Tuesday spectacular evening, Capt Thom Godley Taylors.

finally got out of the house and over to pick up Nelson. We were supposed to meet the boys in Sumner at 6.15, but was only just collecting Nelson then, so rang and told them to leave without us and we'd see them if we caught them. Got out to Sumner after 6.30, hit Captain Thomas, rocking up it, me blowing near the top, fighting to not puke. Still, made it up before 7. The boys were waiting (hadnt been there long) for us at top, and we continued the rest of the ride with them...

exhausted, blew the first rocky bits of godley trail, but rocked the rest of it. excellent descending to first col, me tight on Nelson's tail, not giving him any leeway, and Pete fast catching me and sitting on mine, clatter clatter. put a bit more distance between us on the descent into Breeze Col tho. then down Anaconda, Pete first, then nelson, then me, and andrew steve and tony following. managed to keep ahead of Andrew and even managed to gain on nelson nearer the bottom... still not used to that final corner, and still not used to 'the tail' down to the end.

tried a new zigzag from carpark up to first road hairpin, not good. showed nelson the Sumnervale track, which we're still to explore, and had an excellent flight down through Nicholson Park and down scarborough. back to DotCom just after 8 or so

Sunny Easterly Sunday Arvo

My parents dropped in, so i grabbed a lift up to their place sunday afternoon 4.30-5ish. biked from there, up through Vic Park, dropped down to Old Dyers Pass Rd Trail, and on the big corner, decided to explore down a 4wd track that heads west. fun wee hoof down that to the end where lies a mattress, a dead bmx and a dead scooter, as well as someone's illegal dump zone... grannied back up out of it back onto the main track (the trees in that wee valley are plenty open now, so some sneaky trails in there might be the go...). on up old dyers, bit of air in the back tire, 5 or so riders coming down, to kiwi, then up road to top of Worsley's, over marleys and down Flying Nun, nice wee new side line been build off just at the top of where it becomes 4wd track half way down, then on below the road fun fun fun. crossed pass below Kiwi, headed up summit rd to upper thomson's, then round summit trail, into the cold cold easterly. bumped into James (angrywadder) just before the Lava Flow, stopped and chatted a bit, then continued round and bombed it down to Rapaki, then bombed it down there. home 6.30-45ish i guess, battling the wind all up Wilson's Nursery and Stanmore Rds...

thursnite rapaki witch vernon old skool...

shortish ride last night. nice to finally get out with the lads again. Nelson andrew tony wayne steve and me left steve's bout 6.15. nelson on his single. cruised up rapaki. bumped into James (angrywad ) on rapaki, and at the top was jeff and roly. nelson and me and them hoofed it round witch hill single and back, then chased steve et al up vernon singletrack. met up with them at the road crossing. huge group of riders were riding at same time, saw them on rapaki a couple times and at the top and along single and where steve etal were waiting. we took off ahead of them, and hung a right down old skool. somehow wayne missed the turnoff and continued, which made andrew go look for him, he didnt find him. meanwhile, i'd bombed down oldskool to the first gate, stopped to see if others were following, they never showed. was about to head back up when i heard a funny voice behind me, which turned out to be my phone (otis saying "doctor foster went to gloucester in the pouring rain, stepped into a puddle right up to his muddle and never went there again")... steve. so, i rode back up to him and nelson. then we decided wayne could find his own way down, and we bombed it. nice trip down the rocky bits, then singletrack beautiful flow. one gorse bush got me bad in the knuckles, yowch! tony flatted near the bottom, then while we were waiting with him Wayne showed up, had realised well round the traverse, and turned back and come down Old Skool... rode home as dark was falling, flashies on.

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.

Saturday Climby Solo.

Got my jobs done (painting deck, vege shop and bikeride with Otis - Tagalong Spencerpark loop) so was allowed out for an afternoon ride. Drove across and parked bottom of Rapaki/Vernon Tce. Realised as soon as i set off that my (new) rear tire was a bit low in the air department and that i'd left my pump at home...(d'oh!), and how heavy and hard work the Nevegal is to push along... still, climbed farm track, middle ring to first gate, then granny 2nd/3rd rest of way. hit the road, turned right, up to top of Huntsbury track - spotted a guy on a white bike, white rims, white fork, looked like a Cycleway sign on the hillside, asked him if i could borrow his pump, put more air in my back tire... then i got onto Vernon singletrack, back towards Rapaki. Blitzed it, new tires gripping nice, me getting some good flow on and going really fast on the fast bits. past all the riders stopped at top of rapaki, on round the witch hill singletrack, up road to Castle Rock, beautiful flow on down to Bridle Path where i stopped for a OneSquareMeal bar. while sitting there, 4 supermotard style big bikes came FLYING round the summit road, one pulling a huge wheely as they passed the top of Bridle, nice.

Headed back up Castle Rock track, cleaning all but a small spin out just near the top, then onwards down summit road back to Witch Hill, past rapaki and all the bikers stopped there, up vernon single track, deciding to bail to the road at top of Farm Track, road to Huntsbury, round summit traverse to Old Skool Bowenvale descent, blitzed and cleaned all, tires gripping a beaut. then onto the newly made section at the bottom, which will (when finished) be pretty cool. then back round bottom of hill to car. beautiful day too.
Sunday, Otis and me tagalonged to Andrew's place and back... quite a number of kms for a wee fella, and he did really well. howling norwester, heavy headwind home.

bottled

too wet to hit the hills, cos of heaps of rain over previous 12 hours, so a quick spin round bottle lake last night with nelson, on the singlespeeds.
pretty un eventful spin. The odd small rabbit about. from main entrance we turned right, took the southern loop, then in after the landfill, up the middle all the way up to Spencerpark, then back to main carpark. surf was noisy, popped out to beach for a look. trails were wet, and any new teddington chip layed was soggy... all in all, not too bad a spin. cold in the open low bits, mild in the trees...

Moony Thursday Sunny Sunday

Thursday night, drove over to Nelson's, we hit the road, him on the single, me on the newly transformed 18 geared bike. was good cos i kept up with him all the way up rapaki. wicked full moon, no lights required. then we stuck to the road round to where the single crosses it, then we thought we'd mix it up a bit and headed up into Scotts Reserve. MINT singletrack to be had, with a gentle climb into the macrocarpas then a techy wee descent to the first wee saddle. then into the next section of reserve (all crater rim 'walk'way), walked up the first switchbacks then rode onwards, more techy descending. fun. then onto the summit trail round below Sugarloaf, then down through gums, top of cool runnings, too greasy to ride first section past the wooden dropjump, then down and through and out funstyle. me leading all the way cos my bike handles better than nelson's singlespeed.

Sunday. daylight savings morning. rode to Tony's for a 9.30 meet. matt arrived by car, steve and wayne arrived by bike. toodled off to Worsley's. good ride up, middle ring the whole way to the body bag. watched some 4x4s go up the bodybag, then tackled it ourselves. i blew it right near the top, but then managed to get going again and cleaned it out... then over marleys, to kiwi, fanging it, then up thomsons, round summit, lotsa oncoming traffic, then down old skool bowenvale, cleaned all the offpiste lines, but blew the second to last rocksection, got re-started and cleaned up the rest. nice. then swung by Steve's and grabbed a nevegal for the front, which i'll match with the new Maxxis Advantage i'm getting this week for new rubber side down.

Thurs single, then non ride-ish

Nearly forgot about it... thursday night, Al 29ed and i singlesped, up rapaki into the cloud and drizzly mist, bypassed vernon to singletrack below road, around to top of vic, thomsons to kiwi, down dyers, up into vic, then down zig and zag to 40footer, then down Nationals dh k2 valley and out... nice spin tho i was pained going up rapaki. 7.30 to 10ish...

sunday, otis and me went out to bottle lake and had a quick inner loop spin with the tag-a-long. was good...

monday night, i swapped the 20inch with the 18inch, mountain to town to mountain... all my own work. headsets and bottom brackets inclusive... just gotta get some shims for the rear disc now and i'm good to go. town bike handles nice as a 20inch.

Tuesday Morning Worsley's explorations, Marley's Dyer's...

T had taken O and H to story time at the library, so i drove to Nelson's around 10am. we rode across to Worlsey's and up. when we got onto the dirt, we detoured onto the the 'secret' dh track, riding up it to the dodgey 'wall' then up the forestry track hidden away in the woods there. instead of turning left off it above the pylons, we continued up it, only to find it spat us out at the top of the cool cliff top thats up there. we explored around that for a bit getting into the forest a bit. its all wide open in there and the potential for more trails is incredible. the pollen is going off a the moment. the forest floor is practically fluoro green, and after walking about for a few minutes our shoes were the same colour, little puffs of pollen at every footstep. back to the bikes, we continued up the 'secret' track. the builders of it have done more work on it, with some sections getting more and more flow, even upwards. kept an eye out all the way up for a side track across to worsley's proper too, to no avail. hit the paddock, bombed down to bottom of body bag and boosted up it.

Hit Marley's, bombed down that, flowing very nicely. half way down nelson's seat clamp came loose, then i took the lead, bomb bomb bomb... down old dyer's trail. then up into vic, singletrack from 19th batt. memorial, over and down to lower cool runnings, trying out the righthand line for a change just after passing the top of Dazza's... good flow all the way down there, feeling excellent through the 'darkness', over the bridges, round the side, through the next trees, bumpy bumpy bumpy, down the 'washout' bottom of k2, then out bowenvale. stopped to examine where that guy died..
all up an excellent ride.

Single Haul...

Al turned up to my place at 7.30ish on his new rigid 29er singlespeed, and we spun across to Nelson's. headed across to Rapaki, and up. ugh. i had great difficulty, tho, with a couple of rests, managed to ride all the way up. the 29er has a lower ratio than Nelson and my 2:1's, making it a bit easier on the climbs... had a go on the 29er on the climb around witch hill. swapped back for the descent. then continued around summit road to Castle rock. let Al cruise off down there, nelson and me watched him go, and the light looks amazing. then honked into it. nelson on my tail all the way down, pushing pushing... bombed that til just after the second switchback Nelson's chain jumped off, then by the end of the climb i was just catching Al as we rolled into bridle path. waited up for nelson then headed down it to Morgan's Valley track. headed round that, i walked a bit of that climb up to a horse, then nelson got a flat, pumped it up, rode on following the fence, thats a blast that section. then he changed out the tube cos it was getting too low again. then hit the single track, me leading. mint trail that, absolutely mint. except for the pesky sheep with lambs scattering left right and centre... switchbacks down, then into the scrubby stepped section, then beautiful cruise into and through the quarry, and then down the steppy switchbacks to the bottom. rode all of them, nelson had one off, Al stepped off a couple times... then, ferrymead singletrack to Tunnel Rd bridge, then new trail along to the cut, opposite side of river to usual, potential for mintiness... then up the cut, and along the singletrack on southside of the bank to Radley St. then ferry road, nelson departed us at nursery road, stanmore, home... 11pm.

saturday cruise...

saturday, left home at 11am, rode across to rapaki, up, then right. round summit trail to top of vic, thomson's to kiwi, then up road a tad to the Gov's Bay trail. dropped down it, nearly losing it big time on a soggy patch near the bottom, then turned round and attempted to ride back up it. got a lot of it, but walked a bunch and dabbed heaps too. she's a steep wee trail. then, on up the summit road to the lower section of Marley's / Flying nun, back to the kiwi. then up road to top of Vic again, back around the summit trail, hesitantly at first, thinking "can i really be bothered?", "aren't i tired enough already?" but continued on and then bombed it down the old skool bowenvale, having some interesting times on the rocky sections, cleaning them, but losing momentum on the very last gut-drop onto the main track. the singletrack section was sweet, but then the last zig and zag had soggy bits on it, tho cleared them and out bowenvale home. 2 and a half hours all told.

sumner twice

friday. biked from a meeting at work, 1204 i passed C1. headed out ferry barbadoes waltham, wilsons centaurus, up rapaki. easterly blowing so figured i'd go into it along the top and that way i'd have a tail wind home from sumner... at castle rock i figured i'd explore the tors reserve. carried the bike up to the top along towards the 'actual' tors, and then headed back round the trail i'd ridden in the other direction previously. not nearly as rideable as i'd remembered. lots of rocky offy bits i wasnt game to ride due to the enormity of the descent that would entail should i off... anyway, 15 minute detour done, i rode back up the road to castlerock and down the singletrack.. bombed it. pinned everything, looking where i was going, ie, looking where i wanted to go, and the bike just flowing. nice.

then up road to Greenwood. flew down it, again, bike going exactly where and how i wanted it to. flowy. sweet. then down capt thomas nearly losing it on one of the techy sections, then dabbing at the bottom of the upper of the two ex nemesises,

then the slog back, tail wind tho, which was helpful and faster, and home, ride duration 2.5 hours


then, today. cos it was father's day, pete steve and me rode from sumner 1.30 in the arvo. headed up capt thomas. good haul up there, nice not to have any waits. (spotted a new singletrack (running probably) across the other side of valley... mental note to explore next night ride...). then out godley. stuffed up the first techy, but cleaned the second. then all the rest. rutties out on first downhill were interesting. from breeze col we headed the lower above road route, then back round below, and down anaconda (SMOOTH!, good jumpies). lots of dumbass boyracer action going on over taylors and sumner way... spotted track off taylor's road that said "sumnervale" which to my reckoning will be the trail we'd seen from capt thom... down through nicholson and coffee at dot com... ride duration 2 hours. nice.

both rides on the geared beasty.

sunday night scopesville.

tag-alonged with Otis on saturday, southern loop at bottle lake, were intending on playing in the sand at the beach for a bit but he wasnt keen once we got out there...

sunday, couldnt get out any earlier, so i drove to nelson's and we hit the streets at about 7.45pm. headed straight into cashmere, up dyerspass road, hit the (notso) H.Ell trail to the kiwi... then up road to upper marley's, up the zigzags, down body bag then stealthmode to the new 'dreamtrack' which turns out aint so dreamy afterall, specially not at night... oh, and we decided that it aint a motocross trail, its definately a dh'ers trail... anyway, its pretty wicked, twisty through trees near top, across this clifftop rocky section, then back into the woods. lots of kickers with no run-in so we took pussy routes, and lots of constructed rockgardens that 6 or more inches of travel would soak up, but that hardtails just get eaten on. still rode most of it down, some lovely swoopy sections, found the lower section, which had some wicked (rideable) drops and then some ridiculously wicked (unrideable) ones. scoped out where it might go lower, but it doesnt, but it should. then we headed back up onto the lower section of the 'wallride' trail out to bottom of worsley's, then over to the watertank, down a 'used once or twice' 4wd trail following road down to new subdivisions, then on road down to new westmorland valley park trails, bombed them and then back out. nelson's light was getting pretty orange by the bottom. cross town to his and then home. 10.30 by the time i got home... heesh.

single track gold.

awesome ride. explorations, discoveries... amazing. so. parked up down near princess margaret hospital. headed up worsley's, but instead of going up road, explored new trails that went undivulged with nelson and my night ride the other week... up where we came down, then down where we went up, then back up that, then on up to the worsley's road. then up to the track... then, where i'd discovered new homebuilt trails up there i thought i'd explore a little further... well... found a motocross trail that is being worked on, followed it to the top, discovered its secret entrance and will ride down it next time, with nelson, and or steve et al.

then headed up body bag, cleaning it, and over marley's to kiwi, up thomsons, down gums, lower cool runnings, across and down washout, and out bottom of valley. excellent ride, mainly cos i'd discovered this dreamy singletrack, even tho i didnt ride up much of it,...

tag-a-longing and proper ride...

saturday and sunday went out to bottle lake with the single speed and Otis (aged 3) and the tag-a-long... google it. anyway, he loves it. the seat is as low as it can go, and he can pedal, and he laughs and chortles the whole way. i go "pedal hard, pedal hard, pedal hard" as we go up hills and we come whooshing down them.. saturday was with dad, who couldnt keep up, and sunday was with mary and gigi who were marginally better. gigi did pretty good in fact... anyway. more of that will definately be on the cards, and the tagalong attachment will be a pretty much permanent fixture on the single from now on...

today, before picking up O from preschool, i parked up in Sumner and headed up Capt Thomas. bit sticky in some places but mostly pretty good. then headed out Godley. my gears working less and less and finally on the last descent to Breeze Col they gave up completely, middle ring, and it dropped down to small cog on back. flew down anaconda, railing all the berms, launching all the jumps. then along the 'anaconda's tail'... at the bottom i checked out my gear cable and it was totally snapped. just as well i had my spare. so, threaded that up and headed up out of taylors, checking out Gigi's rental property in taylors that burned down last thursday... i'd never known which house it was, now i could just tell from the blackened bushes surrounding where it used to be.
good descent down nicholson park and out to the car.

my thumb is still giving me gyp. wearing a neoprene brace now, which is good, but i probably should have strapped it. hurts most on the bumpy downhills gripping the bars and braking...

who knows when my next ride will be. hopefully wednesday, again, before picking up the boy.

new baby disrupting sleep greatly.

first post new baby ride!

welcome to the world my new son, Hugo, brother for Otis. he was born on saturday, so has been hangin' with his mum in the hospital. so, before dinner on sunday up at my folks, i took the bike up and headed out for a spin from theirs. Up through vic park to top. thomsons to kiwi. up road round top of marley's, down flying nun, one close call near kiwi, then on down below dyers, up into vic and back down past the tv tower above the folks and back. bout an hour... good to get out. hand still in plastic braceysplint thing. hurts to ride with it, cos my hand gets crammed into it, feels like bruising...
dunno when the next ride will be.

explorations, then kennedy's slog - singlists

drove over to nelson's, singlespeed in the back. he'd spotted some new trail whilst out walking, so we went up to have a squiz. its in a valley (whose location i shan't divulge) that's been sitting idle for a long time and i've always wanted/wondered about trails therein... anyway, the council has cut some new track in, so we explored. up up up we rode/walked occasionally, til we reached the top of this valley, us being the first bike treads evident. at the top we discovered trails that have been there a lot longer than this new one, making us wonder if there was secret singletrack lying un-ridden for years, known only to the local walking brigade. anyway, zigged and zagged up this track to a road(that i wont name) and then back down and down to the bottom of the valley again. basically, the newly cut track we went up, we should have gone down, and where we came down, we should have ridden up. we'll do that next time.

then on round the bottom of the hills, found a little more singletrack a long a section of stream that kinda runs through people's front gardens but doesnt, and then on round to Kennedy's. wandered up through park towards bottom of croc. very soggy in there, as always. crocodile is fully shut, “respect the dirt” (dan van asch), so we headed up the backside of the quarry park thru the un-lambed lambing paddocks to the final zigzag onto kennedy's bush road. then up the track. rode lower new tasty, then hit the main track up.

no dinner, getting late, howling cool wind, i walked a lot last night. was running out of steam by 8pm, half way up kennedy's. even nelson walked the top section, legs of titanium needed up there... then round summit road to worsley’s rd, and down Flying Nun/Marleys which i must say is in absolutely MINT condition. its hard packed, no ruts, not even remotely soft, and i only counted one puddle the whole way down to the kiwi.

Then, because nelson’s light was getting orange, mine was starting to fade a bit and my back-up had all but run out, we coasted down the walk track just above the dyer’s pass rd (harry ell?) all the way down to the takahe. then down hackthorne, right into dyers and on down. back to nels's along the lombo around 9.30.

sunday

pissed down all saturday evening, and all night, but sunday morning dawned fresh and clear.

cruised over to Steve's. like a revelation being on the geared switchbacker. fox plushness all the way... met wayne, hubby, tony, pete, steve. toodled through streets to heathcote cut waited on tony with a flat, on to Mt Pleasant Rd, slog up to summit road (not nearly as bad as on the singlespeeds with nelson the other week). turned right, round into the howling southerly and fog/cloud strewn tops. sunny valleys glowing below, spectacular. sticking to the road the whole way. pete, tony and me rode the witch hill section of singletrack. Castle rock and Mt Vernon singletracks were closed. then we headed down Huntsbury Track. gravel not as bad as it has been, fast and a little boring... then cut through to Major Aitken, i pointed out Nelson's section, and down we went, humming down the smooth tarmac. then home before 12...

stilll no baby. due date was the 1st.

fiiinally... rapaki, road, traverse, thomsons, old dyers. singlespeeds

finally got out last night. singlesped over to Rapaki, hooked up with Nelson, headed up. haarrd work. a few stops for rest. 13 days off the bike due to injury does not a happy singlespeeder make. anyway, nelson pulled away, got past some guys so didnt wanna stop and wait, meanwhile i plodded on. got to the last climb, strong headwind, just starting into it and weight too far forward, back wheel spin, oop, i'm going over, fell left, feet didnt unclip fast enough, smack on my knee and landed left (damaged) hand out. jarred it but didnt tweak sore thumb, but fuark it hurt like hell. considered giving up then and there and heading down, but cos nelson was so far ahead, i had to go, so walked all of that straight, up round corner, then rode the last bit to the gate, struggling... rapaki is full of scour and ruts from all the weather...

vernon trail closed, so headed round road. thick thick fog and strong southerly blowing up on tops, hit Huntsbury gate onto Traverse, spun round there, being careful, greasy, but trail in good nick. nelson had a nice tumble on the rocks just above oldschool bowenvale, then another later, i was ahead at this stage so just caught the first and missed the second. good spin round to vic park, down Thomsons to kiwi, then down Old Dyers Pass Rd. first bit below kiwi with good chip on it is in perfect condition, but then that runs out and its dirt/mud. then creekbed pretty much... man there's been a lot of water up there, and there still is, the trail was running clear water its had so much all the silt has washed away... huge scours and gulches eaten into the 4wd track before the road...

finished off by heading up onto the walktrack above dyers pass rd, and coasting it down to the takahe, then rolling down dyers pass rd to the bottom of hill... then tootled down colombo and home.

oh yeah, night before, took new switchback frame round to nelson's and we pulled the kona townbike to bits and loaded them all onto the new switchy frame...
my whole stable of bikes are Switchbacks now...

no ride weekend...

alas, hand needs to rest. but, here's my leg!