Thursday night Godley Snake breakage

Rode from work to Nelson's work and then we navigated the rush hour with traffic finally easing as we eased down the causeway and made our way to Sumner City.  Through this and up the hill to Evans Pass.  Riding from here, up the grunter of Godley start.  Just about to enter the rockiest of the guts I shifted from third to second, and shortly after heard a clunkity clunk then a tinkle and so stopped to ponder what it was.  Seems by shifting into 2nd the chain had overshot slightly and grabbed a handful of the 40 toothed granny gear cog which then proceeded to snap off about a third of it...  musta been slightly bent and my immense torque was too much for it??  Oh well.  will have to try a different brand perhaps, or I'll see if Rev-Comp will help me out with a fresh one.  So, had to be careful for the rest of the ride to only go into the 36t.  Cleaned out the rest of the climb and onwards, Nelson forever increasing the gap on me.

Brief pause at the landing strip then onwards down, an excellent blast down to Livingston, and good climb (Nelson gapping me again) over and blast down to Breeze.  Straight into the climb around the side to the narrow little sheeptrail around above the road, stopping at the start of that to sit on the hillside and look at the sun shining through the clouds on us, and the hang-gliders cruising around from top of Scarborough launch spot.  Off again, focusing closely on the narrow track, then up the hill towards the 'round the back' track.  Stopped again briefly, this time on the concrete gun-emplacement or whatever it is.  On up to the Breeze Bay track, over the stile and onwards.  Awesome run round here, both of us flowing really good, our rock feature from last time totally in place and rideable, and all the tight pinches.  Cleaned all of it except a couple of tight bits before the flax bush (which was no problem to ride round and past).  Sweet sweet flow on from here and down and around to the stile at the end.

Straight over and into the Snake.  Tight on Nelson's tail we bombed down here, scuffing and weaving and blazing.  One of my best runs down here for a long time.  Into the 'Tail and I was close behind all the way til the last bit where I finally lost my chain, stopped, quick reload, and then bombed out down the last bits, into the paddock and across to the car park.  Nelson had chased a cat down the trail for the last few hundred metres.  Also, somewhere along the line he'd bust a rear spoke.  Stopped at the toilet/changing block to tape it up, then hit the climb up the road.  Ugh, grovel grovel to the walking track part way up.  Up this, struggling without granny, but cleaning it all much higher than last time, not having to walk til the last 10 metres or so near the top.

Up the gravel to the hangglider/parasailer launch site, round the road, and up the grind back to the Godley Track.  I led down this back to Evans cos Nelson wanted to baby his rear wheel.  I had an excellent blast.  Every rock feature I picked a good line on, flowed, with the tail wind everything just seemed quiet and smooth.  Fantastic.  Round about 7.30 as we got back to the car.