Saturday's Sinclair Fitzgerald Tops

At the bach for 3 weeks.  Had a the fatbike with me.  Drove out of the bay and around the Summit Rd, parking on Pettigrews Rd and rode, up up up into scudding easterly clouds. Nice climb then over stile after stile, up Mt Sinclair, stopping to breathe, rather than walking.  Up to where I rode last time, and onwards down the other side, around the side of the cool bush up there, easterly clouds juuust above my head, roaring over the tops.  Across the saddle between the peaks, then into the climb up Fitzgerald.  Stopped to check out the walking track section, just to see how rough it was.  Looked rideable, so walked back to bike and headed on.  Here's where I met the first 'other people', a group of 4 older guys who looked familiar (from all my years of riding the Port Hills).  Then a tiny bit of walking and up to the ridge, then up the ridge to the top.  Meandered across the grasslands towards a nice bluffy peak, and parked myself out of the wind for a snack, cloud ploughing over top of me.

Back on the bike, back across to the trail, and decided to check out the walking track section.  Steep, and technical, with a couple of unrideables, and lots of scooting technique required, but plenty rideable, and on a normal bike probably a bit more.  Not long and I was back down to the main track, riding on, under the speeding clouds, and on up the back of Sinclair again.  Nice and sheltered downwind of the bush up this climb, and across the back and down again, around the last steep corner and there's three picnickers on the track.  One hastily leapt out of the way, while I said "don't worry, I won't hit you".  Back across the ridge and speeeeeed down the track to the car.

There and back again... 14.5 kms with 627m climbed