Saturday Nun other than the Guv'nor

Excellent spin today. Up through Vic, 19th, Skidder, Worm and top. Thompson's 1 and 2, through the Pass and up the road to top of Worsley's, and down the Nun. Across the road onto the Governor's Bay track, dropping merrily down all the way down through all the bushy zigzags, across the driveway onto the DH here down more, around into the valley, a couple of wee ups and downs then on the ridgeline before the last zigs and zags I turned around and climbed back up. 

A fair bit of walking but some good steep riding too. Across the driveway again and tried a new track off one of the earlier hairpins - obviously built for the planting that has been going in there.  Slightly too steep to ride a lot of, I walked a lot and rode a little, all the way up to the last hairpin on the OG track up there before the road. 

Onto lower Nun to the Kiwi, up onto the road, through Dyers Pass and up the Summit then the usual blast route down through the rabbit paddock, Rocks, Gums, all the way down onto road, 235 to the bottom, clamber back to road and home

14 kms and a tiny smidge over 600 m

Thursday Evening Out the Numb

Bloody good one tonight. I popped down at 5ish and picked Nelson up from Bowenvale Ave, leaving his car there, and we rode up into Vic from mine. Up thru the usual combo of: road, 19th, Skidder, gutser to the top.  Spotted a FLOCK of kereru from up here, flying past.  Musta been about 12-15 of them.  Amazing!.  Then dropped into both Thompsons for the funtimes they always provide (walkers leaping out of the way etc).  

From Kiwi up the Scummit to the upper Governor's bay trail entrance for a good blast down.  I was taking it a bit cautiously, not sure why.  Wasn't feeling on my game at this point.  Hit this all the way around above the dude's stone house then down the zigs and zags, progressively tighter and now flowing through very nice bushy tunnels.  Across the dude's driveway and stopped in the gums for a moment, then hit downhill trail, which was cool and had been a long time (over 4 years).  It was tinder dry.  Stopped at Reuters Park (halfway down, trail heading around above Gov's to the right), spotted some blackberries, then more, then more. 

Had a good gorge on them.  Then knucked in for the rest.  Across, then dropping down through the valley, cleaning all, nice and dry (wet in the past) followed by a couple of tight wee climbs, before sidling around a little more and dropping into the switchies to the finish.  This time (unlike the last two (only) times) we headed up up the road.  Thankfully hardly any traffic.  Bit of a grind but a hell of a lot less taxing than riding (and walking) up the singletrack.  From the Kiwi, up the road to the top of Vic.

Down here, around over the two jumps, see-saw, Brakefree, and onto Sesame St.  I baulked and rode nanna line into it, but had fun on the rest.  Through the skidder, lots of people here, and into Razza's which was fun as hell, steep and dry and loose.  Into Rad, I should have, but didn't jump the jump in here (gotta session it some time), then across into Sneaky Ridge for a rock filled gravity propelled gnar-fest down and around.  Nelson dropped me by taking the No Road Bikes section.  Jump of the fence and then down through nuBridges, bombing down the valley and straight into Hidden Valley Climb.  Hot work.  Around and we stopped at the high point for Old Skool.  Some blokes turned up, they rested so we took off.  Gooooood blast down here, but starting to feel tired.  Then I heard a rim-strike and after that was paranoid my rear tyre was going down and getting washy so was kinda nursing it down.  At the bottom I discovered this was not so, and we cruised effortlessly down the road to Nelson's car.

A superlative 527m climbed (740ish descended on account of starting high), with 14.8km roamed.

Friday Solo Sneaky Park Gov Vic Skool

Parked on Ashgrove Tce and rode around and up the trails behind Princess Margaret, up onto Lady Polson Lane and on up Hack and Dye.  Above the Takahe I stayed on the road and at the 35 km sign, just out of the houses, headed down a trail someone (here at work) told me about.  Upon entering I found a gazillion trails to try from, so mostly kept right, with the occasional crossing of other trails, made my way down the steeps.  Some excessively steep stuff in here, and eventually across a log in the bottom and a short clamber to the lower reaches of Loess Rider.  Into the park and up the lift, chatting with Josh and riding with a couple of his mates (who are trail volunteer crew for the park (and who told me of lots of plans)).

Off the lift, and Slummit Connector into Nun, then across the road and dropped into the Gov's Bay Trail.  Dropping down this, it's running pretty smooth and then decided why the hell not all the way down, and zigged and zagged to the road corner driveway and dropped into the lower reaches, only my second time ever down this, first in daylight.  Good wee trail down tho not as fun as it possibly should be, considering the climb it is back out.  Which is what I did next.  Ugh.  Long bits of walking cos it was just too steep and hot.
On the way back up, looking back down.  Nice bushy shade to rest in.

Up and up and up, riding as much as I could.  Finally, out the top, across the road into the lowest end of Nun and then up the road and into Vic Park, dropping down across the rabbit paddock and into the rocks and gums, then Spazza's into Sneaky Ridge and bridges, off new bridges into old and down to hospital corner.  Then up the hidden link into Old Skool.  Finally following the roads back around to the car.  Good spin.

20.96 kms ridden (and lifted), and 990 m climbed, of which 400 odd was lift...

Thursday Steep crew again

Met up with the makings of the same crew as last week, more accuracy in name gathering this time, Mark, Phil, Tones, Rob being stalwarts of last week, and another Rob and another guy who's name I didn't catch, plus Nelson and me.  Met them at The Takahe, and set off at 6.30pm.  Headed up Vic Park Rd, hanging a right a little way up, down some steps and through a nice wee forest trail down to the Harry Ell track, climbing this up all the way to the top, only pissing off about 4 runners on their ways down.  I gronked my knee trying to step up the rocky step up just above the road, and failed to clean the steps half way up.  Good run the rest of the way.  At the top we could hear some dumbarse boy racers yelling on the road below, sounded like they'd dropped a wheel off the road or something and were having trouble.  haha. 

Everybody attempted the steeeep loose climb into the macracarpas of the lower Thompson, some with some success, others (like me), not so much.  Up from here then up the road to the top Vic Park carpark, then above the road, climbing up towards Sugarloaf to the carpark.  Some steep in here, and a fence. Next it was off down towards the Kiwi.  Some techy rock steps and drops and right at the bottom some fucking horrible steps that I baulked and walked.  From the Kiwi we rode up the road to the first saddle and headed off down the Governor's Bay track (lower entrance), and within 50 m Nelson had OTB'd; happily with no injuries.  Onwards again and we headed all the way down the switchbacks, ducked through the (VERY) tight shrubbery at the bottom and out onto the driveway. 

Now for something we'd never done...  Down.  Down down down, steep(ish in places), greasy (southern facing slopes), and thankfully (considering the circumstances) not too tech.  But, good blaze down, a regroup half way, and it wends and winds it's way down all over the place.  One super wet greasy section that had one of the Robs (in front of me) off the side of the trail, and caked our tires up something wicked.  A short climb within, then back and forth down a bunch of switchbacks to the end (the last(?) driveway up from Governors Bay on Dyers Pass Rd?).  Regroup here and it was off up again.  Nelson and Rob raced off ahead, by all accounts cleaning heaps, but dabbing and walking a few bits.  I got in there and flailed my way into the first couple corners and spun out and lost balance and dabbed and walked an awful lot of the way up, being overtaken by all except the guy who's name I didn't catch, who was dragging behind worse than me.  Caught Phil and Tones up a couple of times, but they were cleaning heaps more than me.  29er grip????  or just my ineptitude?  (the latter, methinks).

Back at the driveway and regruppo'd and then off up through the shrubs which just ruined me.  The switchbacks above here I've never had much luck on, and I had the power in some but not the balance, or I had the balance but ran out of power in others.  The main track across the face above the road I had more luck on, except for my balance constantly pulling me over to the left, leaving me walking a whole bunch of the top section to the waiting guys. 

Across the road here and into the lower reaches of the Nun, me taking very carefully after last week's shoulder damage.  Across Dyer's Pass and up the road to the top of Vic, dropping into Coffee Break across and back then down into Brake Free for a few yumpies, then around and back into the rabbit paddock and down through the rocks and into the gums, blasting left into my favourite, I had Mark tight on my tail, yelling out instructions "LEFT" to those guys behind him, and Nelson in the lead.  Popped, dropped and wove our way down to the skidder site for another regroup. 

Across towards 19th memorial, like last week, cruising across the top again and down the trails we'd taken last week, but once in the walking trails instead of heading down we continued across and up a bit, past the slide (tho not visible), and down to the Dog Park.  Through this and down to the lower exit into those pines we've ridden up and down a few times.  In the pines, Phil led us on a wild goose chase across looking for a 'cool trail' they'd found years ago.  No luck, but we ended up back near the top of the forest (lower end of the dog park) and worked our way down a not-bad track to come out at the top of Harry Ell Drive, bombing down this around into Longhurst and back to the cars...

over 600m climbed, in 14.5kms