Thursday Night Narrow Tech

Met Nelson in Taylor's and we headed up the Escape... 

Nice cruise up the valley bottom, and stopped a the first rock feature where Nelson proceeded to move and manhandle a bunch of rocks in an attempt at making 'a line' over a nice boulder.  I wasn't game enough to tackle it, the envisaging of a nasty tumble getting the better of me, but he cleaned it a couple times.  From here the climb got steeper and steeper, and quite nasty.  Then up in the head of the valley it strikes out across the slope, and needs some digging, big time.  

Off camberness clipping the uphill pedal something wicked, and grip?  Meh.  Kinda good grip, teeth of the tires digging in on the sides.  Will be good once it's dug, but right now is rather tech-knuckle.  A right, a left around the head then up onto the side, getting easier as you climb a couple zig zags, then a lonnng sidle climb til you're waaay above the car park and settlement, then a bunch of zig zags and another long run back up to the road.

Rode the road to Livingston, then decided on the walk track around the back overlooking the harbour.  Never noticed the exposure along here so much.  hmmm...  but great ride, and climb, I even cleaned to higher than I have in the past.  Up over then over the stile and the fun stepped descent ensued, blasting down to Breeze Col, across the tech slower rocks up to the Breeze Bay track all the while on the harbour side of the fence.  Climbed around Breeze Bay, lovely track this, and stopped at the Observation Battery No 1 for to film some jumps committed by Nelson.  (have footage on my phone).

Around the skinny run back towards Breeze Col above the road, quite fun in this direction, with a good blast to finish, then it was up the road back towards the new Anaconda entrance, bypassing this and bombing down the road to the Taylor's Escape entrance.  

Into the descent, lonnnng sidling, when into the wind I was eyes-full of dust, but back up valley was better with the wind behind.  Nice run in this direction.  The off camber gave me the willies, where I wasn't all-trusting of the grip my tires were actually perfectly capable of providing.  Nelson had no trouble at all, and even cleaned some rather tricky tech in the head of the valley.  I had the willies, but managed to stay aboard and the blast down valley to the rockfeature was damned good.  Nelson cleaned over this, but I held back, and then we blitzed back onwards down to the cars.  Good blast.  

An exuberant 11.2 kms, with 354 m ascended.