Thursday Evening Croc of Climbing

Buncha ups and downs out in Halswell tonight. In from the carpark, meandering around all the new-path-fenced-off areas, up to the trees to the start of the trails.  Straight into Download, and up C2, chuffing alllllll the way up to Siberia and over, then back down the lot, across to the right following a family of big cattle beasties and dropped into Off the Cuff, up Upper Crust, down Murph's, back up the OG Croc -v stepper than I remembered it, down Spurious, back up C2 and down Mish Mash... Shitloads of other riders around and everyone seemed to be faster than me going up. 😩

Less than 10kms and only 289 climbed (tho I calculate 360m...), which seems a bit of a rip off, considering.  I gotta ride more.

Tuesday Afternoon End of Holidaze Halswell that Ends Well

Up and down a few times in Halswell.

A couple of girls in the carpark getting ready to ride and leaving before me that I proceeded to encounter multiple times throughout the ride.  Caught them up top of the dog park and I dropped straight into Download, then climbed up C2,  Dropped into Murph's, quite enjoying the flowy descent.  Around and into Upper Crust, a much better climb in my mind than C2.

At the top of this I caught up to the girls again, and headed up the Croc ahead of them, spotting them dropping behind me as I climbed.  Straight into the Low Rd, then through the gate and a drop over through Siberia (new lines...).  Stopped at the Kennedy's gate for a bit to wait for a runner to pass so I could have a much needed leak.  Then back up the 4wd track, to the gate, whereupon the girls were coming up Low Rd.

I dropped into descending trail.  I like how all the tracks are one-way now.  Makes for a better 'less conflict' ride.  Into the Croc proper, swoopy swoopy, and then into Deviation up slightly across then back and forth and whoopdedoo down to the junction.  Dropped into Spurious for a nice couple of technical hardware features, dropping all the way down to Upper Crust.  Clambering up here again, where I encountered a young guy on a 'leckie (grrrrr, lazy f'ck'n f'ck, grrmble).

I bombed down the top half of C2, testing the new bypass down in here, then, scattering a few walkers, dropped into Mish-Mash at a cracking pace, sliding in the dust, then getting confused a little by the drop-overs near the bottom, dropped, jumped, then left, and right, I hit Upload, steep wee grunter (from the top, spotting the two girls again in the valley below), then I climbed up the steep wee grunty corners in the start of the OG Crocodile and on up to the Coopers/Spurious/Deviation junction.

Here, the young 'leckie guy rolls through into Spurious so I follow and he drops over to Upper Crust to power lazily up, while I muddled about then headed up the entrance of C2 and out down through the dog park, finding the two girls at their car.

Effectively an hour's ride, with a surprisingly peasly little 287 m climbed in a subordinate 9.7 kms...

Saturday Crock of Short and Mucky Crocs

Attempting to change my internally routed gear cable proved more difficult than previously imagined. This is no longer a simple trail-side fix.  Ended up being a right pain, but I got there in the end. I ended up strapping a torch to the downtube, shining through one of the bottle rack mount holes, then used a spoke to guide the end of the cable to the hole exit hole (below the bottom bracket).  A remedy to this problem would be to insert a full length outer, which I may well do eventually.

Due to my troubles, Nelson had detoured to mine to potentially assist, but I'd got it sorted before he arrived, so we schlepped out, convoyed across to Halswell Quarry and rode up through the dog park into the trail network.

Straight into Dowload, then up C2.  I was getting wheezy, so stopped for a puff on one of the hairpin corners, then while we were looking over the edge of the clay cliffs I managed to drop my puffer.  This required a scramble down the bank.  Back on the bikes climbing up.

Decided to drop down Murph's, which was fun, a bit rougher than it's been in the past.  Out the bottom and we headed up Upper Crust, which zigs and zags, I think nicer than C2, crossing Murphs near the top.

Back onto the Crocodile climb, taking the high road up, up, up, and finding a new line built earlier this year, that takes you off the original trail after the Deviation turn off, and zigs and zags a bit more, keeping the up for up and the down for down.  Nice!  Up into Low Road and climbing climbing, new bits here too, new fence crossing at about the water-tank, and then up the last to the top.  Siberia:  dropped over this down, trees cleared from next to this, biiig piles of swag ready for fires (we reckoned they should burn one at a time and have dance parties.  Or an even, bike race while they burn...).

Into Ange's Climb, zig and zag.  Pretty sure I swore I'd never do that again, but it wasn't so bad this time.  Over and back to the top again, ready for the descent.  Dropped into Low Road descent, usual droppy fun, gaining speed towards the new fence.  Then into the new sweepy lines back and forth across the slope towards the gate and lots of off camber corners.  Still settling in, and not really properly formed yet. 

Into the top of the Crocodile, dropping rapidly down this, crossing over and dropping down into Deviation - the start of which was dodgy as hell.  Frost damp splecky slick dirt, traction was potentially terrible, but we both spotted it and entered carefully.  Proceeded up Deviation, feeling the splecks on the back in the shady southfacing would-have-been-frosted-hard section before dropping zigs and zags towards the top of the old Croc and into the trees, where we coasted down Elegator.

Straight back into the climb of the Croc, back up to the top of Spurious, and down this, Down and Out, through the still-frosty bottomlands, Upload, back up the Croc, again, and this time at the top Nelson did Coopers Creek while I decided not to (didn't like the look of the entry drop, not that it's that bad), so I followed off down Spurious again, through the bottom and back up Upload, deciding to finish here, and head down back down to the cars to finish.

A bit uppy downy 10 kms with only 272 m climbed.

Sunday Solo Mucky Crock

Dropped H off to a birthday party and sleepover and headed to Halswell Quarry car park.

Headed up the valley and up onto C2, via the Download.  Clamber clamber up through the trees, through the cattle stop into instant cattleshit.  Avoiding the worst of it and then watching out for big cow-apples (and pancakes) on up Crocodile, ever climbing.  Top of the road, and into the Low Road, bit of mucky flat bits to avoid, bailing out to the road at the lying down squared-off lampost.  Up this last steep and over the gate into Siberia, finding a few wet puddles, but the rest of it nice.  Bombed through the bends and down the last bit to the bottom.  Decided here to try the new ziggy climb, Anne's Ascent or something, and gave up on it through sheer boredom after a few bends, bailing out to the main track and just powering up that instead of 20 times the distance going back and forth.

From the gate, headed down the singletrack, actually a really good run, until a jump that threw me off towards the bank, I just managed to pull it back under control before landing and landed awkwardly, kinda tweaking my back.  Carried on down and then into the Crock.  Stopped here for a moment, maybe a text?  Then got going again, on down, pulling up left to C2 and straight into Murph's, bombing down this, lots of fun, then tootled through the mucky bottomlands and climbed up Upload, then into the Crocodile climb, clambering up this to the top and taking the Bypass track to the bridge in the valleybottom, and left up Gorge Rd, meandering up the valley til I found a midlevel track leading back down valley.

Down this, joined into one of the switchbacks on the Crock, climbed up from here to C2 and headed Murph's again, enjoying it just as much if not more than the first.  At the mucky bottomlands again, I hung a right this time and around and up Upper Crust, which climbs from the jumps up through Murphs (near the top), topping out on C2.  Headed down this to the wee bridge, and followed (pushing bike on back wheel), a track up the valley there, to see what I would see.  Turned back from the top and rode and scooted down through the tech and long grass back to the trail.  Then I took the downhill track (Mish-Mash) that starts just there, and bombed that down into the valley again, basically at the end of Murphs.

Around the muckybottomlands again and back up C2, to the wee dh track again, down it but slightly different line out onto hairpin of C2, back onto it and out the bottom again, this time to ride out the old entrance, and back down to the car, done.

Only 11.5kms, with 323m climbed.

Wednesday Night Big Ken

Big one tonight. Firstly, I was home all day with the boys on school hols, so I rode to Nelson's work for 5 o'clock. Then we trafficjammed it across town and parked at the main gates of Halswell Quarry.  Rode up the drive and then through to the mtnbike zone, popping down Download before climbing C2 up onto the Crocodile.  I was gasping.  Felt I had no energy.  However, I was testing my new oval 30t chainring, and it performed admirably.  It felt like I was getting more drive for each pedal stroke.  This I was noticing most later once we were further up the top. So, it was a long way up.  The Low Road was wet as, so we headed up onto the main track and rolled up that, Nelson riding with some XC guy while I struggled on behind.  Through the gates and the long climbs began.  Hard. Work.  Eventually, cleaning everything, we made the top.

Hit the Summit Road around to Worsley's and up to top of Flying Nun, (debating with then ignoring the Track Closed sign - how bad could it be?).  Not that bad.  Into the Nun and the fun begun.  Bomb bomb bomb, taking it reasonably easy in case of slick, which there wasnt much of.  Bailed out at the road, and headed back up it.

Just past Worsleys turn off we headed onto the Crater Rim (/360) walkway; climbed up to the top, nice views to be had and trail in good condition.  Black sheep around, only evidence being their eyes in the dark.  Stopped for a snack then headed onwards and down.  Fun descent, with flaxes whipping faces all the way down.  Across a carpark and into a techy wee climb, rocks and a bit of steep that Nelson ploughed up and I stalled on.  Walked a bit then back on for across the top and around about and down, flowy poppy down. 

Then, opposite where you used to enter Kennedys, we continued along the crater-rim, a section neither of us had ever ridden before.  It was steeep (but I still managed to stay on top of my new gearing), and climbed for waaay higher and further than I'd have thought was possible given the terrain I didn't realise was up there.  Eventually we got to a junction.  We could have turned right - down to Kennedys; or straight ahead we chose - towards the Bellbird.  Excellent singletrack resulted, a few techs, but nice, rocky and through bush the odd step, a fair bit of speed.  Then at a rocky saddle, we could have dropped to the road just below, but we continued up, pushing bikes over rocky bits, then a bit more riding, more rocks, more riding, a good sized surprise totara, to eventually the Bellbird carpark.

Across the road, decided to try the trail back to Kennedys from here.  Down a ways and into tiiiight forest singletrack, not much room.  eventually a wrong turn and we ended up at the road, so over the fence and onto this, along a bit, and "hey, there's the track" so, onto this and along, more super tight singletrack, then more open and climbing and descending to, through a gate and over the stile, top of Kennedys.  Time for a bomb.  Seats down, suspension opened up, and away.  Super speed down, warp speed catch up.  Down, down down.  Insane speeds reached, lights the limit of visibility.  Over the stile and climbing then into the singletrack, bit of slop but mostly okay, and down to the Crock avoiding any water on the track, down into Murphs, droppy drop into there ducking and weaving, then last climb out killing me before finally down through the Quarry Reserve and back to the car...

Quite big in the end, 22 kms and 777m climbed... (oh, plus the 4.6kms from home to Nelson's work).

Saturday Kennedy's Across and Down

Sunday expected to be wet so planned my ride for Saturday afternoon.  Morning dawned wet, but that soon cleared, to no detriment to the trails.  Drove to Monsieur deSpa's after 1 and we headed for Kennedy's, around the roadways (getting funny looks for not turning into Worsley's Rd).  Cashmere Rd and then into the Quarry Park, heading up to C2.  Download, and up.  Good climb, though I was feeling really unfit.  Gasping for air a lot, and generally feeling wrong.  Put it down to lack of good sleep and nutrition.  Made pace overtaking a couple of older guys, and another solo guy, and in Siberia caught up to a fellow plus-sized tire guy, and the 6 of us all headed up the steeperer Kennedy's track together, with Paul and me kinda gapping them but not.  By the time we got to the really steeperer bit my cock had gone completely numb, so I had to stop to get blood back into it, so the others all caught and overtook me, with Paul leading out the top.  I knuckled in behind the solo guy (behind the two older guys) and meandered on up, feeling slow when such slow people could beat me.

Onto the road and plussizedtire guy rode with us around to Worsley's, where we peeled up into the Nun.  Excellent blast down this keeping good flow all the way to the bottom.

Then up the road to Vic Park, avoiding the Thomsons, spotting some gloves on the road, which Paul picked up.  There was a couple at the top "these your gloves?" "nup", "alrighty".  And off we went around the Traverse.  Nice bomb around except for the climby bits, and then we bumped into a workmate (Jenny) halfway around.  While talking to her the couple from the top turned up saying that a guy had come up asking about the gloves, so they'd chased us (above on the road, then back along the singletrack towards us) cos they'd said they'd put them somewhere for him.  Here I realised it was 4 o'clock and I was supposed to be home at 4, so now I was in trouble, so off we headed.  Good run the rest of the way round and then excellent descent down the ridge singletrack, nice pops on the jumps, and then out the landing strip to the new track Nelson had found on Tuesday night.

Into this and down, all the steeper bits are so nice, and cool rock features, and then after the gate it gets better, with one really steep drop (with good roll out), then around and across, avoiding all the old 4wd zigzags...  NICE.  Then into the recent entry to Old Skool, and with the muscle memory fresh from 4 times on Tuesday, I absolutely honked down the faster flowier bits, while cruising mellow on the slower bits...

Out the bottom and a haul across town back to Paul's, into the car, and was home by 4.45 - straight into the dough making for pizza night, not tooo much trouble to be had.  (phew).

Big loop, 32 kms, with 754 m climbed.