Saturday, November 24, 2012

Saturday Up and Blat

Quick ride this afternoon, cos i really needed it, and to test the shoulder's durability.  Was good.  Tootled over to bottom of the hill in the car, and rode up Parklands Drive, then on up Huntsbury Ave.  Steeper than i remembered, this section before Aotea Tce.  Anyway, made the dirt, cranking the sounds for a good soundtrack to my clambering journey.  Uneventful climb, not going very fast.  At the top of Old Skool i just headed straight in, bombed it down to the first gate and met a guy there.  We chatted a bit, him saying he'd never been down here before, so i said "Follow Me!"  and proceeded to lead him down all the off piste bits between switchbacks...  He didn't manage to stay on my tail and rode pretty much the 4wd the whole way down.  The rough stuff i was on was a little over grown and i lost it a couple of times, having to walk a couple of the worst bits. 

Onto the singletrack, very tight with the long grass crowding out the track, and i got a flat before the stile.  The guy stopped and chatted again, then i left him behind again.  Hopefully he enjoyed his new track.  In the lower reaches i had a couple of annoying chain slippages.  Time to replace that drivetrain, finally, methinks.

Shoulder did well.  Would have been mad at myself if i'd crashed on it, but otherwise it was all good.  No tweaky, worst cases were probably lifting the bike over stiles.

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