Nice one on my own this morning... Headed up from home almost dead on 9am, climbing okay, pushing pretty good, and really forced my way up the steep pig from the skidder site. cleaned it all but nearly puked by the top. out the top and out Worm and onto the Summit Traverse. Pulled over for anyone I met coming the other way, not too many thankfully, and made good time, and pulled up at the top of Four Pause just as two asian dudes with all the gear headed off down it, skidding and going very slow... I let them go until they were nearly at the bottom before I launched in, and bombed, no skids, jumping all the jumps and generally enjoying the crap out of it. 9.30am at the landing strip when I pulled out and turned back uphill, grinding off up back to the top.
Across the road and into Vernon, cruising around and then bombing, letting a couple of folk through at places, and rolling out across the bottom, jumping straight into Witch Hill, climbing, slowing down, slower then popping and weaving over the rocks, juuuust cleaning them all before onwardsly cruising around up, over and down. Onto the road, bitter southerly hussing out of the harbour here, gale force across the saddle before the Tors. Pushed the last stretch to the top of Castle where it was 10am. Brief break out of the wind here, snack, then, spotting some (fast) riders entering the other end of the trail, I dropped into it, blasting and blazing, down around, and pulled up just after the first hairpin to let them through. The first two were E-bikers, the 2nd 2, accoustic. Got going again, kept a good pace on the climb, then out and down to the Bridle.
Back up the road, grind grind, then at the top, checked there were no walkers or runners around, and pushed up to the Tors track. Then I spotted a million walkers on the road before the saddle... time to get moving. Nicely nicely across and down the steep tech. Botched something past where I used to always botch, dabbing over a bit, then struggled to get my foot in til the last few metres, rolling through the crowd of parents and kids, and clambering up onto the wee-singletrack-above-the-road. Once peaked, good roll and cruise through this back to Witch, into the teeth of the gale across the road and onto Witch, climbing, then continuing, non stop. Down to Rapaki-top and steady pace around the road, riding with then pulling away from a bunch of older riders. Was overtaken by a couple of bolshy E-bikers as I overtook a group of 3 riders (one of which on a Levo with Rohloff combo). Watching later as those bolshy ones went down the gravel road of Huntsbury... i mean! what's the point!?
Into the Traverse and bomb bomb bomb around, good pace still on the climbs, but starting to feel a little jaded. Into Vic and popped the top jump, then down past the see-saw, couple jumps of Brakefree, and back to the Rockgarden and Gums, favourite line, all the way down single to 19th, then down road, and into the new bonus, strugging past a car parked nose up fully into the entrance to it. Final climb, then bomb down behind the houses, having to bail up to negotiate a clusterfuck of walkers at the end.
20 kms in 2 hours, with 771 m climbed. Pretty good.
No comments:
Post a Comment