Back had been a bastard all week (after Saturday's wrecking) so I was just gonna stretch it and test it. Plan was to meet Nelsie up top somewhere and ride back to mine (or Arlo, for beersies), so he'd left his place at 5.41 and I got home from work about 6, got changed and out the door on the Stooge by 6.20pm. He'd just peaked Castle Rock not long after that. I headed up the road (loads of water oozing out of every bank), straight into the Skidder and up the gutser, up through the Worm (quite wet) and onto the Traverse, cruising around here at a reasonable pace. Met lots of riders the other way, and perused the evidence of the earlier-in-the-week's 150mm of rain (as measured at our house). The hills were still pouring water out of them lower down. I'd just climbed over past the Lavaflow and the HuntsburyDH/Fourpause when he hove into view.
We turned back along the summit and I led the way, keeping a reasonable pace but never shaking him. Into the trees and I baulked at my lack of entry speed for the jump and waited there for him to pile through, then down the Rabbit paddock into the rocks and gums, weaving around through here and all the way down. A tree was over the 'CAP link' track, so we lifted over and broke off as much branchage as we could, then continued on down to the gate. Back up towards skidder from here and up over 19th, somewhere within which I flatted and we parked at the memorial and tried in vain to inflate my rear tire. Decided it would take longer to fix than to just run/walk down, so Nelson took off down to take in the DogParkCarPark track and I walked (and jogged a couple times) down home. No trip to Arlo, decided to just have a couple beers at home.
Better than nothing, and back feeling better, even with the walk down, 9.35 kms, 313 m escalated.
No comments:
Post a Comment