Quick Tuesday Greenwood

Car load of Pete and myself with three yoof (Alistair, Nico and Brandon), met up with Steve, Marie and Tony, Robin, Wayne, and Warren (who'd ridden up, good on him), at top of Mt Pleasant Rd. We tootled off down onto Greenwood, the yoof ahead. Pretty quickly over took Brandon and Nico, and caught Alistair before a regroup at the downhill start before the ruins and again the yoof headed off ahead. This time we gave them a much bigger gap.

Greenwood has been mown. This isnt necessarily a good thing as now instead of finding your way through long grass, you're wondering where the hell all the rocks are under the straw cushioning all over them... Quite a concentrating experience, having to stay fully focussed as to where you're pointing your front wheel, balance caught off guard regularly by hidden lips and bites of rocky teeth. Personally, i didnt think it was slippery at all, just hard to find the good lines.

Still, managed to get a good flow on and catch up and pass first Brandon then Nico and eventually caught up with Alistair on the side of the track, his bike parked upside down. "You got a flat?" "Nah, thats how it ended up." LOLz. I led off with Alistair chasing and somehow managed to drop him, and had a great run the rest of the way down, except for both rocky ups where i juuuuust wrong geared it and couldnt quite momentumise myself over them requiring a single foot dab to push off again. Got to the bottom and (surprised to see) Pete, then Alistair, then the rest of them, rolled in.

Once again, the yoof headed off first while us oldies stood around and chatted. then we headed up, Pete and me riding quite hard, which was killing me, still worn out from Sunday. At the Richmond Pines we the boys had stopped, and we talked a bit more there then headed on up the road still, for a blat of the Britten Reserve singletrack. I ran out of steam on the first climb, but was okay after that. pretty tight singletrack and i dont remember ever doing it in that direction more than once or twice in a distant past. Was quite good. Regroup at the end, then we headed back, with a splinter group of Warren, Alistair, myself and the other two yoof heading down through Britten Reserve, a fast and wicked descent with a few surprise rock drops and near misses, then i led them down Major Hornbrook, through the park to Cannon Hill then down an alley way that spat us onto Te Awakura Tce and St Andrews Hill Rd, then we headed across the Ferrymead bridge to await our magic carpet that is the Falcon. Took us WAAAY less time to get down the hill than the cars, and eventually Wayne drove past and pointed back saying Pete was back before the bridge, then Robin, then Steve all saying the same thing... Txts were sent and Pete came loaded us up.