wet week, singlespeed, nice weather, sunday ride, snow, VEGAS...

aannnnnd another week off. more rain, devastating destruction of the hills, slips etc... firstly, took posession of my singlespeed. DMR Switchback, 18 inch, with my old marzocchi forks, titec bars, some cheap tektro brakes, second hand wheels, and a bunch of goodstuff that Kris put on for me. have spun it a little around river, tweaked positioning of seat etc for comfort, still one or two tweaks to do. might run Freud with it this evening after work.

so, sunday, nice mild norwest day. spun to Pete's, drove to sumner, rode up Evans Pass Rd on account of there being Track Closed signs on Capt Thomas (which wasnt stopping runners...). then hit the singletrack out to Godley. Cleaned more of the first section that i expected to, but still blew it on the worst rocks. cleaned pretty much the whole rest of it. not bad nick the first few kms. was round on the flatter grassier bits, looking down into taylors that the trail's a mess. mud mud mud mud, near those boardwalk bits. black sticky grassy mud amongst tussocks. then the downhill from that flatter area to the first col was SO rutted as to be impossible to keep
upright on without having the feet out on either side. then i was on a good roll til i got a snakebite pinchflat. bang! fiss fiss fiss fisssss fisssssssssss... jumped off and ran the rest of the way down to the col. slipped in my new tube, and we all rode on. (i patched the snakebitten tube yesterday, it had two biiig splits in it). the next section was really good til the last bit down to the Breeze Col. then up and over the last hill, cleaned most of that too, down to the loo's and trees. very mucky down the last section of that too. then back round the single below the road to Breeze, then down Anaconda. i ROCKEd it. it was so flowy and smooth. bombed it. riiiight up the sides of the berms. then over Taylors, down through Nicholson, to Dot Com for coffees... excellent ride.

now its snowed again last night (monday) and the porthills are covered. they look beautiful, but now the tracks will be saturated again for another week or more... not to worry, we leave thursday for Rotorua, WORLD CHAMPS!!! and will watch Friday Saturday Sunday, and ride monday tuesday wednesday, Whakarewarewa, Whirinaki, Craters of the Moon, next week before flying back again on thursday... Switchie is pretty much packed in a box, ready to fly.

Saturday, super fine.

a week off, partly due to crapola weather, with 130mm of rain on tuesday alone, followed by a few days of fine... got out finally saturday afternoon, cos i werent gonna make sunday morning with the boys. A beautiful beautiful day, sunny, mild... hauled it across town to rapaki, up that, with its juicy scoured out ruts, hit the singletrack, walked the worst mud affected area, just above the shallow pond above the lower switchies, then rode the rest. holding together well, not much splatter at all. round the next section below the road, still the trail was good then off pisted it down through the tussocks following sheep trails to top of the oldschool bowenvale. had my headphones on, mp3player on random, mixing up Burial, new Fourtet's DJKicks, and Tunng's newest. weird mix of dark ethereal atmosphere, folk, and fourtetmixed beats/electronica/soul/80's synth... anyway, a good soundtrack to ride by. as i was descending the 4by switchbacks, a southerly whipped up real good. spittiness from the ominous cloudcover, rolling over the tops and blasting me down the 4by track, practically shunting me to a standstill when the switchbacks turned into it. thought it was gonna get worse so i didnt hang about. hit the singletrack sidle flying, there were areas like snowdrifts of clay, from where all that rain had pulled it out of the ground and washed it down hill. amazing. one set of tracks had passed before me, i wonder who, i wonder when. anywho, out to the bottom, with some treachery down the tunnel-eroded clay section at the bottom then onto the valley track, which was a mess. big slumpy slurries of mud all over that lower section, it was them that covered me in muck, not any of the rest of my ride... then tail wind all the way home, me thinking it was gonna chase me across town, but by Wilson's Rd it was still just hanging on the hills...

Rained a bit saturday night, then we had torrential rain all sunday night and monday. with snow on monday up there, so the trails are gonna be closed down for at least another week of it...

Yay, word from Kris is bike is ready. AND i scored some Mallets for $40. so i'm good to go, singlespeeeeeeeeeed. s'gonna be fun fun fun, which is what its all about !

Sunny and fine wednesday, should be drying out them tracks...

drizzly crashville mud and blood.

Sunday morning, rode over to Steves, tired as after a bit of a night before and only about 5 hours sleep... Steve, Pete, Andrew, Tony and me, up rapaki, and turned right, all good, got foggier and wetter as we went higher, and was starting to get muckier as we travelled around the tops. single track was all good, with the technicality of the slick rocks and mud covered tires getting the better of us occasionally, resulting in the odd dab... down to the kiwi, then up the road to top of Worsley's and down. started down the Body Bag (top of Worsley's) and my tire instantly started picking up dirt, til it was an inch thick, offering NO traction, i got rutted, front wheel washed out, i held it for a second then went down hard on my front, landing on my chest. nice. got up, tried to get going again and down i went again... classic. the worst bit over, i managed to hold on the rest of the way down. was a fantastic trip down, so greasy, and sketchy. just picking lines in the bottoms of ruts and interesting angles, trying not to wash out. blood mixing with mud running down my leg from two points on my right knee. we made a pact to go all the way down the tarmac part of worsley's road OFF road, found some sweet wee bits of riding too, and once at the bottom grabbed some muffins from Coffee Culture and headed round to Tony's for coffee-style-drink (ie, instant)... then Pete and me booked it across town, me exhausted, and mucky, home.

Tuesday now, and we've had torrential rain overnight, with blustery conditions. soaked to the skin into work today, and head wind all the way. This is gonna screw the tracks again...

couple rides. one with a trailside fix, and folks for tea.

monday night, having not ridden since that last ride, i took joy's jeep across to bowenvale ave and then biked round Centaurus to rapaki, and up rapaki.

all going good, until i got onto the flat section riding across that and my gears shifted weirdly, then wouldnt shift properly, cable all slack as i tried to change up to get up the hill straight. stopped, and noticed frayed and snapped cable at rear derailleur. pulled the outers out, unscrewed the barrel adjuster, and found i couldnt budge the cable out of adjuster... damn. fiddled and fiddled, tweaked and pushed and pulled, to no avail. finally realised i could use the derailleur cable clamp to hold it, then slid the adjuster. then, disconnected the middle section of outer from the top tube cable mount, which gave me a bit of slack, then hooked it all up and i was away. the shifting wasnt particularly good, and i found it was a bit jumpy in the gears i wanted for climbing, but it was fine for downhill and back round the roads to the car... haha, not a problem i would have had had i been on a singlespeeeeeed...

tuesday, big day, two presentations which always freak me, so, hit the road at about 5.20, to steves for exchange of The Collective for Roam, then up rapak, round summit, down thru vic to ma'n'pas... where T and O were for dinner. all up a very sweet ride. only mud i encountered was in back of the top cashmere houses, just below the big microwave tower. other than that, the whole lot was dry and sweeeeet. singletrack rolling. blitzed the rockgarden and gums. nice.

next ride? not sure. singlespeed? hopefully this week.