Sunday East End Meanderings, plus bonus Bottle Ache

Lots of riding yesterday, i spent nearly 6 hours on the bike, and got a chaffed ass as a result.

Round to Pete's Sunday morning and we Linwood Aved to Ferrymead bridge where we found Steve, Wazza, Wayno, Tony, Andy and Marie.  Off round to McCormacks and up, cleaning first hairpin, but not the second, then blowing it on the little steep between the flaxes above the bridge, then on the top hairpins, Andy got them all, I missed one, and everyone else followed with varying degrees of less success...

Out onto Mt Pleasant Rd, and we slogged on up round to Upper Major Hornbrook, where we had a rest before hitting up the nice sidling singletrack to the top.  Everybody made a good effort to collect lots of poos on their tires for the relishing of later.  Hung a right on the road at the top and headed off up Broadleaf Lane, at the end of the tarseal i was pleased to see a "Please Keep Gate Shut" (as opposed to the usual Tresspassers will be Shot sign that could have resided there).  We ground up the gravel section into some cloud to the radio and cellphone antennae and masts.

Over the fence, past the mast, over the next fence and everyone's faces were a little perplexed cos there's no trail visible, just tussocks...  I led them off down onto the trail and away we flowed.  Nice wee blaze down the ridge and before we knew it we were on top of Greenwood.  Off down here we blasted.  I had an excellent jaunt down this, as I think most did.  A few others around; when we stopped just after the Gulch of Gloom, we could see a big posse just finishing off down at Evans.  They headed back up the road as we descended.  Near the bottom, at speed on the big sweeper around to that macracarpa tree my front tire got into some freshly exposed loose stuff on the inside of the turn and started to go - i envisaged myself going down hard, nearly did, got a foot out and catapulted myself back up to the vertical, finishing off the last bend down to the stile getting a little shakey...  phew!

Onto Godley, I cleaned the first section of the rocky start, but lost it part way through the solid rock exit, then cleaned up the rest of it.  Some good work done further along this track, with the pinch point half way along tidied now into something rideable.  Andy had received a call from Hubbster that they were working on Anaconda and did we want to ride it.  Most of us had other stuff on so didnt want so spare the time, but Marie was keen so she continued on her merry way onwards out Godley to assist.  The rest of us headed down the fenceline to the road and over down the sweet trail, at high speed, down to the Taylors Mistake Rd.  Then shunted our way up the seal and Pete and me decided to explore Nicholson to see what lay beyond the barriers...

Past the first barrier (at the Flowers Track turn off), and down to the next one...  hmmm.  no getting through there, so down the hill and our exit was in sight, but barriers abounded, so followed the fenceline behind an abandoned house for a bit, contemplating climbing down through its yard, but no, onwards along the fenceline and then carried up the hill back to the track and then on down Flowers, but riding out the Private Right Of Way out to the old driveway/road and bombed down the rest of Scarborough and round to Dot Com.  Coffee and bagel, and a tailwind home.

Bottle Ache
In the afternoon, with my sis visiting from Melbs, little H was keen to go for a ride at Bottle Lake, so the three(+dog) of us headed out there, me with the singlespeed, Sis on the old Schwinn/Extreme, and H on his blue singlespeed, and Jet the dog on 4 paws.  He had the best time, running the whole way round.  It's opened up through the middle again, with a nice new section through tight trees bypassing a mountain of rubble from the city.   H was amazing too.  Going hard the whole way.  Sometimes I'd watch him bombing down a hill, getting sketchy and saving it with absolute confidence.  He's an awesome wee rider.  Sis really enjoyed it too, and Jet was the star.  Flat-out, the whole way.  Drank from the stream of water from my backpack no worries too, and met lots of friendly dogs.  Good boy!