Saturday Rameka

So, Nelson and me headed in Canaan Rd, leaving his car in the carpark up there (locked at night) and my car being driven down by Jo.  The family (and Jo) had driven in to walk Harwoods Hole, so we saw the car (and canoe) there while they were in the bush.  We hit the Canaan Loop Rollercoaster section, with it's tidied new climb and rolled and whooped through there with the bush section being really nice down to the carpark.  Bit of cleaning and tweaking of drivetrains and off we set, up the climb to the entrance.  One rider, at least, ahead of us.
Into the Rameka proper and it was wet from the torrential rain overnight.  Roots were pretty greasy and some of the puddles mucky but mostly pretty good riding.  Stopped a few times for photos, and once we were out of the National Park (2/3rds way along this section?) we found a few large tracts of windthrow from the Easter 2014 storms.  Some massive trees down, but the trail is clear to ride.  Finally into the couple of corners before dropping down into the Dozer section, in the tight left hand section the roots were treacherous, and I caught my shorts on my seat and ripped the arse out of them.  Took them off and a lone woman rider turned up.  Down from here and out of the forest and down into the marble cut climb, marble slick as a slick thing. 

Into the Packtrack, Nelson blasting down ahead, me not so much, and I couldn't believe the near carnage he was getting, pinging and flicking all over the place in the greasy marble rocky sections.  Just about crashed a couple times, but somehow he kept it together.  A couple times we stopped, and the woman was never that far behind, but we'd leave her behind each time we took off again.  Into Rameka Project.  Awesome blast down here, forest was pretty slick, but once out of it the traverses back and forth across the hill were dry enough, if a little over grown.  Finally down to the creek crossing, in seemingly no time, and straight through it and a well earned rest.  Heard the woman up the hill away, again a little surprised by how close behind she was, and she walked through the ford and then headed off down the first Klick.  Good roll down this, neat new boardwalk/raised 'bridge' skirting around a rock, floating above the rocky creek bed, past the woman again who was struggling on the riverbed boulders.  And we rode up off the trail onto the road and bombed down this.

Into 2Klicks and I took Do while Nelson took Die.  I had to slow where they rejoined each other or we'd have collided and I followed him down the blasty section towards the wooden jumpies.  The one that has a backside to it he flew over catching mad high air and I did something dumb here, not sure what, baulked at the wrong moment or something, but launched into the air, badly positioned or did something stupid in the air, and landed with my arse out the back of the bike badly balanced and *I think* my left inside thigh hit the tire and my left ribs hit the back of my seat, and I kinda ragdoll-bounced off the bike and flew through the air and landed in the scrub on the right hand side of the trail, a spike impaling my stomach for good measure.  Ugh.  Picked up my bike, nothing broken on it so got chasing again, before I'd had a chance to worry about all the pain I was in.  Caught up to Nelson at the road, him having heard my yelp.  Couple of last sections of trail off the side of the road, with me taking Jazz and Nelson taking Rock'n'Roll.

Then it was gravel road blast to the seal and out to the main road.  Stopped here to cover my indecent bike-undies  with my ripped shorts and the woman rode past on her way to Takaka.  We headed for Pohara, taking turns at slipstreaming, and being passed by my family at Clifton.  Well earned swim and beers in Pohara.  Until I was in the water, my ribs weren't really giving me any gyp, but then it felt like a weird twinge and the pain increased to a level that hasn't changed much since.

D'oh!