On Saturday, Tom, Tane, my boys and me went to Bottle Ache for a spin. O on his bike, H on the tagalong. was good, nice day, fun for the boys with Tane speeding off out front and O desperately trying to keep up. Ran into a guy on a Jeff Jones (Steel Space Frame), wicked machine, but surprisingly more heavy than i'd expected. first i've seen in the flesh. very cool.
Sunday, showers coming through and all the hill tracks closed, so we (Wayne, Wazza, Andy and me) assembled at Steve's and we road cruised out to Slumner to look at all the rock falls and scoured clean cliffs. Dot Com for coffee and back. managed to avoid any rainfall, even tho T said just after i'd left it had pissed down. i saw a rainbow on my way over to Steve's but didnt get wet. :thumbsup:
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Greasey eastern Sunday morning. Bottle lake Tagalonger
No other takers for a ride this fine frosty morning so i headed out on my own. Had a couple dogs to feed at Joy's so parked there and headed up Cannon Hill, Michael, Cannon again, Freeman, Major Hornbrook right to the top (via Clearview etc) and then some Upper, then up Mt Pleasant Rd. Good pace all the way up, no breaks til the top where i was too hot. Hadn't checked the ccc site prior but the trails were on Avoid yesterday so figured they might be okay today. Turned out i was right.
Hit Greenwood and proceeded to slip and grease my way down, cautiously at first, wheels squirrelling all over the place, front glancing one way while rear glances the other. Lots of fun. Quite a few dabs in places not known for dabbing. Made it to the bottom unscathed, having loved every second of it, and watched some bikers head down a Closed Capt Thomas... :hmmm:
Got onto Godley and blew out all of the first section. Screwed it up at every move. The rocks seemed way worse than they'd been last time i rode it (which was back in January!!!). Had a whizz and got going again and got my groove back on, much better, cleaned up the rest of the trail and it wasnt nearly as greasy as Greenwood had been. Met one group of riders coming the other way (one of whom i recognised) just before the first wooden bridge. Felt really on form on the descents, floating 'in' the bike and enjoying profusely. Great to see the other week's working bee has re-alligned the corner that leads into the sidling extra bit just before Breeze Col, excellent. and enjoyed riding over the PFMTBC rock. Nice work, fella's.
Next up - the Anaconda. Fun had here, again getting down 'into' the bike. Recent work lower down that is all good, except for the slop-channel. yikes. nearly threw me, a greasey sloppy dirty channel full of water and mud between two bermed corners... terrible. the rest was sweet tho, and the 'tail' was choice, bro.
Slogged up out of Taylors and over Nicholson Park, controlling my speed for the walkers, then back through Sumner round past all the rockfalls and containers and back up to Joy's to the car. 2 hours riding all up.
The next day a 6.3 hit and did this...
Afternoon.
Later on, i took the small one (nearly 4) out to Bottle Lake with the SS and the tagalong (conveniently T's bike is my old grey 18inch Switchback and i just needed to swap seatposts). I's pretty tired but we managed a good blast, him chattering away out back the whole way and enjoying it profusely.
Hit Greenwood and proceeded to slip and grease my way down, cautiously at first, wheels squirrelling all over the place, front glancing one way while rear glances the other. Lots of fun. Quite a few dabs in places not known for dabbing. Made it to the bottom unscathed, having loved every second of it, and watched some bikers head down a Closed Capt Thomas... :hmmm:
Got onto Godley and blew out all of the first section. Screwed it up at every move. The rocks seemed way worse than they'd been last time i rode it (which was back in January!!!). Had a whizz and got going again and got my groove back on, much better, cleaned up the rest of the trail and it wasnt nearly as greasy as Greenwood had been. Met one group of riders coming the other way (one of whom i recognised) just before the first wooden bridge. Felt really on form on the descents, floating 'in' the bike and enjoying profusely. Great to see the other week's working bee has re-alligned the corner that leads into the sidling extra bit just before Breeze Col, excellent. and enjoyed riding over the PFMTBC rock. Nice work, fella's.
Next up - the Anaconda. Fun had here, again getting down 'into' the bike. Recent work lower down that is all good, except for the slop-channel. yikes. nearly threw me, a greasey sloppy dirty channel full of water and mud between two bermed corners... terrible. the rest was sweet tho, and the 'tail' was choice, bro.
Slogged up out of Taylors and over Nicholson Park, controlling my speed for the walkers, then back through Sumner round past all the rockfalls and containers and back up to Joy's to the car. 2 hours riding all up.
The next day a 6.3 hit and did this...
Afternoon.
Later on, i took the small one (nearly 4) out to Bottle Lake with the SS and the tagalong (conveniently T's bike is my old grey 18inch Switchback and i just needed to swap seatposts). I's pretty tired but we managed a good blast, him chattering away out back the whole way and enjoying it profusely.
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Saturday Mixed bag
Not a lot of riding opps around these days for some reason. But, today, a miniscule posse met at 11am at Steve's, ie Steve, Dallas and me, and we headed up Ramahana, Aotea and the rest to the dirt. Steve was struggling with lower back pain that's been niggling him forever. We got up eventually to start of the Traverse. Ate the majority of a OneSquare before setting off.
Hit it good. Blat blat blat round, hardly anyone about up on the tops today. Best stretch for me was the last towards Vic, blazing it all oh so sweetly. We regrouped and hit up Thomsons which was also a lot of fun.
Through the messy road rebuild to the Kiwi and on up the summit towards the Nun and Steve pulls over and does something. Then he catches up and informs us that his brakes has been on the whole time. New pads and hadn't adjusted them accordingly (Avid brakes like his can apparently do this), after which he was like a new man...
Bit of a struggle up the road and up to top of the Nun where Di meets us greeting 'planters' for the 1 oclock planting... Grabbed a couple of spades and i left my bike there and walked down to the second hairpin where there were numerous plants waiting for us. I put in roughly 10 plants while the others continued and i walked back up to the bike at the truck. Hit the trail and enjoyed the ride down, rolling and jumping, as you do on the Nun, down the the halfway mark, pulled out and hauled up the road again.
1.30pm Top of Worsley flew into the bodybag, bombing down. At the bottom, hung the righthander and crawled up over the gorse stumps, stopping for the rest of the OneSquare and got onto the sweet sweet singletrack. Wound my way down, passing some dudes in a 4wd parked up on the top of that cliff, strangely. Then enjoyed the crap out of the next section, but the bit where Chris, Mark and me messed about with rocks the other night some motorcrossers have been spinning around, actually messing with our biketrails... anyway. back down the 4wd bit, and hung a right onto the sweet descent, bombed it out to the ride back up, then round behind the sketchy wallride and across the trails out down past the tank and back onto the maindrag.
Down the road i headed into the valley between Worsley's and West Morland, down the switchies, taking the first shortcut, then down the valley. fun times down there, then up the steep steeps back onto Worsley's Rd.
Out and a slog, major slog back across town. hoping C4 would be open, but they werent. Home at 2.30
Hit it good. Blat blat blat round, hardly anyone about up on the tops today. Best stretch for me was the last towards Vic, blazing it all oh so sweetly. We regrouped and hit up Thomsons which was also a lot of fun.
Through the messy road rebuild to the Kiwi and on up the summit towards the Nun and Steve pulls over and does something. Then he catches up and informs us that his brakes has been on the whole time. New pads and hadn't adjusted them accordingly (Avid brakes like his can apparently do this), after which he was like a new man...
Bit of a struggle up the road and up to top of the Nun where Di meets us greeting 'planters' for the 1 oclock planting... Grabbed a couple of spades and i left my bike there and walked down to the second hairpin where there were numerous plants waiting for us. I put in roughly 10 plants while the others continued and i walked back up to the bike at the truck. Hit the trail and enjoyed the ride down, rolling and jumping, as you do on the Nun, down the the halfway mark, pulled out and hauled up the road again.
1.30pm Top of Worsley flew into the bodybag, bombing down. At the bottom, hung the righthander and crawled up over the gorse stumps, stopping for the rest of the OneSquare and got onto the sweet sweet singletrack. Wound my way down, passing some dudes in a 4wd parked up on the top of that cliff, strangely. Then enjoyed the crap out of the next section, but the bit where Chris, Mark and me messed about with rocks the other night some motorcrossers have been spinning around, actually messing with our biketrails... anyway. back down the 4wd bit, and hung a right onto the sweet descent, bombed it out to the ride back up, then round behind the sketchy wallride and across the trails out down past the tank and back onto the maindrag.
Down the road i headed into the valley between Worsley's and West Morland, down the switchies, taking the first shortcut, then down the valley. fun times down there, then up the steep steeps back onto Worsley's Rd.
Out and a slog, major slog back across town. hoping C4 would be open, but they werent. Home at 2.30
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