Good ride last night. Met Nelson after work at McCormack's Bay, and we trundled up Glenstrae onto the hot dirt. Sun beating into here and no wind meant for instantly exhausting conditions. Stopped and tried to reach a few blackberries at the usual spot, then got riding again up, down and up up up. Usual walk of the second hairpin, and then further up, in the upper zigzags I dabbed out on the 2nd and 3rd, but got the rest. Nice breeze once up on the road. Up this and up the reserve on the corner onto Ridgeview and over the fence at the bath trough.
Up through Britten, spotting Wazza's, Andy's and Bobbin's cars parked on Upper Major, so figured we wuz chasing... Up around the front of Britten, spotting what looked like familiar riders on the singletrack above the road. We hit the road there and headed back along the road and up Broadleaf, seeing the boys up at the gate, and actually beating Robin to it. Our previous plan of heading over Cavendish and doing Castle and Tors out the window, we joined these dudes and got into the bomb. Fanging like usual down from the top, dust obscuring my view of the trail in places. Regroupling and then around above the ruins, then decided on a lap of these upper trails, down towards the pines, and back up Sheep's Hit Alley, clambering to the top. Robin bailed here on account of his detached hand tendons hurting too much.
The four remaining headed back across old Greenwood into Greenwood proper, and proceeded to bomb like nothing else down. Hoooned. Nice rest after Gloomy, beautiful night just there out of the wind, and got going again for a fun filled rapid descent. Hit the road, and Nelson and me were gonna take the Captain, while they were heading back up for their vehicles. At this point a massive posse of riders appeared out of Rapanui Bush (reserve in corner of hairpin below), and turned out it was the Thursday Night Crew of old, and old (2016 ago!)....
Hooked in with them, Nelson leading the way in, and the others putting the pressure on, hard. I got in about 5th and had Nelson's mate Mark on my tail, and I kept the pressure on the dude in front of me (Paul, maybe?). We hooned big time. Dust was a problem, breathing and seeing, the bit after the gate I just pointed and hoped, not being able to see anything with dust lit by sunshine. Mental! Around, bombing all the usual rocks and interestingness, and as I rounded towards the big boulder (before the rockydrops) I spotted Nelson retrieving his bike from below the trail (below the rockydrops). He was just up onto the trail when I got there and he jumped in behind as the dude who was ahead of me cleaned the entire wee climb here. Somehow I'd lost Mark along here. We got rolling and chasing and fanged out the bottom. When Mark rolled we realised why I'd lost him. His chainring was majorly bent, so the chain wouldn't stay on.
Rolled on down to Sumner, to their cars parked on the Esplanade. They all went to the pub, we tootled off, around the new boardwalk and bike path (that practically dead-ends at Shag). Back to the cars at McCormacks,
A good effort, 21 kms with (according to MMR) 750m climbed (don't believe it, cos our peak was only 500 and we didn't do that much extra up and down (- there's always that weird spike around Moncks Bay)).
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