Nelson met at mine and we drove to meet Pete and Alistair at the Yaldy for to convoy to Broken River carpark. Grey day in Chch, drizzly on the plains side of the pass then gorgeous day in the valley.
Parked up, a few but not so many campers, but lots of bikers in place, we headed off up Sidle73, taking it a little easier on the first climb as I remembered it usually catches me out with the lungstuff... Cruised around this to CV road and up for a whiles. Very warm to boot. Stopped at the bottom of our Ante-Luge entrance and chilled for a bit, some other rider dudes riding through heading for the Edge. We set off, Nelson first, didnt see him again (tho he tells me he could hear me for quite a while), in for a gutbusting climb. I stopped several times to breathe and get the heartrate down but cleaned all but one rock. Thought I was suffering angina or something at times. Bastard of a climb. Re grouped at the intersection, a couple walked through with their bikes, riding further up, and then Nelson cleaned off and the rest of us rode and pushed (a bunch of) the next section before riding out into the open and good to the saddle.
Luge was fun fun fun but initially felt slow for some reason. I got a pinchflat on the front tyre from a misplaced root. Tubed it, pumped it and onwards. Trail got funner - real fun. Ended sooner than memory would serve too.
Next, climb to Dickson's, all the way up to top of Bridge where we over-the-stiled and blitzed it. Nelson lost the track briefly, Alistair and me got past, bombed for a bit, then regrouped and he took the lead again, then Alistair lost it and I got past and it wsa all on from there. Railing the lower open stuff, super funtimes. Superb riding. Finished along the road back to the cars where we ate some grub.
12.5 kms with surprisingly only 505m upped.
Into the cars and drove around to Cheeseman Rd. Gravel to Texas Flat (where there was bikes and people and cars and camp and stuff) and a little bit further, parking below the bottom of Cockayne Alley.
Climbing climbing climbing, such a long steep crawl. Riding for a time with a youngish dude from QT who peeled off at Cuckoo Creek. Also met the dudes we'd seen on the CV road. They wondered how we'd gotten so far ahead of them, they'd done Edge, Luge, Dracophlat, and were up for Cuckoo too. We continued to climb. And climb. Eventually we broke, admired the view, and dived in for the fun to begin and we blazed it. Across the face, then swoopy swoopy, jumps, down through the tussock, then the whole thing changes and into the steep rooty awesomeness. Hands and forearms cooking, quads getting sore. Stopped a couple of times for a bit of a regroup and allowance of blood back into arms. Again, super superb!
This time the riding was only 7.63kms and again surprisingly only 465m clambered. Both sure felt way longer and higher - musta been the thin air at altitude, right?
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