Sunday morning small posse

Got myself across to Steve's by 9am (via Stanmore, Nursery, Wilsons, Opawa) and found there him, Wazza and Wayno.  We headed around and up cRapaki, taking it at a nice easy Steve's pace.  We held back with him until the flat bit where Wazza and me headed over a wee singletrack above the trail, then for the final climb I pushed hard ahead and exhausted myself for a nice rest at the top.  Somewhere on the way up cRapaki my MapMyRide died, stopping at 7.99kms, stupid thing.  Off up Vernon, following a couple of real slowbos, and staying on their tails because we were holding back for Steve, but once we got past them I powered on ahead and around and up and around and over and stopped at the start of the Traverse.  Quite a few people around here.  I snacked and we regrouped, then onwards around the Traverse, keeping a good pace going, catching up to various oldies on the way round.  Fun fang round and then I lost my chain just before the end, coasted to a stop and re-engaged, following the other three to the top of Vic.  Into Thomson and Thompson, nice blasts through the two of these.

Up the road to top of Marleys, and time for a lap of the Nun, so lined it up, waiting for a young grom to put on his knee pads and get going, but these two older slower guys got in ahead of him.  I headed in after him and never saw him again (til he'd popped out half way), but I caught the older guys in the rocky sections.  Once past them I had a good blast down, only muppetting a couple spots.  Good speed in the lower reaches.  At the tree on the corner near the bottom a rooster clucked out in front of me and squawked and holla'd ahead of me for a few metres before getting out of my way.  On down and through the jumpies, missing them, and avoiding my nemesis jump. 

Back up the road and over and down the Body bag, getting some good speed down here, the bike feeling really smooth.  Hung a left towards Braille, and then a hard right onto the newby Nelson and me had found.  The guy was working on it, so I thanked him and he wished us good riding.  We had a good blast down here, the boys enjoying the trail a lot.  Dropped onto the trail at the end and fanged off down this.  Wet spot where Nelson and me headed up for the Jumpy trail, and the 4wd below here got greasier and wetter and muckier the further we went.  Total passenger material, with one loss of control by me when we passed a riding couple squirrelling their way up.  Where the jumpy trail comes out the trail was dry again and bombed down to the road losing a lot of the muck off our tires.  More removed at 60 whatever kph on the road, diversion on the mtb track on the left, then into the Farside tracks.  The boys all took 1 Trick Lucy, where I opted for Utopia.  I felt like it isn't used much, and was fun, but got me out the bottom quicker than them. 

Down the road and stopped in for a coffee at the cafe in the Cracroft shops, then met Andy and Jenna around the road a bit from here and chatted, before heading around the river, across the Beckenham Loop and I peeled off up Eastern, Wilsons, Nursery, Stanmore home.

Steve'sMappedRide says he did 28kms, and over 720m or so altitude...  chuck an extra 10 kms on that for my commute, and we're even.