Thursday Night Jehtstahr Along the Top

Brief out and back tonight with a flat.

Uphill on the Jeht, clambering over 19th and through skidder past a bunch of riders into the grunty climb.  I could see the pollen under the lights up here, and worse still up top.  

Down Thompson's #1 and back up the road, then dropped down around the jumpies and up the Worm to hit the Traverse.  Saw a light coming my way further round so I stopped and waited at the start for him to roll through, then got going.  Quite windy, blustery.  Met a couple of lights at the Sugarloaf saddle then no one else for ages.  Got to top of Huntsbury DH and turned and dived in.  One harsh smack on the rear wheel in the top rocks making me think, "ouch, that'll be a flat" but then didn't seem to be until I landed the first jump and realised.  Stopped on the side and got to work, inserting my spare tube.  Down the rest, baulking the jump at the bottom, then back up the gravelly road to the top.  Met a dh-graveller on his way down.  

Contemplation of routes from here, decided over the top of Scott's.  Nice climb in the trees then a fun baff down to the col, then into the next where I met a runner on my climb.  Walked the couple of steps bits and then nice rolling the rest, lovely section of semi-tech singletrack in here.  Boffed off down to the next saddle and crossed over the fence back onto the Traverse.  Nice roll around here back into Vic, over the jumpies, the first section of Brakefree then out to the rocks and gums, all the way down, forgetting about the tree across the lower bit before skidder.  Then down, into the To CAP (shortcut entrance) and across the old to 19th, below road from here, into Tawhairanui across to DogparkCarpArk then greasey drop down through here, all the way to H'Ell and clamber clamber back up to road to home.  Nice. 

A pollen-moted 11.3 kms and 400 m climbed

Wellington 1: Mounting Victoria

Annual trip, this year to Wellington.  Large group - Steve, Pete, Andy, Wayne, Warren, Tony, Nelson, Alistair, Robin, Mark and Marie, and of course, me.  Flew up Friday morning, got a van and wee truck, got to accommodation about 11.30 and got our bikes sorted up into something rideable.  Quick shop, then off for a short (and shorter for some) ride on Mt Vic, just up the road.  Climbed up onto the ridge then up the ridge to the top.  Here we went down what was thought to be a black diamond track (but was later discovered on the maps (by me) to just be an 'Other' track... oops).  It dropped us down a very steep and rooty which ended on a sidling trail that took us around towards the Majoribanks track.  It was here that the undoing of the party began.  Us faster chaps continued on around another 'block' of trail then climbed up a climbing track.  If the boys, who I'd not realised were on our tails (- thinking they'd taken a much more sensible approach of actually riding bike tracks), had just climbed up the Majoribanks track they would have found us at the top of it - instead they gave up and dropped out.  From here we (Nelson, Mark, Alistair, Pete and me) rode up a bit further and got onto the SuperD track, which turned out to follow the ridge all the way down and had some cool sections on it.  One particularly rooty section Pete smashed up his knee on.  We ended up at the top of Newtown and dropped out by the Bowls Club (next door to where my friends Nik and Blair lived), down past the hospital and down to Basin Reserve and back to base.  I forgot to turn on my MapMyRide so no record here... but this was Pete's... including the treadle to Garage Project we did for an excellent tasting and tour of the brewery...

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.