sunday

a whole week gone by, rain and resting my ankle up. Cotic frame arrived. waiting now on a seatpost, then i'll build it up...
rode over to steve's. chilly start. soon warmed up tho. Tony, Steve, Pete, Matt, and another guy steve on a rigid old avanti, ridden with us before. up Farmtrack, left down single, round witch, up road, down castle to bridle, then back up castle, down road, round witch, up single across and down Oldskool bowenvale. good spin, 12 oclock at bottom of bowenvale so we went for a coffee... the trails were just on the greasy side of dry. my ankle is definitely getting better.

Sunday a.m. Rapaki,Summit,Greenwood,Thomas

Rode across town, mild morning, to Steve's. Andrew, Tony, Pete, Matt, and Wayne. Steve not well. headed up rapaki, pushed good all the way up, hung a left, good flow round witch hill, then a good blast down Castlerock to bridle. good push round road, good flow round John Britten, then break for snacks at Greenwood. pretty good flow down there. some nice new bermed corners in the top section. the slats were slick as, i got skittery on it, and i thought to myself, someone's going down on these today. turned out it was Pete. headfirst into a rock, putting a nice dent in his helmet and giving him quite a shake. rolled on from there, good rest of the way down. then down Capt Thomas. bombed it pretty good, taking it a bit easy, baulked on the first of the techy rock bits i usually ride the left hand line down some sort of steps cut into a big rock section. cleaned the lower two nemesis's, tho, dabbed the bottom of the first one. quite a few walkers around corners so took it easy all the way down. then good road ride round to Whack, and then i rode through Charlesworth to linwood and home. contemplated cemetaries, Kerrs, river, home. maybe next time. (tho, just calc'd that adds a kilometre or more...)

Thurs night quarrypoach

Wednesday night, i hacksawed off the cracked seattube, filed off the burrs and set it back up, also, straightened the derailleur hanger. what i didnt do was double check the H and L screws...

so, the Last night. hooked a lift with Pete, we met Matt, Andrew, Tony, Wayne (no steve) over at Halswell Quarry. rode up round top of quarry, near the top, grunting up the final climb, middle ring front, big cog down back, hear the derailleur tickling the spokes just a little, didnt think much of it, then CRUNCH TWANG CHICKITTY SMUNCH... stopped very quick, bottom half of the cage is ripped open, jockey wheel out, derailleur well and truly embedded in the spokes... ugh. found the wheel, two washers, bush, and bolt, straightened up the cage, worked out how it all went back together and fixed it up. re-adjusted the L screw, and rode on... sweet. uneventful after that, other than the gears are out of whack again, skipping in 2nd and 3rd, but okay in 4th, so most climbs were in granny and 4th. over quarry, down to bottom of Crocodile, all the way up that, over to the gate, finding a good groove down the singletrack to the gate, then back up and down, good groove again. Pete had light issues, attachment and battery life, one of the ironing out aspects of first night rides... other than that, no hassles. back down crock, and back to cars...

sunday, solo worsley, nun, vic, cool runnings...

Steve and Pete were in Hanmer, and the rest of the boys wanted to do a Scumner ride, which i couldnt be bothered with, so headed out on my own. Due to not having had any diclofenac all Saturday, my ankle ached the whole ride, really munting my mojo... Anyway, headed up Worsley's, No Tresspassing signs all over the access points to the 'Hidden' track, more's the pity. i was feeling pretty tired, so ended up walking the last of the body bag. oh, and noticed also that my derailleur hanger is bent, probably from the crash that did my ankle in... plus, the seatpost was creaking a lot, i've GOT to get the hacksaw on that frame soon. just as well i'm getting the Soul, this switchback frame is tired for now... anyway, over Marley's, down flying nun. at the corner leading onto the little new sections before the 4wd section, i met the guy building the new line across. all good. bombed down to kiwi, then up road to Thomson's, down through pines, spotted the teetertotter, ran into it a few times but just didnt wanna screw up and have to bail on my bad ankle, so chickened out. then did the 'brakefree' track, a few good wee jumps there, but not quite my style. then down through gums, had a good run down there, then up to top of Cool Runnings, good run down there, major earthworks just before the Darkness, and then out 'Bridges' as its appears to be called, down the washout drop, and down Bowenvale. spotted the zig zag track is being opened up again by the look of it... just from the first fence/gate below K2. dead end at pres. cautiously went through the final gate, and treadled home. home by 11.20, nice and early.

Cotic Soul... coming my way soon

Today i've purchased a brand new Cotic Soul frame off of paul at http://www.essencebicycle.co.nz. should get it early next week. constructed of Reynolds 853 goodness, its been on my drool list for quite some time.

dirtrag review of it...

and a little of what 'What Mountain Bike had this to say about it a few years ago...
"What really sets the bike apart, though, is the way it integrates the tall Fox fork into it's geometry without even a hint of the strike capability it's packing. While the DMR flaunts its big fork and demands you ram it down the throat of any trail obstacle you encounter, the Cotic really does talk quietly whilst carrying a very big stick. In fact, the invisibility of the extra fork travel is almost it's undoing. We often thought the back end was kicking around more than the others before we realised that the forks wre thumping around at full travel.
"Hit technical stuff and the enhanced capability is obvious. Even with the less than aggressive cornering tread of the Conti Verticals, hitting corners with the bike as flat as possible, saddle tucked well down towards a dropped knee and rear wheel sliding became second nature. Saw the big bars back and forth as you stamp down the power through the exit and there's no trace of tuck from the front end and every watt you can muster goes straight into the trail rather than being scattered across roots and rocks.
"Weight balance is also superb. It's easy to pop the front end up over trouble or skip the whole bike sideways to a new line, but it's still totally planted on even the most vertical climbs. In the coimpany of the Cove and Inbred we soon became blase about cleaning crux moves that we were normally only accustomed to managing on race specials. In fact, the longer we spent with the bike and the harder we pushed it, the better it responded. Even on our most cack-handed days it lifted our riding to new levels.

and bikeradar gives it a 4 1/2 stars

once the current geared switchy is built into the soul, will i no longer be 'the swtchbckr'...? will i have to change my blog name??? considering i love to ride switchbacks, i think i can safely keep this name...

Mcleans Singles spin, first lights.

over a week since my ankle. on diclofenac for it, still a bit twingey, achey in the mornings...

Nelson picked me up, and we picked up Matt, in the Bongo, headed out Mcleans Is.
me nursing the ankle. first lights ride. most of first lap with light off, second half with on, but due to dusk they were a bit dim... good spin, but i was being very careful, remembering my thumb crash out there. adjustments needing to be made on the new seat on the single. weird getting the hang of it all again. second lap seemed to flow better, was getting hang of lights and reading the trail again. BAD PIG STINK out the northwestern end of the park.

Weather was performing amazingly. while we rode there was the odd lightning flash. we just finished the second lap, talking about doing a 3rd, when it absolutely HOSED down. we skeddaddled to the Van, fast as, and got under cover asap. driving home lightning was going off all around, the wind was howling, rain pouring. fantastic.