Wednesday night, just about like the old days.

Nelson met at mine after work and after providing much needed oil to my Cotic chain (having not used it a whole month(!)) we droveded over to Centaurus Rd wherefore to park.  Just on dark it was, and we headed round and for the first time (for me) since January (with O) (and according to this blog's records, not since July 2010 for Nelson) headed up Rapaki, the dreaded grovel of a graveled highway.  It was precisely as we remembered it.  We pushed it pretty hard all the way, wondering what we ever saw in it, and wondering why people would be riding down it, and wondering where all the other people we were passing were going or what they were doing.  Made the top entirely under moonlight, without once turning on our lights (unlike the aforementioned 'others' who seemed oblivious to La Luna generous offerings).

Got straight to it on the singletrack up around Vernon.  Good wee grunt, managing to still not resort to granny.  On round, lamenting the lack of technical challenge, tho, secretly thanking it for not sapping energy.  Nelson took off a layer after we crossed the road while i provided the tussocks with some dilute uric acid derived nitrogen water.

I led off round the Traverse.  Not a bad blast, not overly fast, then strangely, around about at the pond, i started experiencing a weird slipping feeling under pressure on the drive train.  "Hmmm," i thoughts, so flipped the bike up at our regular break point where the sign used to be and lo and behold there was my quicklink broken, one side actually broken in two.  Lucky i caught it or i could have spun off somewhere crucial.  Poked about in my bag and found one half then another of a whole nother unit. Yippeee!  So, slipped that into the chain and we got going again.  Moseyed around, slightly better pace, and discovered that the dipper is gone burger.  Its full of slump, and the trail has been rerouted around over it.  R.I.P the dip.  The only other slightly altered bit is on the fast descent to that nice wee jump. 

Onto the Thompson and Thomson, cant say i like the new 'feature' on the exit and approach ramps...  bloody pain in the speed sucking ass.  Otherwise, the lower section has a wee stream on it.

Nelson topped up with water at Kiwi and we had a snack break at the nun's exit.  Then off up the road in the light of the moon, watching a big posse zigging and zagging their ways down the nun above us.

Into the Nun and flow just flowed.  I had an excellent run down, no major shifts since last time a month ago  i was up, so everything was pretty fresh in the memory.  Apart from the rocky not very flowy middle section, i seemed to get faster and faster all the way down.  Was gooood.

Then it was into Old Dyers, wondering what was in store for us.  Well.  Spring, and perhaps a lack of riders, has hit it - the grass is encroaching on the singletrack, hiding the odd obstacle.  Lower down, the usually very wet sections werent necessarily as wet as i've known them.  A couple of streams flowing down the singlerut, but otherwise pretty firm.  The weather of the past week or so has done it good.  Got pretty sketchy where it meets the wide pylon/forestry track section, though.  And the pollen!  Trail and puddles were green with it nearly.  Hayfever season is upon me.

Straight across the road and up through Vic to the skidder.  Into Spazza's, lots of work done on berms in here, nicely nicely, then over to Brent's, taking the right hand options into the bottom of Rad^sickly then aunty Flo and Bridges all going pretty good.  Bit of slop at the bottom of NuBridges, where it had been an issue originally.

The creek to cross for the Hidden Valley Link track had obviously been pretty high back in that rainspell we had couple weeks back.  Evidence was all there.  Up this, granny for the first time this evening.  Cleaned it up until we got to the two switchbacks up in the pines.  walked them.  Rode the rest tho.  over the fence, and off up round and down the Old Skool.  Nicely nicely...  Nelson blew out on the highline before the stile, so i took the lead and pinballed my way down.  A few nice slips under cutting the track before too long, then lower down, after the wee digger track section, there's been some major rock work over a slip on the corner.  More slippages and reconfigured lines all in that lower section.  Whoever's been doing the work has done good shit.  Thankyou trail pixies.  I nearly kinda sorta did just about crash right near the bottom, trying to loft over this slip hole and planted a brake lever into the dirt.  Then rolled out, down the road and back to the car for dead on 9.  Excellent to get out of an evening.