Wednesday Night Stealth Protocol

Bit of an explore tonight, first night light hill ride, for Nelson and me.  Picked me up after work and we parked up very top of Major Hornbrook, not Upper.  Rode up to Upper and onto Britten, climbing away like two climbing things, puff getting right up before we hit the trail.  Settled down into a steady slog to top, then round top of Britten, rocks slick as pigshit under dampened tires.  Nelson was struggling all evening with his tires pinging about the place.  Mine, not so much. 

At Cavendish Saddle we headed up the switchbacky trail to the top of the Gondola.  This section is a good wee climb and well worth the effort, for a there and back, in future.  All fully legal too...  unlike what we did next.  From the gondola we followed round under the building to the Lyttelton side, and ended up riding right round it...  hmmm, then found the trail down, wondering where to go for a bit, then deciding on the Track Closed trail down the ridge towards the Bridle Path.  Some slippery steps, slick rocks, and then some sweet flowy bits, followed by a couple of walked bits and more riding.  I had an OTB near the bottom, nothing hurt.  then it was true stealthmode, up the road, no lights, to top of Castle Rock track. 

I led down this, excellent run, quite slow, but flowy.  Nelson, not so much.  On the climb out i had one wee dab, but otherwise all good.  At top of Bridle Path, we kinda couldn't be bothered riding back up the ridge to Cavendish, tho, it probably wouldn't be that bad.  So, we decided to see what all the fuss was about...  headed round the road.  Kinda freaky.  amazing how the trail weaving and wending through the rocks is all on relatively pristine tarmac, surrounded by mad mad rocks.  But, where the blasting has been done, round the corner, into the wind, walking bikes over massive piles of rocks with yet more above and below was just a bit nervous making.  Definitely not something I'll do again.  At the big fuck-you chainlink and razor wire gate/fence we clambered through the side and i was relieved to be out.  Then, once over the final gate, illegality was passed and everything was ok again. 

At the saddle we stopped in the lee of a flax and had some Onesquare then headed on up the trail to the top.  Not a bad climb, tho i was getting puffed and weavy near the top, and annoyingly the gear i wanted, ie, granny on front, 3rd down on back, slipped, so i was either spinning fast traveling slow or grinding slow and hard for the right speed.  Dunno what's up with that?  Onwards to the top, then due to Nelson's pingy-ness on the slickrocks I led off down the hill, my light starting to cut out now and then, which pretty much made Nelson have to stay behind me for extra lighting.  Eventually, once on the top of Greenwood back towards the top, and my light cutting out a heap more times, realised it was due to, not only a bad connection, but also the light binning out trying to draw more current than was left in the battery.  So, put it on low, and it never cut out again, all the last of the Greenwood then all the rest of the way down Britten, bypassing the gate and taking the 4wd tracks across the hill onto the downhill walking track, then zipping down the car.