Thursday, March 19, 2009

Paddy's Croc

picked up Nelson and we headed for the Quarry. arrived to find Wayne, Steve, Tony, Warren and Rex, and then Pete showed up. headed through the quarry park to the bottom of the crock. up that, cleaning all nicely, to bottom of Kennedys, then on up newtasty, young cattle all over the top half, that didnt seem to wanna get out of the way. i botched one of the little ups. nelson and me powering miles ahead of all the rest. regrouped at highest gate, then on over to the next one, nelson filming that descent with camera facing backwards on seatstay this time.

turned around, and climbed back up, then filming again, nelson leading, us all bombing down down down down. Nelson got bailed up by the twistytricky little rock gut on the lower section in the valley, i nearly crashed into him, and then pete ended up juuust bumping into me, coming to a halt with my pedal IN his front spokes. if he'd moved another 3 inches it would have taken some out. then onwards down, grunted up the climb, cleaning it, regrouped and on down the rest. some tasty sgilfs walking their doggie were a treat to behold, and on down to the cars... the others went for a st paddy's day beer while i went and got a bike for O.

Friday, March 13, 2009

para para again

went in and did it again. Started into Forest again, over Saddle, round Little River, up Ridge, down DH, up Estuary, up Ridge, down Ridge, round Big River, back out Forest, then up to Estuary trail, down that and back round the flat to car... was fun...
time limited me to doing only that again. spent 2 nights at Marahau and would have loved to have ridden the Kaiteriteri trails again, but family time took over and walked Anchorage back instead...

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Rameka'd, and Parapara

En route to Totaranui on the 2nd March, T dropped me at top of Takaka Hill and i cruised out the Canaan Rd to end, 11kms in a bit less than an hour, prob 400 odd m of climb, then at end there's a sign, roughly 1 hour to bush edge, another hour to Takaka... well, dunno who that's for. 35 mins to bush edge and another 35 to Takaka.

Anyway, mint ride. was a beautiful day, perfect views everywhere, the road in was cool, only met two cars on their ways out. got to trailhead and hit the singletrack. wee climb to Rameka turn off, then the sidling benched gorgeous track began. winding in and out, less of a gradient than any of Wharfdale, middle ring cruising, roots, puddles, the odd stream crossing. nice flow... then, towards bush edge, finally a bit of a flowy descent, then into gorse, steeper, some mildly tech descent into a gulch, then back up other side on a carved out of a rocky cliff bench to the end of the track. 4wd for a km or so, then gravel rd down down down down to a Project Rameka sign (Kennett project), nice wee flowy piece of singletrack deviation from road on original rameka, and then back onto road, near miss with a 4wd coming up, and good bomb to a ford and valley bottom downhill gravel road for a good few kms out to a sealed road... hmmm, which way? left felt right, so took it and ended up about 3kms from Takaka on main road... 1 hr 10 or so since i left the Harwoods Hole carpark, surprising Chris and Lottie at the pub.


No real riding at Totaranui. just 5 days on glorious golden beach, bush, sun, some torrential rain and lotsa beer.


then Collingwood. so far, yesterday morning i drove round to the Parapara inlet, and hit the parapara trails. small, not even 1km sq piece of forestry, with about 60-80 m of altitude in it, and heaps of trails. followed signs, Forest Trail, Big River Loop, Little River Loop, Ridge Track, Estuary Track, Ridge again, estuary again, up an unnamed DH track, down Ridge, Saddle both ways, back round Big River and back round Forest. all up probably 1.5 hours? no idea how many kms or m alt, but a lot of it is twisty low speed stuff. the whole time i was thinking how cool a Pugsley would have been, bouncing over roots and stuff... fun tho.

Might try'n get in Aorere Goldfields, walked up there yesterday and looks like fun country... otherwise, we're prob off to Marahau in which case i'll try for Kaiteri again, or Nelson, do something there again...