Hanmerations

found myself in hanmer over the weekend, arrived late friday night. the bike (geared) was accompanying me too, sooo...

Saturday morning, bout 10 headed out, mp3 soundtrack consisting of Milanese, the new DJShadow, Coco Solid, a couple of Pavement tracks, and Deaf in the Family, on random.

road around to and up Chatterton's Valley. grunted up the Link Track, grannied up past the pylon, keeping the nose down, ass right forward on the seat, huffin and chuffin, cleaned it and proceeded to enjoy the downhill through the pines around followed by the short climb to Jack's Pass Rd. Next section, the downhill on the Tank Track. beautiful, a little rutted at top, but otherwise in supreme condition. then back to Pawsons, roll down to the Yankee Zephyr. another granny geared climb to top, then the swoopy fun downhill, with Pavement's lyrics "i'm weavin'" very aptly backing my sweeper followed by sweeper followed by sweeper down, cross Pawsons, onto Swamptrack, right down it and around back to road, then small climb up, down to Timberlands, grunt up that, middle ring i think, to Jolliffes Skidder site. up Jolliffes saddle track, cleaning all the switchbacks on the way down to the first Dog stream bridge, then flew all the way down to second bridge, one close call where i locked up in some gravel towards some trees. somehow managed to survive. crossed the lower bridge and found the entrance to the detox, up that, and down, my first time on this trail, one nice rock drop midway down. then back up MacIntyre's rd to Dog Stream, down that, up Jolliffes Rd, then out up and down the Red Rocks trail, fantabulous, then back had a nose in at the flat forest tracks, decided against them, and headed back to house. 2 hours. total alt, 740m, longest up only 190m.

Sunday morning. same soundtrack. up Jacks Pass Rd, down tank track, up Yankee Zephyr, and down, yay, then before lower Swamp track, peeled up the Majuba trail, which descends quite nicely and spits you out at bottom of Timberlands. up that. then out Red rocks again. then down DogStream all the way down to the campground, back through town, to tidy house.

all good.

Monday and then Little Akalala

Rode with Nelson on Monday after i'd gotten my pedals back. we rode across to and up Worsley's. the body bag got the better of me, mind you, we'd been pushing the envelope by riding the most technical lines we could actually ride all the way up, so that was fun. then up marleys, down to kiwi, blitzed that, awesome. then up road to top of Vic, round summit trail, all the climbs taxing me heavily, but i was fine on the downs and flats. then down Bowenvale, cleaned all the trickiest. funny, i always clean them when i'm with Nelson, but often bail when i'm not... anyway, bottom of valley, and home across town. good spin, couple hours.

Weekend, lonnnng weekend at little ak. went over thursday night, with the singlespeed. got a ride in on saturday, beautiful hot norwest day, stunning, rode up the road to Chorlton, then up View Hill Rd. Walked from "the crow's nest" for a while, then rode and walked a couple more times. all the way to the top gate. fantastic views of the Kaikouras and Brighton beach and chch coastline in general, not to mention the hillsides surrounding l.ak. then turned and the descent began. speedy, lots of off piste following cattle or sheep trails which parallel the track. the tuck it in and fly down the road into the bay. nice. dunno how long i was up.

then sunday Andrew W. came over with his wife and two kayaks and bike. so we took off and rode exactly the same ride. he'd done the Wharfdale the day before, in appalling conditions, so was a little sore from that, and crashing, but made it all the bits i made on the singly. same ride, all the way up to the gate, and back. the boneyards of totara stumps and logs up there are stunning. was overcast and cooler easterly when we did it...

off to hanmer this weekend.

pedal disaster... ish

tuesday last, i headed to HQ to join Nelson and Craig and some others at 6pm on a 'shop' ride. we decided to head up Worsley's, so we all headed down Colombo and round the Heathcote. along the river, towards hackthorne road my right pedal started to feel really weird, like wonky, i thought, this isnt right... and kept riding. then opposite Princess Margaret's hospital the bloody thing broke off, leaving this short stub behind. the actual axel had fatigued and broken... so, i turned and limped home, and as it was only 6.35 when i got home i decided to take the singlespeed out to bottle lake, so i headed out there, on the way seeing the result of a ute pulling out in front of a motorbike, just up the road on North Parade, (i'd heard the sirens 5 minutes before i left home), they were loading the biker onto a stretcher, he was a good 5 metres from the ute, his bike had left a big bike shaped dent over the front wheel...
anyway, after that had a great ride, spinning spinning spinning, pushing the limits of my tires on the corners, out along the beach a bit, then back in, then out towards Spencer, when my right hand pedal started to feel a bit wonky. i thought, naah, surely not.. but sure enough, i was cruising along a section of singletrack and wooop, the pedal fell off, same side, broken in exactly the same place. WHAT ARE THE ODDS!? twice in one day??? so, i started limping back, by now my shoe is starting to get a bit rough and both legs are sore from their respective innefficiencies, the left from pushing too much, the right from having to constantly reposition on the turning stub. i rang tracey who was ont he way home from dinner at a friend's and she came picked me up, mind you, i'd still managed to ride all the way down Burwood Rd, almost to the river...
so, 2 crankbros pedals broken, both same side, so i was bikeless. took them into Craig at HQ the following day, paid for the courier to the distributor, and yesterday, sunday, got them back... life time warranty. nice one.

RailTrail, and UP bowenvale (oldschool)

Last sunday, had a go on the Motukarara-Little River Rail Trail... Met my folks out at Motukarara, us with Otis, and were supposed to meet T's mum too. her jeep was there but no her, so we assumed we'd catch her up, and as there was no cellphone reception round there we couldnt get hold of her. cellphone reception was very intermittent all the way along there.
so, off we went, nice slow pace, as my olds arent overly bike fit. about 4kms in dad realised he'd left his bag behind, so off i spun, me on my singley, back to his car. calculated that if they're travelling half my speed onwards, they'd be 4kms on when i got back to where i left them, and another 2kms on when i got to the point they were then i got back to my starting point, and theoretically i should have caught them at the 8km mark, as for every km i made, they were travelling half a km. as it was, i probably made them at about the 7km mark, and we stopped at 8 km mark, Kaituna Quarry, for lunch. No sign of Joy, so they turned back and i went on to look for her. i spun and spun and spun, left Lake Ellesmere behind, rounded Birdlings Flat and headed towards Lake Forsyth. called Joy's cel and she's sitting in Little River having a feed. i said, i'll join you, and txt'd T telling her to leave without me i'd ride back to vehicle with Joy and get a ride. pedalled on for another couple kms towards Joy, and was almost at Catons Bay, which is the end of the trail and from where you have to ride the road up to Little R. Then suddenly it dawned on me, i had dad's car key in my pocket from when i went back for his bag... ugh. so, i txtd tracey, hoping she'd get the msg, and rang Joy to say i was turning back, sorry, and i turned back and hauled... now, i'm around 19kms from the cars, have already pedalled that 19, plus the 8 return earlier, on my singlespeed running a 2 to 1 ratio. mental thoughts, one was 'for every rotation i'm travelling approximately 2m, so, how many rotations in 10 seconds, how many in a minute, x60, how many kph, how long am i gonna be doing this for... and also, was wishing the wind was stronger and i had a sail... wind assist on railtrails is somethign that should be considered seriously... anyway, made it back to the others, about 15 or 20 minutes after them, is how slow they were going. we never did see joy either.

cruddy weather during week, so last night, thurs, drove across, parked at end of Bowenvale Ave, and headed up the Bowenvale track... boy, she's sure steep. with gears, granny, pedalled, walked, pedalled, walked, pedalled, walked, pedalled, walked, pedalled, pedalled, walked, pedalled, walked, pedalled, sunset was at 7.31 (daylight savings now! yay!!!) so i gave myself til 7.25 to get to summit trail, or i'd turn back downhill. made it, so i bombed round the summit into the southerly and then down through vic park, through the gums, down Dazza's, down through the valley track from there, out round the sidle, down and out to car. total round trip, 1 hour. nice. home in time to finish putting O to bed and for T to go to movie with Joy.