Tuesday night eastern chill

Nelson and me caught a lift with Pete to top of Scarborough Hill.  Pete had the Chameleon, new bike imminent.  Parked up and first Robin then Wayne and Wazza turned up.  Unfortunately for him, no Steve cos he was illin'. 

Off up the steep Godley Drive, singlespeed stylez, the three hardtails playing on the vacant lot briefly then Robin opened up the gate (after trying most of the locks).  Gravel coasting building up speed then climbing again to the next gate.  Unlocked, through, and up to next gate.  From here the washed out drifts of gravel made for hard going, but we all survived and made the road for a right hand turn towards Evans.

Nelson and me took the lefthander up off the road, while the rest continued along the seal - Pete would have joined us but was saving his lungs after a brief lurgy.  Nelson put the power on and dropped me on the climb, then with his new light warming the track, led off towards Evans.  Wind behind us, mostly down hill, it was a sweet singletrack buzz, all the way down, popping, hopping and flowing nicely.  Found the others all waiting near the bottom, Pete still coming up, trying out a new line.  While standing and talking, some dipshit was shining a green laser at us from Sumner, really bright wavering around the hillside.  Once our lights were all off they stopped.

Turned around and back up Godley.  Nelson dabbed out of the way so i took the lead and dabbed a bunch, screwing stupid stuff up, but put in reasonable effort and got going nice and quick out.  We regrouped before the descent.  Then kept it going round, through the rutty narrows, over the boardwalk and into the descent which was pretty smooth and fun, pausing to regroup again on the little stepdown boardwalk bridge in the valley.  Off down the scooped trail, juuuust managing not to catch a tire, then into the lovely swoopy left and right left and right descent, curves in all the right places before Livingston col where we had another regroup in the lee of the big rock.  The easterly was blowing cold tonight.

On up and over the next bit, remembering Hubb had mentioned nasty holes around Breeze Col, but as the trail unfolded not really finding any.  Down over the PFMTBC rock feature and then down the semi-rutty slope into the cattle stop, upon which i duly started to slide sideways, which threw me nearly off into the raupo growing on the left of the exit.  SO close...

Next up off round the trail below the road.  Duck under the low hanging wire that someone's now painted with fluoro orange, then the first of Hubby's holes, a rock in the bottom of it, then another, still a good clay bridge next to it, both easily avoidable, but then, woooah, i pulled up short of a massive wheel eater, with a tricky-ish bypass. On round and up to the highest point on the trail where we turned round and back down.  Good speed and avoiding the holes nicely. 

Up round the sealed road ever climbing to top of Scarborough, and down the nice singletrack back to Taylor's Rd.  A first time down for Nelson on this trail.  Wetter in spots than last time.  all followed finally by the road climb back to the cars.  All up a good ride, home at 9.