Sunday Easterned, out of, into, and out of the fog

Got the early txt from Pete saying he wasn't riding so organised me a lift with Steve and Andy.  Jumped on the singlespeed and spun my way through the mist to Steve's to squeeze into the van for the bumpy ride to the Slum -ner.  We rolled out of the fog across the causeway.  Met up with the two W's outside the 'Com and headed around to and up Richmond Hill Rd.

The grind begun, I pulled ahead in my only gear, managing to stay on top of it til around the second main bend and a wee ways up the steeper straight, from whence I began my walk of shame.  Climbed aboard a couple times but couldn't sustain momentum without exploding a lung and so walked some more.  At Sanscrit Place I managed to ride again, stopping at the next intersection to wait, Steve being the first to arrive, the others losing layers lower down.  Cold wind blowing down the hill, once on the grass the grade got heinous again and so back into 'low' i went, shanks-pony for the next little while.  An easy gradient zig zag singletrack wouldn't go amiss on this hill, and the sheep have done a pretty good job of starting it.  Exploration time soon to suss something out, methinks.

Out the top of the farm park, onto the summit, into the cold misty fog and on up to a slightly skittery greasy-ish Greenwood.  I managed to maintain a lead, skittering my way down through the mist, the trail pretty dry most of the way, just the slightly damp rocks allowing tires to pick up slightly damp dirt and messing with traction.  A few dabs, then a regroup under the worst rockfall danger before jetting off down again, through the cleaned up stuff, excellent berms in places, smooth sailing for my rigid bike.  Down out of the fog, then out the bottom, and watched the others, followed by another guy crashing up on that corner in the wee valley.  He said once he got to us he'd 'just stepped off'.

Next up it was Godley, all of us blowing the initial 'gunbarrel', me walking right from its start.  Cleaned surprising amounts of the next section, then had a great run round, a brief section of more fog which didn't last too long.  Whilst in the fog, we heard the Tsunami warning sirens being tested, sounded loud enough from up on the hills... Cold stops, so we continued down, peeling left down the farmtrack we came up last time.  Onto the road briefly, then I saw a track taking us directly to where we wanted to go rather than down the gravelled road.  (A left turn here would lead down to a singletrack that heads down to the hairpin on Scarborough Rd, will explore next time...)  Over the fence, stile, then down the singletrack heading for the Taylor's Rd.  Excellent downhill track, good traction, fun (and longer than expected) track.

Finally, onto the road for the grunting climb out and over blasting down Scarborough (seeing Miranda at the bottom!), then round the waterfront to coffeeeeeeeeeeeee.