Sunday: greasy Thomas, mucky Godley.

trundled thru a cold and frosty morning to Steve's for a lift. him, tony and me shuttled out to Scumner in the TFC Van... tony w/ his hardtail due to a flat on his susser. outside DotCom met up with Waynus, Steve(abba), Hubbster, and Mark and Marie on the (well dodgey) tandem. (pete was crook and Andrew was off to the Home(OH!) show.)

squelched up Captain Thomas. wasnt too bad, but it was too in parts. the worst part by far due to a horse living on it, rather than bikes... issues with the tandem slowed Mark and Marie's progress. At the top, we bailed out the old route, rather than facing the dredge it would be on the south facing section before rounding up to Evans.

At Evans, tandem rear wheel got a tickle, and all but them hit Godley. as usual, blew the early rocks, but after that i had a really good run. cleaned heaps, if not all. some recent work was in evidence further around, but man the trail was a mess. even tho it was Open, we felt we probably shouldnt have been on it, but continued to ride anyway. good run through, tandemriders avoiding the earlier rockies and joining us up on the flatter tops, then the descent to Livingston Col, the first section to and between the boardwalked bits rather untidy. the teddington shitted stuff not bad, but soggy and splecky in places, and the final run down cautious, but with some speed. tandemmers back to road, the rest of us headed up and over to breeze. good cleaning ride through for me, and on the way down to breeze my cassette came loose, and was a mudbath at the bottom around the cattlestop.

tightened up the cassette and bombed onto the 'conda. tandeems and abba had headed off earlier. i caught them and pulled up thinking i'd let them get ahead, then hubb underpassed me and caught them, so i headed down after. he got past them then i managed to (when they pulled over for me the ended up in a wheelshaped ditch!), and so all of my run down anaconda was sweet. bombed out the tail, slowly gaining on hubby. one VERY close call in the tail above the baches, nearly lost a wheel over a rocky edge, but held on and got through.

climb out of Taylors, i pushed hard cos i felt like i needed it and got up first. felt bad and good. then nice cruise down nicholson and round waterfront to coffee and hospitality at the 'Com.