Mint ride tonight with Nelson. We met at Slumnervale and headed back down Finnsarby Place (never knew it was called that) and across the redzone to hit the up on the old Captain Thomas exit. Nelson cleaned his way to the steepest steps bit, whereas I lost it on below the first corner and struggled my way upwards. Very muggy and sheltered down in here. Once on the level tho it was good rolling, albeit extremely overgrown for a good portion of it, which we didn't really notice until on the return. Mostly good climbing; Nelson cleaning more than me, I was just feeling wiped from the week. The trail was really crunchy, sheep having wrecked it in the recent wetness. Heading into a sugar crash, we had a break before the final climb. I felt better once moving again and the hard bit before the last gate got the better of us both. Final climb out to the road was okay.
Long schlep up the road to Jollie's Bush where we avoided stinging nettle, walked and rode our way to the top of the bush, over the stile and then up the new walking route to the 4wd track which was much closer than we ever realised. Up this and hung a right to blaze out the, also crunchy, old Greenwood entrance, out to the road, and up here to Broadleaf and up. Cool dead stick insect on the road, probably 10 cm long and 7mm thick... Hup up up to the top and a well earned rest. Then we tootled to the highest point and took in the view before our descent.
Down through the annoying gate, and around to the stile, Nelson getting his sideways-action on on the rocks just beforehand. Over the stile and the bombing began. He led, I stayed on his tail until the tussocks where I kinda gained and lost and gained til losing more towards the end of this upper section. Down the 4WD bit, and into the Greenwood proper. Tight on his tail for a bit, even catching him a bit before the sidle, where he always loses me and then eventually he stopped after Gloomy and I caught up and we had another rest. I led from here, keeping the pace up and fast and a good blast down, all the way, losing my speed in the first rocky up with the wrong gear. On out to the bottom, overall a good blast.
Through Evans and up a little for another bit of a rest before dropping into The Captain, him in the lead. Big gap to start but I'm pretty sure I was slowly gaining to the gate, then we held pretty tight the rest of the way down. It's SO bony, rocks poking up where they never were, trail embedded in itself by the sheep traffic. Eventually, over the fence into the old-skool section, discovering just how overgrown the bastard was. Quite low speed compared to the usual rush, never quite knowing where the holes were, or rocks, hidden under the grass. We both survived our nemeses, my tree and his rock, and got out to the bottom and back to the cars in one piece each.
A surprising 631 m climbed, over a rather bony 15.4 kms
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