Tuesday night quicky

Nelson to mine from work, and we 'rona'd to Hillsborough Tce.  He had his old bike cos the new one had rearwheelbearing issues and was at the shop.  Had word from Andrew the others would be meeting at Kaizuku (or whatever its called) to ride up Huntsbury.  Nelson and me had other plans, but as our routes were similar, kinda expected to meet up with them.  Up Hillsborough, up The Crescent (noting, on the way to the gate, that the brown wooden place on the right, at the top, is for rent, $225 a week, seems pretty reasonable for a cool ass location!), and onto the Farm Track. 

Grunt began and at the first rise i needed to layer off.  Much better, off up we continued, grind grind grind, mostly in 2nd, sometimes granny, sometimes 3rd.  Nelson, of course, powered off ahead and we didn't meet til the top.  I cleaned it all, for a change, not burning out except for once.

At the top we sidled round the fence and met the small gate i'd never noticed before, crossed the road and up onto the groom-assed track that is now Mt Vernon which we continued our climb over to cross the road again and stopped for a nibble amongst a couple of posses of other riders, including Daryl who we had a bit of a chat to.

Got going, me out front, and bombed it, tail wind speedsters, feeling good.  Nelson caught me on the wee climb and then again after the pond, and at the usual break point i gave him the lead.  Weird fuck up at the dipper, i slammed on the brakes cos i remembered it had washed out all that time ago, but no, it was fully rideable, which, if memory serves correctly it may have been last time i was through.  Anyway.  around after the next cattlestop Nelson nearly lost it because some other riders parked on the side of the trail distracted him momentarily.  Fun descent past them, over the wee yumpies and then blast round into Vic, dark trees, and up to top. 

Here, we decided to keep it a short ride and not go do a lap of the 'Nun, and so headed straight down to the see-saw, a few BrakeFree's and then across to the rockgarden, into the Gummies, the gum leaves on the little left hander track all slippery and interesting, then finally all the way down and back up onto the skidder site.  Nelson continued all the way down the rest of the single track and rode back up the road to the skidder site.  Here, i checked out the jump Bex had cased a few weeks ago.  She'll be out of Burwood Brain Injury Rehab Ward soon, i hope.

Next up it was me first into Shagga's, nicely cleaned up, berms all tidy like, and then on down Brents, keeping right and getting in on the last breaths of Rad^Sick, then Bridges, Flow, New Bridges, blaze blaze pump pump, over hanging grasses nearly getting me near the bottom, then the blast down the 4wd to the hard right, change down, through the creek, and...  stall!  Bugger.  Nelson out front for the climb and grind grind for the two and a half minutes to the top.

Around onto Old Skool and oh what fun.  Good wind action, getting rid of dust quickly, i sat tight on Nelson's tail all the way down, hopping and pumping all the same spots.  Was really fun.  Finally, through the rutty end, and rolling down the gravel to the road.  Riding back to the car we spotted Andrew's and the other's vehicles parked up at Kaizuka's.

Good ride, short, 1 hour 50 mins, taking it reasonably easy.