Another Tuesday, similar to the last

Massive posse assembled itself at the whim of Steve at the 19th Battalion Memorial in Vic Park, with... Pete (and two not-so-smalls - who proceeded without us), Nelson and Me, Marie, Matt and Lance, Wayne, Andy, Steve and Tony and Robin in attendance. We tootled off up the singletrack to the skidder then huffed and chuffed our ways up the Latters Spur (or main drag) then up past the see saw and up the coffee break climb and round to top of Vic / Thomsons. Big regroup here with lance (and Nelson) lining up Hauraki Radio on their dials...

Then a nice blast down Thomson and Thompson to the Kiwi and another bit of a regroup while people filled and emptied water and on up road to top of Worsley's where Lance was chatting with a crew and a van telling them where the riding was. the rest of us chuffed up to top of nun where there were already one or two (including Mel(? who Mark and Marie know)) on her homebuilt internally geared machine followed shortly by Rich(? connected with Mel) on his crabon fibre homebuilt internally alfined machine too. him and friend took off first, then of our posse I was first off, down the Nun, having myself an excellent wee blast flowing nicely and carving and yumping and gliding and pumping loving mostly all of it - except for the fact that my back end seemed to be squirrelling all over the place, on account of the pressure being perhaps a little low. Myself, Nelson and Pete continued the full descent down to te Kiwi where the rest pulled out half way (cant understand it myself, its not like the climb back to that point is particularly hefty...?), anyway, i flipped my Soul over and proceeded to increase the airpressure contained within, then we treadled hard to attempt, in vain, to catch the others...

huff huff huff and we got to the top pretty shortly after the rest of them, with Robin slow and steady not far behind us. Again, i took the lead and this time dabbed within the first few metres, nearly ploughing myself into the side of the trail and screwing myself thereafter of a smooth ride down. Every thing i could fuck up I just about fucked up. my entire game was OFF. but, somehow managed to keep it together, albeit maybe slower than previously, and was just getting back into the groove on the lower reaches.

At the Kiwi end we struck up conversation with a nice young lady from Auckland (we found out) who was travelling with another young lady who's entered in the Nationals DH at Mt Hutt this weekend. These were who Lance had been talking to at Worsley top. Andrew and Matt werent showing, on account of Andrew fixing (yet) another flat, so Pete accompanied Nelson and me on up the start of another loop, bailing at half way while we continued up for go number 3. The others bailed down Old Dyers and i'm sure they had a wicked ride.

Go number 3 was better than attempt number two. This time at the top conversation was enjoyed with the owner of the Black Sheep i've met up there a number of times before heading down. This time i was much more attuned to myself and the trail. Nelson and I stopped and examined a couple of bits that we'd not really looked at before, trying them once or twice for good measure, then blasted on down having a splendid trip.

Onto Old Dyers trail and really getting the flow out of the first bits, thankfully this time i avoided a bite from the Lawyer, Nelson wasnt so lucky. Juddered down the fast bits onto the 4wd bits and then grunted back up to the car where we met Pete again, him having just been up to meet his "smalls" who he would pick up at the bottom of Bowenvale.

Home via Indian and a wicked hot Vindaloo for me enjoyed with an Owld Speckled Un.