Met at Nelson's, changed into my biking gear and then had to patch my front tire - found a couple of poke-through gorse or thistle needles. Then we convoyed to McCormack's bay via a reasonably traffic free, but quite convoluted route. Parked and hit the hill.
Up the valley, hot, and long grass. Gobbled a few blackberries along the way. Cleaned up to the 2nd hairpin, as usual. Then after the bridge, a steep section before a little bridge stopped me, and I missed one hairpin in the top set. Up the road and up through the wee reserve to Upper Major, and up very long grass, past a dead sheep and onto the usual Britten climb. Sheep shit everywhere and I had to stop a couple of times to stretch my lower back. It was really sore.
Around the top and bailed over the stile and up Broadleaf, climbing all the while, and my back killing me. Big relief to be at the top. Some nice views up here, with a bit of fog around
Then it was off and down, following Nelson and watching his back wheel getting knocked all over the place. Good blast down the rocks, but tussocks and grass below these were overgrown and sheep were running ahead. Popped on down to the ruins where Nelson stopped to clean up some stinky shit from all over his face. Bleugh.
Up the valley, hot, and long grass. Gobbled a few blackberries along the way. Cleaned up to the 2nd hairpin, as usual. Then after the bridge, a steep section before a little bridge stopped me, and I missed one hairpin in the top set. Up the road and up through the wee reserve to Upper Major, and up very long grass, past a dead sheep and onto the usual Britten climb. Sheep shit everywhere and I had to stop a couple of times to stretch my lower back. It was really sore.
Around the top and bailed over the stile and up Broadleaf, climbing all the while, and my back killing me. Big relief to be at the top. Some nice views up here, with a bit of fog around
Then it was off and down, following Nelson and watching his back wheel getting knocked all over the place. Good blast down the rocks, but tussocks and grass below these were overgrown and sheep were running ahead. Popped on down to the ruins where Nelson stopped to clean up some stinky shit from all over his face. Bleugh.
Fog was rolling up the hills, but cleared not long after. Rest of the way down Greenwood was rocky as hell, bumpy and rough. I did the drop jump properly for a change. And chased hard on Nelson all the way down.
Next it was out the road and climbed, me struggling more with the ups and my back, up onto Godley for the fun, but fucking overgrown, blast back to Evans. Held pretty tight on Nelson's tail down this. Plenty fun.
Across Evans and bit of a pause at Captain - Nelson checking messages, then I led off. Slowish start, through the overgrown top section, but once into the rocks my speed crept up, cleaning everything pretty smoothly, jumping, popping and grooving all the while. Neeeaaarrrly made it up the climby bit, but just stalled. Then it was cruising again, slowly increasing speed around the flatter section before fun times down the switchies into the cabbage tree detour and bombing out the bottom. As we mounted the stile at the bottom the phone blinged a few times, and then riding down Sumnervale Ave we discovered why. Wazza, Andy and Robin were just finished loading their bikes on cars, having just completed a loop 10 minutes ahead of us!
21 kms with a tough 718 m climbed.
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