Sunday MacPleasantries to the Green Captain

Rebuilt rear wheel, new (40mm internal) rim, and a new Dirt Wizard on front, and new (to me) Nobby Nic on the back (biiig volume with the 40mm rim!).  

O and H (and a friend of his) were going surfing so I drove them out to Redcliffs and got out there, riding back around to McCormacks Bay and hitting the climb.  Hot work in the valley.  Took a call from Steve in the shade below the lower switchbacks, eating a couple of blackberries (just coming on) while talking, then got rolling again.  Cleaned the first, but not the second, as usual.  Exhaustingly hot up the rest of it, same (2nd) switchback making me dab as seemingly always, but got the rest to the steps.  Then it was up the road for a stretch to the steep wee connector park, then up the Upper Major to the entrance.  

Clamber clamber up the Britt, gasping in the heat and taking a direct line at the top to the macracarpa shade on the ridge.  Sat here for a bit to cool off, then rolling again, around towards the cutting - rocks knocking me around a bit - bike felt really noisy too.  Up over the fence and up zig and zag-wise, through a clusterfuck of walkers and with another rider who was struggling with the rocks, to the aerials.  Bit of a sit down up here in some shade too.  There were 3 others up here, and all of us bopped off down through the gate to the stile at the same time.  The solo guy had gone ahead, but the 3 let me through here and I never saw them again.  I eventually caught the solo dude down in the tussocks, not sure where he went, but I turned right and hit the Greenwood.  

Bombed all the way down feeling tired and slow a good portion of the time but good and flowy in other bits - definitely not a record time.  I'd let a bit of air out of my tires earlier, but I think they might still have been a little hard.  Jarred and rattled my way to the bottom

As I finished Greenwood a rider coasted through the pass and into the Captain.  I got to the trailhead and released a little more air from the tires, watching for the other dude to appear (eventually) on the other side of the valley.  I got rolling then.  Slowly winding up the speed, had a good run down through, until the first of the rocky steppy bits (the one with the wee sideline cut that we still ride the tech line on).  Fucked it up on the tech line, dont know what I did but I was almost passengering it watching the rocks coming towards me and expecting the pain any second.  Amazingly I managed to stay upright and survived, shaken and strained, but not pasted on the rock.  Ugh...  Got rolling again, shakily, and cleaned out the rest of the trail, catching the other guy just as he was about to drop into the first hairpin on his way down and out, I bombed past behind him to the O.G gate.  He'd stopped and was looking at me enquiringly.  I said "it's open again" "gate used to say 'No Access' but now just says 'Please shut'" and I took off, relishing the tightness and bush and fun.   Great descent, fun all the way, and finally along the back of the gabions, out onto the road and down to the beach to find the boys.  

Ended with a swim.    

A rather knotty 14.7 kms, with 575 m climbed.

Sunday Misty Troll Loop

Dreary wet day, left it til later in the day in case it got better, but it didn't so I donned wet-weathers and dropped down Longhurst on the Troll, across the hill thru pizzly rain, via: Derrynane, Kidson, Whisby, Macmillan, Lady Polson and down Bengal. Onto the (Uni?) bike route to and thru Pioneer Park, and pretty much entirely out of the drizzle.  Hard left onto Sparks Rd, booking out this towards Halswell, taking the special bike crossing towards the end and into the 'new' suburbs, through a cool wetland then realised at the model railway I was heading to the wrong part of Halswell, turned around and took the bikeways and backways back to Sparks, shops, then straight line to the Quarry. Finally got rid of the jacket and leggings here and the knuckled into the climb.

Stayed on top of the gear all the way up the seal, quite steep.  Then at the stile/gate, hung a right and cleaned my way up the Low Road, which was surprisingly dry.  Onto the main drag at the level bit, brief walk above here then rode the rest to the gate.  Over Siberia, over the stile and into the next climb, pedalling a surprising amount but finally relenting and walked a bunch til it levelled off.  Rode a bit, walked a bit, rode a bit, walked a nother steep, rode briefly then walked the last long steep.  Managed to get back on near the top and ride out the last 100 m or so to the Summit Rd. 

Mizzle and drist picking up again I put the jacket back on for the cruise round the Summit. Passed by one car, before a nice coasting bomb down to the Kiwi.  Across Dyers here and up the next section of Summit Rd to the top of Vic.  Into the 4wd track descent, catching some pretty mighty speed down into the skidder site, and then out onto the road for a nice fast liquid descent down to home.

Damp 22.5 KMs with 550 odd m climbed

Monday Paraparaparapool

Hot jaunt up from Parapara, up the road, keeping clear of traffic (several cars) and then onto the gravel and some seriously hot climbing up up and up.  A couple of times I'd find some shade and stop for a rest, then battle on.  Does my arse look fat in this?

(also, note the granny gear - she's steeep)

Just past the good descent track I heard a bird in the bush and wondered...  Did my 'talk the birds in' sound and two cute little fernbirds popped out to the edge of the scrub and peeped at me a few times.  So cool.  My first time.  After this I rode all the up way to the end of the public section of road (weird 'art gates' are gone) and back to the bench wherein the view is magnificent:

(could be a carbon copy from rides past - nice full inlet too)

Back down the road, bomby bomb, past the singletrack and climbed a little thinking I'd look for something else when at the high point I found it!  Trig, the sign said, and there was a narrow trail I'd not noticed before.  Put the bike on it and it was narrow and steep so I rolled it along on the back wheel.  Not bad going, a little tricky, but eventually got to the top (couldn't see a trig at this point (tho it was right there)) and followed the trail a little further and found a lovely seat overlooking Milnthorpe and Tukurua.

Back up to the bike, ah! there's the trig! and on down the (too narrow to bike, really) track, rolling semi-scooting down through back to the road.  

Down to the singletrack and straight in, careful, careful, yeah, I got this.  First narrow gut with a tiny bridge over it (like a foot long) I'm positioning to roll through and bang, foot clips a rock, front-wheel drops into a hole, and bam, I'm over the bars and flying.  Left shin gets a pedal and some rock maybe, right forearm gets gravel, right thigh gets something hard (good bruise) and I stop my forward momentum with my nose on a bank.  Somehow my sunglasses are full of leaves and snot.  Bike is front-wheel-wrong-way lying off the trail.  Pick myself up, check, nothing broken, but I'm shaken.  Bike, nothing broken.  Phew.  Whoops.  Get rolling again, a lot more carefully.  Down, hairpin, down, hairpin, then follow a creek for a bit, nice.  Across and some flat stuff, hang a right, up to the wee dam, ride around in there a bit, then back down across a trail that wasnt there last time, explore, hmm, cool, steep descent to terrain I recognised, explore, explore, explore, lots of ways, a couple familiar, one not and really steep, and pretty much all of it too narrow for my 820mm wide bars.  Ended up down to where I knew then it went places I'd never been, including a fecking steep climb at the end, up to the gravel road further out from where I'd exited in the past.  

Long sore drudge back to the car. 

A meandery 10.3 kms, with decidedly low 324 m climbed.

Saturday Aorere Golden Loop

Something new(ish).  I parked at the Devils Boots and rode back out the gravel road, hung a right up Plain Rd and headed for what I believed to be the far entrance to the Aorere Goldfields.  Got to the corner I thought was right and there was a massive sign (home painted) "Access Closed" "(no guns, no dogs)."  Got my phone out and started to check I was in the right spot when a farmer serendipitously turned up.  I waved him down and asked if I was on the right track, and about the Access Closed sign... 

    "That's just for the dicks." 

    "Ah, the dicks with the guns and dogs?" 

    "You got it".  

So, off I climbed, up through his farm, basically (but actually on public road).  Checked a map once finding I was on the right track, all no gates, then finding the access track pushing it's way up a steep ridge surrounded by low stature manuka scrub.  Fucking steep, but stayed on top of the granny and the grip and the heat of the sun and climbed my way up, hot as fuck.  A couple of chances for nice views but at the (first) top the scrub was all too high, so I actually went a ways back down the road to get this photo:

Next it was a rapid descent, fun, but wide 4wd track, through to a few more climbs and a couple descents before a climb up to a barren view of this, oh, with a side track explore up a steep arse ridge too. - Druggens Dam down in front...

Good descent started here, bombing down, bombing 4WD...  Found the turn off to Bedstead Gully that I'd ridden in the past, and headed in.  Hmmm...  rougher, then waaay more overgrown than those times.  Looked like nobody has been down here for a while, or if they have they've been in full motocross gear cos it was scratchy and super bad.  I got to a point where I knew the trail from the 'campsite' of old was gonna be worse so turned back (and it was getting pretty terrible).  Streams were stagnant here too, showing the lack of rain lately.  

Bit of a drudge out, walking some, then riding, and back on the main track headed up over and down.  Around a narrow part and "whoah!" got quite a fright at a Range Rover headed towards me.  Piloted by two young women (and followed by an older Surf with a couple guys and a girl) said our hellos and what a great track, and I continued on down.  Found the right-hander to Druggans and headed that way, completely unfamiliar to me even tho I'd done it at least one of those previous times.  Nice bomb down to the dam and saw a couple of bikes(e) down there so rolled along and sat in the shade, ate my half OneSquare and yarned.

Not so far from here, down to the water-race trail and it's way more rugged than it's been in previous years.  Nice roll around, good to be in the shade, then the descending from caves (which I didn't visit), and some serious bomb, with a couple of quite techy sections higher up, but easier and smoother the lower I got.
  

Finally out the lowlands back to the car.

Epic loop of steep climbs and rugged descents, eventuating in less altitude than it felt like (540) but a serviceable 22.6 kms. Scorching hot sun didn't help much and neither did the scratchy gorse and hakea.

Thursday Motupipi Spinny

Picked up Paul and Milo from Waitapu and we trundled round to Burnside Rd to check out the Motupipi network. They were pretty darned fun!  Not a massive loop, but when you've got a 10 year old on his brand new bike in tow it is good not to be too big.  The ups were steady, nice switchbacky goodness, and the downs were all twisty fun.  Heeaappss of trail crammed into a tiny space.  Apparently, Easy Peasy, La Bamba, Outer Limits, The Grand Traverse and Easy As...

Nice.  About 8 kms with only 152 climbed

Sunday a.m. Out the Totes

Early start, to avoid the traffic, 7am start (gate opens 7.30), phat af climb all the way up the Totaranui Rd to Pigeon Saddle.  Only met about 3 vehicles coming down the whole way, all of them above the Awaroa Road turn off.  Got to the the top and got a little cell reception (first time for most of a week).  Rode about 20m into the track towards Gibbs Hill and parked the bike against a tree.  Started walking to see where it went.  About a kilometre, what would be mostly rideable but a few big rocky sections to make it non-negotiable, and ended going all the way up to Lookout Rock.  Had a look around and headed back, always shorter on the return.  

Back on the bike, and bombed down the road, tires a little hard and skittery.  Released some pressure part way down, but not too much, which made it better.  Hung a right and headed all the way down through to Awaroa Inlet.  On the way, at the 2nd ford, there was a car and caravan parked int' middle of th'road, weird.  Down to the grunty wee climb to the carpark, then down to the estuary, tide waaay out and could have ridden across.  

Turned back and headed back through the flatlands then up up up.  At the ford, a french(?) woman was eating breakfast and said they weren't game on the ford and would back up once the children were awake.  Good climb the rest of the way, meeting no cars, and then the down, a couple cars on their way up, and stopped to photo the view.  A rider rode past and I got going when he was a couple hundy metres below.  Caught him not long later and rolled on past, mentioning "it's like riding on ball bearings sometimes, eh" as I passed.  Mega speed on the lower down hill straights, then flat, and dusty return to base.

A pretty good 21.5 kms, with not far off 800m climbed.