Waitangi Saturday View Hill Stooge

Hot ride up the valley, passed by scores of amazing old barnfind-looking Indian motorcycle club bikes from above Misty Hills for the rest of the way up.  Spectacular, but stinky-smokey, many of them, making me struggle to breath clear air often - stopped many times, in shade or not, for rests.  

Then round the Summit Rd to the paper road, over the gate and across the ridge, mostly pushing, a little granny gear riding, chatting with the steers giving me the eye.  Hard work, all of it, with the lush grass and rocks. Stopped in the shade of a small Totara up at the top gate to flip the struts on the 8pack (I'd installed them the wrong way around).  Then continued across the sidle - so much of this section could be tidied to a fully rideable state. I really should do that - just needs a few rocks moved, maybe a tiny bit of digging.

Picked my way around then into the climbing, through a corridor gap in the totara/horopito matrix, riding up the farm track to the hairpin and then walking a bunch up the next section before the final ride up the ridge top to the peak. 

Took in the View then it was downtime. 

Bombing down the ridgetop, detoured across to the View Hill Moab rock then into the main track.  Stayed on the main zag from the hairpin and ended up on a dead end (which I'm sure I've done before, years ago) then picked my way down the hill, steep but grippy, sometimes following sidle tracks sometimes not, yellow flowers everywhere.

Dropped down onto the main track and Speedbomb from here, getting faster and faster the further down I got until insane speeds on the lower reaches of the gravel and a glorious coast down from Chorlton, ripping through the valley bottom past the beach and final wee chuff pedal back to Little Brook. 

Fullsome 17.26 kms and 784 m undertaken