SundayNight Singles. H.Ell, Nun, Traverse, OldSkool

Saturday night i finally tensioned and trued up the front disc wheel i built for the singlespeed and tightened and tweaked the back wheel and adjusted the rear brakes on the beasty too. then on Sunday due to childcare responsibilities i wasnt able to join the boys (and girl) on their ride... so, while H had his morning sleep i sorted out the front end of the single. put my old Manitou Minute's onto it, and set up the Avid Juicy 5 brake and got nearly everything sorted. needed a Star-fangled nut in the steerer tube, and needed a clamp bolt on the brake, so once H woke, and we went on the vege run, took the bike and dropped into bikebiz out Marshlands. guy there installed both and only charged me $11.50 all up. Sweet as.

So, had to try out the bike, and we were going for dinner at my folks, so, arranged with Nelson to come up after that, and off we rode, probably about 8pm. me, full to the brim with yummy food and a couple of wines, which made riding tricky.

because it was dark, we decided on the H.Ell track, mint gradient climb for singlespeeds. to the Kiwi, then up road to the Nun. the Minutes SPV feature is exactly as i expected for singlespeed, perfect. it locks out excellently for the standing-in-the-pedal-kranking yet still absorbs the bumps when on the trail. i was feeling like i was gonna blow chunks near the top of Worsley's Rd, so had to have a major breather, then up the dirt track to top of Nun same thing happened so walked about 10 m before forcing myself back on the bike.

The descent was decent. nelson led off, and we blazed our ways down. fair bit of wind about, but pinned most of the jumps okay. the minutes feel quite burly, but no where near as buttery plush as the Fox's on the Cotic. a lot firmer, majorly in need of a service methinks after a few years in a cupboard. and the Avid brakes? not bad, not bad, slightly better than v's i guess. blazed on down to kiwi, only hiccup being nelson's commuting rear mudguard snapping off halfway down.

Then it was up the road to top of Vic Park. lighting up some young lovers in the carpark at the top, hehe... then on round the summit trail. not a bad blast round there, singlespeed all you need. all the puddle work we'd done last week had done a good job of drying out the affected parts of the trail nicely. i had one close call just past top of Lava Flow, somehow i missed the track and was heading over the edge but then pulled the front back over the wooden edging and came to a squirrelly stop with a wheel on either side and nearly losing balance... got going again and we picked our way down through the off piste tussock sheep trails.

All's cool on the Old Skool. nelson led the bombing down, staying on the zig zag trail rather than taking all the shortcuts. was kinda fun. hadn't done it for years! was getting pretty shaken up by the end tho. then round and down the singletrack. sweet flowing singletrack. on the second of the splits, old above new, i passed Nelson and led on from there. not much further on, ran into water running down the track. blast. round the corner and back across the face, and near the end there's the big muddy hole again, i stopped and nelson came over the rise behind me and nearly took me out. we walked by the hole, and rode on, with this wet section running across the trail 3 times below that. then, where the single meets the bottom road, we fixed up some of the ruts. and then headed out and home across town. the rear wheel creak winding me up all the way home...