Fried, eh? 7 Miles of Smiles

Quick morning ride on my own at 7 Mile. Parked at Wilson's Bay.  Headed around the DOC track and into What's up DOC, climbing ziggyzag styles up up and up to the Eagles Nest.  Looking for fun, I headed for Gravitron which swooped me down and about randomly throwing me into Loop 7 which lost me completely, but eventually climbed back up to the Nest and headed into Metolius which took me around to El Dorado which had some nice rock.  Into Cloud Burst for a blitzy descent, including an 'extra' little shooty drop to the exit climb back to What's Up to climb back to Eagle's Nest.  Time a ticking, headed back towards Kachoong, checking out the boardwalky bits briefly, climbing back up to Kachoong, blitzy blitz, onto Jack B Nimble, meandering to the midpointmeetingbit, into Grin'n'Holla cutting off onto IB55 to finish.  Back along the DOC track to the car.  Found a towel in the car so stripped off and dived into the lake to cool off. 

Minimal 5.14 km and 200 m even

The Trip, Part 2. Sunday

Sunday October 14th.

Woke to fine weather, drove round to 7 Mile, the carpark before (just after the Moke Lake turn off, so a km or so short).  Tech-ish mucky track from carpark along above the lake and up into the bike park area.  Rode up and down for a few hours.  probably did close to 700m alt.  Up and down, up and down.  Took in: Kachoong, Cool Runnings, Grin and Holla 1 and 2, Gravitron, Loop 7, Metolius, Bliss, Kachoong, Fruit Loops, Grin and Holla, Gravitron.

Back to base for lunch, then droved to Skippers Saddle.  There was a fair amount of snow on the top of the Packtrack and a stream running down it, so we decided to just stop and play on Zoots track.  Did several shuttles, with various members taking turns to drive the cars down.  Everybody enjoyed dialling in the track, getting to know it betterer and betterer each run.  Eventually, we'd had enough and headed home.

Meanwhile, Nelson and Mark had decided the snow may not be too bad and tackled the Skippers Packtrack.  They had a great time, I'm sure.  Marie drove back to pick up Mark from Arthur's Point; Nelson rode all the way.

Just down the road from Paradise.

After a night in Tekapo (quick spin around the camp ground and down to the shops) spent a few days in Kinloch (opposite Glenorchy). On Wednesday i drove back into Queenstown and got a bit of riding in. Took the Access Track up to the Skyline, quite a long, relatively steep climb, managed it in middle ring all the way up tho, then rode down Vertigo and a couple of others, interesting downhill tracks, twisty, purpose built, steep in spots, interesting and fun. a bit like vic park, only tighter, darker and longer.

Then drove round to the 7 mile creek network of tracks. started in on a nice multiuse singletrack, which climbs a couple hundred metres to the 'dream arena' selection of tracks, cant remember their names, but i took the left hand ones first, down to the Loop7, then carried on along the multiuse track for a while towards qtown, til it started down some hairy steps i figured i'd be tired of climbing back up, so headed back up to the 'dream arena' and took the right hand tracks, which were sweet leading down to some supposedly black diamond area, then onto this obviously new track called Cool Runnings, which looped back around on itself so many times i lost track, also it had a few interesting built bits, a log ride with 8inch wide boards on it, only about half a metre off the ground, and then this nice drop ramp and low wall ride corner, fun. the final section down back to the multiuse track was best.

Then, because i'd originally intended on riding the Moke / Dispute Lakes loop, i rode UP the descent from Dispute, ie, walked heaps cos it was so steep, and very hot day, and broke my chain on the way up, replaced it with a quicklink, got to the top, and BOMBED back down to the car. then headed back to kinloch.

Saturday we decided to do a bit of the Greenstone walk, so i rode the road from Kinloch to greenstone trailhead, 12 kms of gravel road, following lake wakatipu. it undulated a bit, and had 3 fords. discovered as i was just heading out that there was a mountainbike race on (Bike Wakatipu), with the riders all coming towards me, having ridden through from the Te Anau road, through the mavora, mt nicholas stn and along wakatipu, heading through to Glenorchy. it was about 1 oclock and they'd been riding since 9am, so were pretty shagged along the last miles. got to Greenstone and chatted with the refreshmentstation guy. after 20 mins the others arrived in the car. we walked in to the caples river, had a picnic, swatted sandflies, then walked back out again. when we got back the race people had all gone. i rode back. getting pretty knackered too. tho, took a side track up a bit, which i wish i'd explored to the top, cos on the topo's the dashed line goes way up the side of the Humboldt mtns... it was between the closer of the two fords to kinloch.

issues:
Minute rebound knob has broken out, due to being knocked in the car on the way down.
Chain breaking, mainly cos rear cluster out of tune.
Front Brake still honking.
Headset is sorta loose.
Bike needs damned good clean and lube.

Talked to Kris today, and am scoring some Fox Vanilla RLC's... yip. and the now faulty minutes can go on the singlespeed eventually, cos then both bikes will have the same geometry 130mm front, and the single will benefit greatly from spv.