I gasped for breath all the way up, on account of a bit of a cold i'm suffering with right now, tho, keeping Nelson in sight all the way, we eventually made the bottom of the Bodybag, having been passed on the way by a young fella'me'lad hauling ass up the hill on his full susser and ridiculously wide bars. His mate followed up behind us, saying the first dude was an energiser bunny.
Off up the grunt track and into the single, looking for new beginnings i'd heard tell of... Firstly, we spotted an old section of trail, followed it and found it to lead to the bottom of a super techy downhill coming from somewhere on high. Followed it up a bit, but didnt go to the end cos we'd barely be able to ride it anyway, big drops over logs into more drops over logs on silly steepness... back down and on down, spotting a trail off to the left that i'd noticed before but was definitely looking more cut up than the past. It was going the wrong direction to what i was expecting so we continued on down to the big cliff, not finding anything else, so we headed back up to give it a try. Below one of the steeper rocky sections, in front of a couple (the woman of which walked the rocks), my chain blew out, major slippage, and i garked my knee on the stem or crown, but didnt think much of it at the time.
Hit up the new trail, and it was fun, a few jumpies doable, and one or two not quite, but rollable. It joined in with the usual trail lower down, above the pylons. There was a group of riders heading up the 4wd track in there next to us. We continued on down our usual route, blitzing left after the pylon gap and keeping right to take in the nice droppy section down and over down to the 4wd climb back out. Where it meets the gate there were some dudes playing on the jump there, two did it as we approached.
We then headed into the trail we'd walked back out of last time - this time committing ourselves to the end. Wow. what a wee trail. Steeper. Then steeper still. All rideable, til the very last chute. When my caked up front wheel started to slide i knew it'd beaten me. The same as prior, or another, group of riders were negotiating the bottom chute as we approached, and rode off up valley ahead of us. Never saw them again. Chute ended up in a spectacular wee gully we'd never seen before, amazing cliffs above (that we'd just ridden down the side of), and a granny climb sort of sidling track up valley, all hidden in the trees. Grannied uphill for a bit.
Here's Nelson taking time out to lounge around on the way up.
Got to an unrideable stream crossing halfway up, after the rock, and so we stopped and made it rideable by placing rocks strategically.
Nelson riding it (really, he wasn't travelling that quick...).
Continued on up - i walked a little - then a zig to the left and another clamber and we were on a 4wd track.
At some stage in here I looked down to notice blood on my bashguard, and when I looked at my knee I was surprised to see a nice trickle of blood running down my shin, from the gark previous. Anyway...
At the 4wd, we thought, "wonder what's up here?" and headed left, for a look, up to the farmland, thought about potential trails just back to where we'd come, in the trees. Bumpy ride back down, and on up the 4wd for a while til we found the bottom of a track, which turned out to be a couple of tracks. Hmmmm... certainly looked interesting... Up the 'least' steep looking one (which actually turned out to be the steepest) - carrying and pushing for fricking ages, the daylight diminishing rapidly, just to find out where it started; discovering a very sneaky entrance. We decided bad light no good for a first try - it is fucking steep, and there were a few unrelenting rockgarden sections with not babyheads, but troll- or ogre- or giant-head sized rocks.
Donned lights and headed on down the usual track, looking all the time out for the other trail (of the two), stopping on a couple of false leads, and eventually trying a line that looked right and finding it. Sweeeet! Excellently tracked newby which did everything we wanted it to, not too steep, curving back and forth, round and about, and eventually saw split for a low and a high line. We decided to take the high line which I suspected would take us further, and we found some awesome sketchy off camber slope crossing trail with droppy corners and some cool challenges. Rode out to the bottom - of the entrance we'd walked up prior.
Meandered back on up and round, passing the bottom of the previous 'low line' which has a sign Fight Club on it, and we all know what the first rule of Fight Club is...
Eventually on down the rest of the usuals and out to the car, feeling like we'd ridden a fair bit even tho we'd covered fuck all distance. Some mint new trails that hopefully will stay mint.
Meanwhile, now i want one of these!
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