Sunday's easternlinguists

No riding this week on account of Robin's Wednesday's 50th bollocksing up my form disabling me from riding with Nelson Thursday night, then Mum going into a freakin' coma - which I'm glad to say she's out of now, but still with a long road to recovery.

Met the posse at Ferrymead bridge.  I drove there, whereas they'd all biked. There, were Pete, Steve, Andy, Wazza, Wayno and Marie.  We battled road cones around to the Causeway then cruised through to Scumner and up Bitch-mond Hill.  Usual staggering out of the group and regrouping top of road and then the trees at the top and then it was up the 4wd track to Greenwood and a nice long rest.  Headed into the singletrack and I seemed to be on fire.  Good flow most of the way, one or two weird stall-ups but mostly just blazed down the hill.  Very good.  Dropped the chain just before the wee valley near the bottom, and then again just before the very end.  Pete practically had a flat front tire by the end.  Tiny hole in his tire pissing air and goo, which stopped once it got hole side down.  Air inserted.  Steve complained of a bad run, but most others seemed chuffed.  Re-assembled here and rode across Evans Pass to Godley.

Nice and easy into here, tootling up the first bits, and then I dug it in and cleaned up the grunty rocky climb.  Dabbed in the second one up top but felt pretty good having got the first one.  No one else had my luck, and Steve had another bad run out the climby bits.  Re-grouped at the 'landing strip' top, and Marie continued on through, Steve and Wazza jumping in behind her, while the other 4 of us just hung back for a bit, Andy pumping air into his now-low pressure tire.  I took off and had an awesome run down here.  Everything flowed, was mint.  Across Livingston, the others in view on the climb.  Passed Marie before the rockiest section, spotted Steve ahead and gunned it but didn't catch him before the end.  His riding had improved and his descent to Livingston and the rest was goooood.

Another regroup at Breeze and off down Anaconda.  Again.  Speed was my friend, with very few dodginesses.  As I got lower I contemplated the, shall we say, risk of my endeavours and would have crossed my fingers to not crash had I been able to.  Seemed to work cos I jettisoned across the final stile into the field at the bottom at a ridiculous speed. Cant remember the last time I had such a good run down here.  The others all agreeing they'd had pretty damned fine descents too.

Regroupage and off up the road.  Pete and me gapped the others, keeping a good pace all the way and got a nice rest at the top before I led everyone off down through the new-ish route through Nicholson Park that Nelson and me have done the last couple times.  Awesome blast through dirt sections and fun wee hoon down between the houses.  Finally flying down Whitewash and onto the road around the water front and kai at Dotcom.  Got word here that Mum was out of the coma, which was good news.  Last but not least, a bit of slipstreaming across the Causeway and me back to the car, home around 1.