Wellington 6: back to Polhill

Polhill revisited.  Final day of the trip, packed up our shit and loaded it all into the downstairs room, then hit the city traffic across, yet again to Aro St, heading up Holloway road again and into Clinical.  Climb climb climb, tired legs slowing me down, slowing everyone down, except, seemingly, Nelson.  Breather once again in the park, and then into Highbury Fling.  Around this, climbing mostly, then up Sawmill and the short section of fenceline then Windmill, popping up to the Windmill for another look. An actual view of the city and beyond this day, rather different to the cloud we were inside of a couple days prior.  Then it was into Car Parts, bombing down and around, back across the road and some discussion of playing down the Rollercoaster, back up Highbury before heading down Transient, but nope, straight into Sawmill down into Transient, wondering this time how I'd gotten so hung up on the rooty bit at the top.  Good fang down the whole trail again this tiem, dusty.  Regrouped same spot as last time, then down to Serendipity.  On the 'drop' Alistair flatted, so him and Pete and Nelson and Mark stopped to drop it a couple of times, while I ploughed on ahead and ended up down the bottom first.  Steve and Wayne and a few others rolled up and eventually the dropping four turned up.

Mappage, 16.64 kms and only 381 m altitude climbed.  Not much, compared to what we're used to here in Churchur.

And that was the trip.  None of the trails were particularly technical.  All pretty smooth easy tracks, especially when you compare them to such like Greenwood or Godley even, and we don't even consider them to be very technical tracks...  And, there's a fair bit more of Wellington we never did.  I wish we'd gotten out Red Rocks, and out at the West Wind project area, and up into the Akatarawas, and maybe even if we'd ventured up to the Kiriwhakapapa out of the Wairarapa. Always wanted to do that one.  Oh well.  Another time...

Wellington 3: Polhill Barking Parts

Day three of the annual trip.  Headed across town to the Aro Valley again, and met up with Nelson's friend Ken and my work buddy David.  Headed up Holloway Rd, funky house valley, and up into George Denton Park, hitting up Clinical, meandery wee climb zigging and zagging up through nice regenerating native bush, as do most of our fair capital's trails, eventually topping out in a wee park.  Big regroup here for everyone to get their breath back from the final steep of the climb, then through the fence to the edge of Karori Sanctuary, and into Highbury Fling - another climber through similar regen bush.  A couple of ridges it pops out into the viewdom, but mostly in the bush.  Eventually, it finished (observing Transient peeling off to the left) at a suburban street, and we hit up Sawmill Track climbing up to the Sanctuary fence again.  Followed this a bit and then across the road and into Windmill trail which meandered around below the windturbine (swoop swoop swoop as backing sound).  The wind was fierce and blustery and in places the scudding clouds were losing their moisture into trees which were over-dripping the track.  This track turned into Car Parts Extension, then eventually into Barking Emu which was quite a bit of up and down, with one ridge which nearly blew us off our bikes, and eventually ended up at the top of the Tip Track (an infamous Welly climbing track).  Regrouped here and didn't stick around on account of there being very little respite from the wind.  Headed back along Barking Emu and 'Parts Extension, seeming much longer than memory had allowed, and more climbing than I would have thought possible considering how much climbing there was going out.  Popped out at the Windmill and had a good look at it, then dropped into Car Parts, muchly different from my previous memory of it last time Nelson and me rode it, fanging down through drops and twists and turns, I had Ken on my tail and he was fast and hard on me, pushing me.  Managed to survive this and popped out across the road to the fence again.  Regroup then back around to Sawmill and down, and dropped into top of Transient.  Got rather messed up on some roots near the top, nearly losing my shit, juuuust managing to pull it back in and riding it out, then around the corner crossing Highbury and bombing on down the rest of it.  Great flowy trail down here, fast.  Chasing Alistair and once coming upon him extracting himself from a tree, he got moving again ahead and slowly losing me around a corner or so ahead, then not long later I come round a corner and there he is wrapped around a tree again.  I rode past and continued on down.  We did a big regroup where the trail meets a 4wd section, then coasted down and into Serendipity, a socalled Black Trail...  Fun.  Mildly more technical (but not that much) than Transient, swoopy and droppy in places, finishing off with a big steep cobbled bit on the hillside above the bottom of the Polhill Reserve where we all regrouped and headed back to base.  Rather late lunch and then nobody seemed to be in for a 2nd ride of the day cos it was quite late by this time.

Mapola

PFMTBC Inc, WELLINGTON, 2007. junglevision

Mark Hubby, Tony Andrew Steve Pete Nelson and me flew up friday, 12.15 - van, covered trailer, motel downtown with mt vic just up the road. so, put bikes together and headed up Vic. found our way to the top, got a tip from some local riders and started to explore down round singletracks. if you got to know these they'd be a fun wee blast but searching our way round we will have missed out on lots of nice stuff, plus, it'd be raining all week so the tracks were all mucky mucky and rooty slippery...

Saturday, Drove to Makara. Tucked into Koru (gentle and nice), bit of a play in the skills area, then up Sally Ally (cruisy), Missing Link (cool), where i started to hear my pedal doing the crunchy thing. continued grinding up Aratihi eventually stopping nearing the top to decide that it was poked and i's gonna have to give up on it. so, walked up to the top of the peak, howling wind, and we tookoff down the 4wd track to the lower Ridgeline trail, and into Swigg (towards the end of Andrew crashed right behind me (i heard a swish, whump) garking his knee) and starfish (upon which Hubby dismounted right in front of me, garking his shin on this wooden bridge), and me not really enjoying myself much cos of the pedal concern. headed for town to get the fix for the pedal. Mudcycles, no rebuild kit. On ya Bike, no rebuild kit. Penny's... yep. so, got to work trying to get the outer bearing race from the pedal. it proved impossible so i gave the rebuild kit back and got me some Shimanos. much better. So, that afternoon we went back to Makara, and rode to the top of Sally Alley, then up the 4wd track to the peak, then down Aratihi to Leaping Lizard and all the way down that out to the end. Wicked descent, sketchy, techy, rocky. through the stream at the end, and back up the road to the car.

Sunday. parked-up in the Karori Sanctuary carpark. headed down to creek and began walking up the switchback trail to the fenceline, up the fence track to scoutden, then up to top of wrights hill. riding and walking. riding at the top. a chance meeting with a guy Nick who i somehow knew (we'd ridden somewhere sometime) convinced us we needed to do Deliverance and Salvation. so, down deliverance, proving too techy for some, relished by others, then lovely pedal back up salvation, and back to the fenceline track. i was the only one to ride up the grunty steep to the top, then me and nelson got talking to some other locals who suggested Carparts. the others had continued on ahead and didnt bother to wait, so missed out on what i would say is one of the best little sections of singletrack around. starting from the windturbine carpark, it goes not that far below the road for a while... twisty, fun. then crossed the road and back onto the fenceline track, which diverged at that point and had a jumpy section next to it all the way down, then a couple of weird downs and ups and then into a little singletrack section which ended up on the concreted switchbacky stepped in places walking trakc back down to the carpark.
later on, Mark, Nelson and me, went back to the sanctuary carpark, and rode/walked up again. over and down Salvation, back up it, and back down to sanctuary... nuts. down salvation was fantastic. slogging back up it wasnt so bad, down the top section to the scout den was cool, and so was the fenceline, but once it enters the tight ass trees again, yowch, i just lost my flow and had to dab around nearly every hairpin. then one last little climb to the van.

Monday, we headed back to Makara. barely anything left in the legs. rode round to and up Salvation (again) just cos it is so nice, to carpark, then back down we went (mark took Deliverance), awesome descent, pete filming it, then back into the park, huffed up Koru, messed about in skills, on up sally alley, Tony Andrew Steve and Pete all deciding to bail and just do the lower ridgeline etc etc down (then on into town on their bikes), Nelson Mark Hubby and me continuing to missing link, then up 4wd road, into a gale, then down aratihi, upper leaping lizard, Nikau, upon which i crashed, let it go a bit trying to go faster and just lost the frontwheel and over i went onto some rocks, jumped straight back on, hammered, and on up to missinglink. bit of a break there and a local guy (on a Switchback!) showed up. ended up seeing him over and over again, whenever he caught us up stopped, wondering which way to go, kinda..., anyway, up missinglink back to sally alley, blasted down it to the swigg/starfish intersection, down to magic carpet ride, then down livewires and back to van. hussin' it down livewires nearly caught me out too, i was so exhausted i was starting to make mistakes, and i was just about over the bars into a tree, dunno how i saved it... cleaned the stream crossing tho.