Great ride tonight. Watched NZ win the America's Cup then jumped in the car and skedoodled around to Scumnervale to meet Nelson. I had a plan that didn't involve going up Captain Thomas.
We headed down into Slumner-proper and around into Richmond Hill Road, riding up this grunter, and to punish us more, a headwind up the main ridge, me surprised at my ability to nearly keep up with him. I didn't flag and we made it up to the top with no issues, stopping a couple of times to check out For Sale signs. Dropped down the stormwater catchment reserve, and onto singletrack climbing into the valley and then upwards out of the valley towards Clifton Tce, then around and up the rooty trail no-longer under trees. Quite exposed here, with the southerly ploughing across the Gethsemane Gardens. Into the Frog Pond climb, both cleaning the entrance which I'm pretty sure we used to fail on (due to overhanging branches of the trees that aren't there anymore). Good climb up the rest of it, up around and on up to the pine tree stile and then up the rest to the big pines. Across into Sheep Shit Alley, climbing climbing, feeling good and strong the whole way.
A break on the road at top of old Greenwood entrance, then off up the road and up Broadleaf Lane, into the gravel and still feeling good powering up this climb. The hill work I did over the weekend, clambering for work on the Hawkdun Range, definitely benefitting me (since the pain of Tuesday had gone).
Wind singing in the tower guys, we hit the trail down. Excellent blast, I was on Nelson's tail pretty much the entire way, following closely. Surprised myself how well I held on, but once heading around towards Gloomy Gulch he lost me. I just couldn't keep up, then I took a weird new high line before the boardwalk section, but stayed high too long and basically couldn't get down, having to dab down onto it. Luckily he'd stopped around the corner and we had a break while watching a crew of 6 or so down the trail below. Jumped on and got fanging, bombing the rocks, wafting the walls and dropped around into Dangerous Dave's squiggles, flying, and maintaining my tight-on-his tail position all the way down.
Across the road and onto the Captain. Another excellent blast down this. Again, really holding on all the way down. Wicked blast.
A moveable feast of 13.75 kms, with a veritable 561 m climbed.
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