Thursday Night, Horse Packing

Nelson picked me up just after 5 outside work and we negotiated the traffic to the hill, up over Dyers and through Gov's to Teddington and up to Gebbies where to park.  Cold easterly plowing through here, so cold changing, I wore my jacket to start the riding in.  6 pm and straight into the climb up the road, puffing and wheezing in the cold night air.  Onto the singletrack, and it was greasy greasy, splecky wet to start, but over the hill and on the downhill entered the trees and under-tread was roots and needles.  The metal drum 'bridge' is rusted through so other options need exploring with the small creek in here, then climbing again, up roots and around the corner and up the fenceline to the stile.  Jacket off here, and climbing ever climbing up the paddock, trees all gone on the right now, over the tussocky top and down to the next stile.  Down across the road and onto another road, spotted a vague singletrack to the left, and thought it might be a goer.  It wasn't.  Ended up losing front wheel traction on treefelled stick piles, and getting almost bluffed above our road, so Nelson led up the hill to make for a chute.  Bit of carrying over log piles and saturated skidder site ground, around to the chute and down, big water bar in the middle, then onto the road and down through the darkness.

Singletrack into the forest here, nice dark forest, climbing around and up to the sequence of switchbacks where my low gear started giving me gyp.  Bit more climbing and what the hell is wrong with it...?  Ah.  fuck.  broken, again.  The RevComp 40t was broken and bent, disallowing the 36t being used, but also interfering with the spokes, meaning I couldn't freewheel, essentially making it a fixed gear for a while.  Caught up to a waiting Nelson, eventually, and I tweaked it clear of the spokes and 36t and adjusted my low-stop and we rode on.  Climbing climbing through the pines.  One tree across the track, a couple of soggy bits, and suddenly we were on the next switchback sequence, and on up up, short descent, and final climb to the forest-edge stile.  Munch here, then onto the tight exposed singletrack around the hillside.  Fun climbing here around through the Remarkable Dykes and a few techy rocks to get to the Packhorse - roughly 7pm.  Been done up, not quite finished, hung out and had a look around briefly, keeping out of the wind that hosed over the saddle.

Now, descent time.  Funtimes around the tight singletrack, riding 'on the edge'.  Popping little rock roll overs, and wallriding whenever possible.  Then it was into the trees and the real flow began.  Swoopy, marginal control at times, flowy and fun. Bombed it down and through, sketchy corners here and there and a few near-misses with trees.  Out of the forest and across an open area, mucky grease challenging the traction, then back in to the woods and so much fun.  Swooping down through the tight switchbacks and then flying down through the 'dark' forest which ended all too soon.  Onto a logging road, up and around to the skidder site, then back into the tussock climb before the long fast blast down the paddock to the stile.  Into the barbed wire fence trail blasting down here and then around and wham, climbing again.  Me walking heaps of this, whereas Nelson only walked a bit then cleaned a bunch getting out of sight over the hill.  Then we were in the mud and over the top and last stile, and final road again, til the walking track just below the last section of road, which was a real blast, even tho I stopped to take a call half way down.  Finally, back to the car, 7.40ish?  Chased "01Evo7" to Gov'nor's Bay pub where we went in a partook of a fine ale, and while we were there the local mtb crew (that Mark knows) arrived and we all got on famously, enjoying their free fries...  Awesome.