Grey Mt Grey Sunday

Missed any rides earlier in the week due to being in Hamilton for work, so was pleased when Miranda was organising something out of town, to which I suggested Mt Grey and got a few takers.  Jet in the car, rack on the back, round the corner and picked her up, and two others, Jon and Andrew were in attendance, travelling in Andrew's car.  We convoyed north through drizzle and nearly rain, then up into cloud shrouded Lake Janet, finding Nelson having just arrived.  A cold southerly blew through here.  On the bikes and climbing, climbing climbing.  I stuck back with Miranda who was cruising nice and easy all the way up.  Eventually we caught Andrew above the Lookout Tower, and then rode together up round to the radio towers, where we found Nelson and Jon taking shelter from the bitterly cold wind, entirely engulfed in, maybe, 50m visibility fog/cloud.

Time for the descent:  I led the way, with Jet, mainly just to get the hell out of the cold wind.  Down the first wee techy descent and onto the singletrack proper where we waited and watched the others appear through the mist.  Now, on down.  Nicely groomed as per my last time, tho very slightly soggy-er, rolling round and in and out round the ridges and through the ruts and over the rocks, realising perhaps this is actually quite tricky for a rooky like M.  But, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right?  She was smiling the whole way down, whether through fear or joy, who can tell.  Kinda rode down out of the cloud as we were heading into the forest.  Used all of the new 'shortcuts' through the higher corners, and I made it round some of the corners, or just did the usual dab-plant-flick-roll through others.  We regrouped several times, letting everyone reassemble, but blazed the longer stretches happily, with either me, Nelson, or Jet out front.  Great run through all the good bits.  Jon ended up hangin' forward with Nelson and me, enjoying his new found passion (having only got a proper bike recently), and Andrew and Miranda took up the tail-end charlie role.  Again, regrouping many times to make sure everyone was still alive.

The order of the different sections all seemed different to memory, amazing how that happens.  The muddy section, must be about 2/3rds to 3/4ths down, was muddy as hell, tho maybe a tad drier than my last.  But the lead in to that muddy bit, and the bit after it both were entirely different to what memory held.  Lovely lovely riding tho, all the way through to the end.  We regrouped for a while on the big wooden bridge, before fanging out the bottom section.  Awesome.

Washed off some of the mud in the river then hit the slow climb back to the cars.  Again, I stuck back with Miranda while the other three powered off ahead.  Jet stuck with us.  All the way up, my front wheel was making a weird 'gloop, gloop, gloop' sound - water in the rim...  Hit the road and we were home about 1.30.

Gave the bike a jolly good wash when I got home, and lubed the chain good.

Huntsbury with O.

Then, in the afternoon, O said, "can we go for a ride??"  Not one to pass up my 10 year old son asking to go riding, we hit the road and parked up top of Huntsbury.  Rode up, him climbed well really well, and rolled up to the top of the landing strip, then headed down this, over the fence and onto the singletrack.  Blasting down, through the next gate, and he followed me right over the first jump (impressed!), and then followed me down all the singletrack, popping and bypassing each of the jumps depending.  On the lower couple, the drop leading to the wee double, he bypassed the drop then rolled over the double and went straight over the bars.  We rode back up and did it again, this time he cleared it but didnt quite have enough speed, and the back wheel hit the landing, but he made it...  sweeeet!