Thursday Night Eastern Beastin' Feast-yearn

Met, as per, Nelson, in Scumnervale after work, about 5, parked up and we rode off up Captain Thomas.  Good climb, asthma not so bad, but usual struggling once the going got steeperer for me up the first bits.  Once on the level things got better, and Nelson cleaned further than usual on the rockiest bits.  Usual near-death on the climb before that top swingy gate, but other than that the rest of the climb was good.  At the road, we knuckled in behind a couple of other guys, climbing the Summit Rd, and eventually caught and got chatting with them, riding the rest of the way with them up to the top of Broadleaf.  They were practising for the Enduro to be held up there next weekend.

Chatted some more at the top, for quite a while, then we led off keeping our blitz power on to stay ahead.  One of them was pretty quick, but the other guy not quite so much.  Tho, seemed on the techier rock stuff we would huss over they bogged down a bit, but on the smoother bits his speed was mental.  I was on Nelson's tail hard the whole way til the lead in across to Gloomy Gulch, then I was utterly blown and had to pull up, lower back killing me, allowing them to pass and go ahead.  Got started again, and saw that Nelson had pulled over below the dropjump, so he took off again once I'd caught him and we chased again.  He caught the slower guy before the rocky ups.  I wasn't that far behind, really...  Bit of a rest at Evans, chatting some more.  The faster guy was responsible for MtbTrailMagic on You Tube...  they took off down Capt Thomas.

We rode out Godley Head Rd, and stopped to watch their descent.  They kept a good clip.  Not long after this, we noticed my back tire getting flatter.  Good slash in the side of my tire...  Stopped and replaced the tube, got riding and it was going down again, but I leaned forward and managed to ride all the way to the cattlestop entry to the climb track, where we stopped again and I patched it this time - tube must have had a hole in it from last time!

Climbed up, gasping, to the trail, and we got rolling back to Evans.  Nelson jetted off ahead, and I stumbled and wheezed through the flatter rock bits, then actually struggled further down more than usual, even having one VERY close call with an OTB.  Bloody close.  Just couldn't seem to get a good flow on.  I took the final high-line walkway bit at the end. 

Across Evans, and into The Captain.  Better descent down this, sticking surprisingly close to Nelsie for a start.  Cleaned everything as usual, and bailed up on the wee rocky climb.  Final blast down the flat into the switchbacks was good, but the Cabbage Tree track was overgrown as.  Blasted out the bottom and finished down past the horses.

Just about 19 kms, with 710 m climbed.  

Tuesday Kaniere Canaries in the Mine

Parked and promptly killed my phone in the boot lid - I put it on the spoiler to catch the MMR satellites and then stupidly forgot all about it an opened said boot - not noticing it slide into the gap.  Then once we were ready to go, Nelson completely unknowingly closed the boot, crushing half my phone in the process.

Hit the trail.  Tech city.  Flat(ish), just lots of little ups and downs, to start.  One of the most fun trails of the whole trip.  Slippery roots, slippery rocks, low speed, hard work.  Tech.nic.al.  Big climb towards the end, with a fair bit of pushing, dragging up rocks to a platform, then a little more climb before a technical arsed descent, followed by a cruisey cruise round to find Steve looking sleepy in the car. 

Amazingly, my phone caught it all, even tho at that point I could only see half a screen...
10.12 kms, 305 m gained.  Screen progressively became unuseable over the next day, and on the way home utterly impossible to see anything on it.

New phone purchased the next day.

Blue Monday, Spurring On

Wet night and morning, but cleared a bit, so Nelson and me headed south of Greymouth to Hoki and up to the Station carpark for Blue Spur.  Had a doozie of a ride in there...

Climbed up the access road, first left into Doolittle, fun little doing, descent back to the road, climbed back up, then left into Seesaw.  Excellent blast down this into the valley.  Up the valley, shoes off 3 times to cross the stream, then up Elevator, and UpCycle, which was really cool.  Then up the main 4wd track again, climbing seemingly forever, passing the starts of all the tracks we'd hit on the way down. Eventually the very top of Edge.

And, down... First The Edge, then a climb on 4wd to Stagg's Drop, which Nelson immediately crashed on, tumbling down and disappearing into the bushes below the track, landing completely upside down.  I had to drag his bike up, while he tried to untangle himself upright.  This was a fun trail, one of the better ones.  Next into Bad Boys which had a heckuva lot more climbing that it should have.  Then the Cutting which was quite good.  Out of here, we headed up a bit over and down the road to the tech top of Tunnels, and dropped in.  Awesome wee trail this, tho a few too many ups in the middle bits.  Through the tunnel, and then out the valley out to Tucker Flat Rd, right here, and along, then up a couple of steep corners back to the car.

A reputable 15kms, with 414 climbed (felt like a lot more than that)...

Sunday's Undeniably Platitudinous, Denunciably Platonic Denizens of Denniston Plateau

Day two of the annual trip.  Checked out of Holiday Camp, so our departure was 10am, headed out of town via petrol pump, and up to Denniston Plateau. 

Nelson's gears weren't working so we waited around a little while he faffed.  Steve set off, with Robin and Pete, while Andy and me waited about a bit longer, but then Nelson said it was gonna take a while, so we set off in chase...  Up the road, fourth right, into Loopy, ex-bulldozed track, wide, but eroded and rocky, short climb followed by fast and rocky descent, with the boys in view across on the next climb.  Pete saw us, turned back to film us on the groveliest wee climb section, which I cleaned!  On up, and over, and met up with the other two.  This trail did this down and up thing a couple more times, then hung right onto Rocky, which dropped over and down.  Pete went ahead to film.  Then we all followed, me first.  Turned to look back and saw Steve have his tumble here.  Damn.  He picked himself up and we climbed over and down, and met Sullivan's Track.  Hung a left on this and climbed steeply, and technically, up and then across and around about the place, with Pete heading ahead to get the drone up for some filming of us.  Eventually back to the road, and Steve and Robin continued on to the car, while Pete, Andy and me checked out Lunar.  This was excellent.  Narrow, hard to follow, technical, and interesting.  Climbed out of that, back to the road, back to the car.  First lap, a smidge under 7 kms with a puny 126 m climbed.

Out with Nelson, without Steve or Robin, for the next lap.  Back up the road, and dropped into Lunar again, and sessioned a couple of sections, and tweaked a bit here and there.  Tidied up the markings too.  Then, climbed Miner's, up and down and up and over, then peeled off into S.O.B, which was techy as all fuck.  Pete flew his drone, tried to capture us riding it.  Got a bit of footage. Then down the rest of Miners, wet and sloppy, to Burnetts Face, and climbed back up the road.  Looked at Teapot, which we should have ridden, but didnt...  Second lap, tiny bit under 11 kms, and only 175 m climbed.  (certainly feels like more when you're doing it).

Saturday Heaping the Heaphy

First ride of the annual trip...  This year featuring the smallest group for a while: the three originals - Steve, Pete, Andy, second original - me, 3rd original - Nelson, and later addition - Robin. 

We'd driven to Westport in POURING rain on Friday, checking into the Holiday Park motel units and having a jolly old time of it.  Up early, and departure time of 7.30am set... 

Day dawned not raining enough, and with a good hour's drive to Karamea, we were on the trail about 9.30.  Nice climb from Kohaihai, followed by a nice descent, then it's just up and down the whole way, with a few flatter bits in between.  We all kinda took turns hanging back with Steve, who's struggling these days, but soon spaced out pretty good. 

At the halfway shelter, Pete chucked his drone into the air and promptly lost it.  It lost touch with his base, climbed up to it's ceiling and sat there til the battery ran down enough to send it down.  It came back into view after about 10 minutes and he kinda guided it back down, but then it crashed in a tree.  I'd seen exactly where it had landed, so we guided Nelson and Pete through the bushes up to it.

On riding again, and easier stretch from the first half, ending at the Heaphy Hut where we cooked up Dehy-meals for lunch.  The 3 less ridey turned back here, and Nelson, Andy and me continued on.  Nelson, I think, had the intention of getting all the way to Mackay's.  Andy was happy to turn back at Lewis, while I wanted to get a little bit of altitude - having come all that way, but knew I'd die if I went too far up.  So, we said our goodbyes to Andy at the hut and headed on up.  That was about 1.35pm, I said I'd go up til 2, which I did.  Nelson kept on at it and I turned back and enjoyed the fuck out of the surprisingly good quantity of down hill.  Then enjoyed the cruise back to Heaphy Hut (back over the bridge not quite finished with the 3 DOC guys working on it), but trying to keep a bit of a pace on, thinking maybe I'd catch up to Andy somewhere. 

Stretched and snacked for a few minutes at Heaphy, then hit the trail again, dead on 3 I think.  Again, reasonable pace kept up, but towards the end I started to really flag.  Type 2 fun was being had along here, suffering and wishing it was over.  Finally got to the top of the final climb and with glee, flew down the trail, detouring left onto the wee loop track and riding this around to the bridge, over, up, and on the final approach to the car park, there's a rat loping towards me on the track.  I veered, ran over it, feeling it under at least my front tire, but when I looked back it was a blur leaving the track!  (later Nelson saw 'a rat' near a culvert just a bit further up the track).  I suspect it was poisoned - dopey, but amazing it didn't die with me squashing it.

Andy was in the car, had been there for 20 minutes.  Then we waited 1 hour 10 for Nelson, who had indeed made the Mackay Hut (his mmr is from hut back, ie, half)!

MMR stuffed up big time, putting me as having started at Heaphy Hut, heading south down the coast then, back north again and finishing at the highest(ish) point that I got to...  mental. Somehow i gained 32000 calories... The mileage is too little, but the altitude may not be wrong.

Sunday Quick Dog Loner Juggle Tings Proper

Didn't know when I'd get to ride.  Was told 5pm would be fine.  Then, at about 2 T said Vanessa had cancelled, so I could go earlier...  Drove across with Jet in the car and parked on Eastern just over the bridge from Bowenvale.

Jet on the lead, headed around to Major Aitken, and up.  Kept him on for a while, cos he was kinda giving me a tow, and cos the road narrows a bit further up.  At the hairpin, quite a way up, I let him off and he ran free from then on, right til the bottom of Bowenvale at the end.  Up Kenmure and up Huntsbury to the top.  Up the gravel, climbing pretty good, my own pace, not too hard, not too soft.  Up onto the singletrack and up the landing strip then up the gravel, and before the top cattlestop we peeled right onto the wee climbing singletrack, walking a stretch, then riding the last zig and zag to the top of Four Pause.  Schlumphfed down here for a rest, small snack, and took a pic.

Onto the bike, Jet in behind, and away we rolled.  Good fang down this favourite trail.  Better traction than the other night, and I did the jumps a bit better too, even with the easterly blasting across the track.  Waited for Jet after the final jump, and then down through the tussocks, weave weave, and dropping off over the left down to the gate, Jet not too far behind.  Over the stile, and blazing, down, drop, weave, pop, drop, sidle.  Skipped that one bit that has the blown-out rocky ledge, using the 4wd briefly instead, then back into the rocky descent down to the water troughs, where I stopped and encouraged Jet to have a good long drink.  Off again, back and forth on the off-camber over-grown corners, and then onto the Old Skool proper.  Bomb bomb bomb, jumpy, pumpy, flow across and back and across, and from where we watched O's crash (almost a year ago!) I stopped to wait for Jet, and then when I got started again, couldn't clip in, making those rocks tricky.  Got clipped, and bombed on down the rest, stopping a couple times for Jet to catch me.  

Bombed down the gravel to the end, and waited.  Jet got straight into the creek opposite the jumps, and soaked and drank, then off down the road, he took his sweet time sniffing and peeing on every. single. tree. down. Bowenvale Ave.  Felt like it took longer to get down this than it had to ride Old Skool...

Only 9.25 kms, with 404 altitudes gained.

Thursday Night Groupies

Hit it with some new peeps.  I met at Nelson's and we rode round to the bottom of Crapaki, meeting there George, Glen, Jackie, another Richard, and another whose name I dont recall.  We headed up the Crapaki, climbing at a nice pace, talking all the way.  Glen was sporting a brand-new first-ride-ever Yeti SB-something with 29r wheels.  It was spanky a.f.

At the Taramea we regrouped and were joined for a stretch by an older guy on a 'lectric contraption.  Headed up into the singletrack.  George OTB'd almost immediately, which was amazing considering it was on the climb.  Regrouped again at the rocky techsession bit, then Nelson and me blasted ahead of them down and around and across and all uppy downy as it is.  The climb back around in the sun was pleasant and not at the same time.  Straight into the singletrack climbing above the maindrag, and then Nels and me stuck to the main drag for the straight and up around to the top.  All the rest of them took the singletrack.

Up Vernon, and Nelsie and me seemed to have the lead, but George wasn't far behind me, then Nels met someone to talk to, so we continued on, me following George at his pace.  Regrouped again at start of the Traverse.  Sun was lowering (half hour to sunset), so we decided to show them Fourpause and 'the' way into Old Skool. 

Around the summit and no mucking around, straight into the descent.  Dirt was damp under overgrowing grass, but grippy enough, and we blasted down the rocks and over the jumps and as per usual now I cleaned that last jump.  Regroup and they all arrived with shit-eating grins, not having expected so much excitement...  Down through the tussocks and over the edge, down, again, the rocks catching some of them out.  Then the real descending began.  Most of them didn't clean the steep rocky droppy sections, and Jackie bailed out and rode the 4wd track.  Glen was wary of destroying his brand-new ride, so was careful Colin all the way.  But mostly they enjoyed it, and now they know the way, they can come back and practice.

Into Old Skook and it was a blast.  Best flow I've had, chasing Nelson tight on his tail, for ages.  With all the regroups, I was still feeling pretty fresh, and so pumping through the flatter bits was easy and good.  Out the bottom, and FREEZING cold in the valley.  Ice-cream headache making.  Regrouped, and then down the road.  Most of the group stopped in at the Brickworks, but I needed to push on so Nelson and me headed back to his.  I even had enough energy to clean the wee alleyway next to his place up to the car.

Not a bad 17.86 kms, and 526 m of altitudation.