'll let you by if you catch me" to my fellow descenders. took off, with a couple of lambs running in front of me for the first 100m, then left the others in my dust. had a good run the rest of the way down, bombing it all, living up to my Switchbacker name...
then there was the evil easterly head wind all the way home. i think i stayed in middle ring all the way across town. it sucked. i was exhausted for the rest of the day, and still aint right...
rotovirus 1, swtchbckr nil.
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