Thursday muddy hell

Chris showed at mine, no other takers, so we Fiat'd out to Slumner to haul ourselves up the Captain. prior to Chris's arrival i'd rubbered up my wheels, 2.35 Muddy Mary up front, and 2.3 Stout on the rear, turned out they were a pretty good choice for tonights ride. Captain Thomas had more mucky places on it than i've ever seen before, in places i've never seen muck. quite astounding, tho, still eminently rideable, albeit with copious dabs. bailed on the top section knowing its messiness, and rounded the final hairpin of the road to be greeted by the Evans to Lyttelton Road Closed sign, which i'd forgotten about, and explained the extreme lack of traffic.

on up the summit road passed by only 2 cars, and hit Greenwood. not too bad to start, quite good in fact, round the top and down to the ruins. then on down. round the first left hander into rocksville i lost it, catching a rut or something, off balance, really thought i was a goner over the edge, but juuust managed to keep it together, including in my moment of distress, missing altogether a hedgehog in my firing line. adrenalin burst (something i'm used to of late, what with all these aftershocks), and on downwards. rode a bit better after that and caught Chris up after a couple more bends. mucky middle section, then good for a bit again, down, down, then into the bit that'd been worked on the other week, and it was a mess. all the soft dirt that was flattened so nicely was a big rut. we walked around the worst bits. stream crossing and onwards all good.

crossed Evans and slugged up Godley. rocks getting rockier by the day, troublesome climbing for both of us. nice in the windy dried bits, still a bit of wet in places, until you get round onto the grassy slope in the Taylors catchment. Ugh. what a mess. diabolical. and, for the first time, i'll admit, Teddington shit is the shit. once you hit it, it was the only flowy bit of trail there, after it, rutsville again, til the lower descent to Livingston. on over to breeze was a breeze, except the last 100 metres or so by the fence, wet mucky mud under grass.

anaconda top was puddled in places, a few ruts, and one or two flows. onto anaconda itself, the whole top section was sweet, over the three jumps into the berms, nice, but then in the valley, rut city, mostly avoidable but no speed carried. finally, the tail was sweeeet, until you got onto the bottom paddock, yuck.

clambered back up out of taylors, down through nicholson and along the waterfront. home around 9.30.

and a quake hit just as i finished this. 10.30ish