And then... the 'vid

... I got the fucking covid. First ever positive test on Sunday 30th...

Kibosh on any good riding for a couple few weeks  😩

Tuesday Night MacPleasant GreenThomas

Good spin tonight with Nelson.  We met about 6pm at McCormacks Bay.  

Headed up the Drayton Reserve valley (first since January - which coincidentally followed the same course).  It was steeper than I remembered. Lots of super extra chuff on the climb.  Onto the road, up around and up through the wee 'park' bit to Clearview, over the fence where the bath used to be and up thru Britten.  Cold easterly blasting across the heath, pushing us around a bit.  I was finally getting my breath back as we proceeded up the singletrack, not letting Nelson get away from me by this stage.  At the top headed around the front, tail wind pushing, and around to the cutting.  Over the fence and climbing again, Nelson getting his speed on and me breathing hard again.  Usual excuses, hayfever, asthma and bad sleep night before.  Parked up on top of Pleasant for a bit, and I chucked my jacket on.  

Climbed to the trig and took in the view, then dropped in.  Down to the gate, down to the stile, down through the rocks then tussocks, all hussing.  Cold-ass easterly howling across, lower down the tussocks Nelson took the old jumpy line to the left, and we found it sheepshit-raddled and grassy - no one seems to know it's there anymore.  Jumped down into the start of Greenwood proper, blasting across the ruins and into the rocks.  Around, and through the first rocky-af section, I focused on riding with right-foot-back after noticing my left leg getting sorer.  So hard to do, but I persevered 'til the corner, tight on Nelson's tail having to commit to the sketchy lines he was choosing.  Good blast, tail wind across the level bit before Gloomy, then Nelson got all snarled up (too tall a gear) through this and the rocks after the boardwalk stalled us both.  We had a rest here.

Then dropped into the next traverse and drop down, great blast the rest of the way.    and all the way down from there.  Audience in the carpark below for the final switchbacks.  Climbed up to Captain entrance and paused, seeing some riders below navigating the gate and the next section and through.  "Wanna lead?"  "Yeah, why not!? Let's see if we can catch them" so off I went first.  Good stretch across the start.  Good blast through all of it, tho that rock I nearly crashed on a while back, I clipped a pedal juust as I was about to go over the drop, which could have ended badly but I held it together.  As we rounded a lower corner I could see one of the other riders carrying down the rocky drops, so got pushing and dropped through them and caught them, the last one just navigating the drop into the wee climb.  Both of us sketched this, and then we were chasing them down the traversy bit around to the old skook section, meeting them at the gate (which has had a massive slip right under it).  They thought we were the ebikers of their group.  We weren't.  Apparently they set off 15 minutes ahead of them and they still hadn't caught up (Scarborough, Taylors, Boulder Bay, Godley, Captain...).  They let us go ahead and we fanged off dropping them instantly.  I was in the lead again, good fun times.  Lots of little surprise slips and dodgy narrows, quite overgrown lower down.  I ducked the branch that wrecked my last helmet, and Nelson clipped his foot on the same rock that threw him another time.  Final stretch down was sketchy narrow overgrown.  Nice tho, and then the winter's erosion has laid a nice smooth solid mud surface behind the gabions (which will be hell in the wet).

Final legs, blasting around the road back to the cars.  Some lovely tail wind around the narrow corner at Shag pile, and then a pretty good blast along through Redcliffs...

A splendid 17.21 kms with (apparently) 672 m climbed.

Wednesday Accoustic Commutes, tick! Post 1300

Felt like a change, lack of riding (field work last week, lots of bush walking), and needed some extra exercise so I rode the Troll to work this morning, thinking I'd get some extra work climbing home.  

But then, sitting at my desk looking at the hills, and Rapaki in particular I thought, why not?  So, for the journey home I mixed it up a bit and headed over Waltham Bridge and eventually Wilson's Rd and around Centaurus into cRapaki (over 2 and a half years since I last went up there).  Clamber clamber clamber.  The low gear is just low enough to clean it all sitting down, and with the street tires, standing up in taller gears requires rearward weighting to keep from spinning out.  Mixture of sitting mostly and standing sometimes got me up pretty good.  I was even "neearly" as fast as a couple of ebikers that crawled past me (but not the guy on the final straight who bombed past on I-dont-know-what-kind of plus-tyred bike).  Over took a fellow accoustic rider (mtb).  Onto the Summit Road for the up and around Vernon, then at Huntsbury, I hit the Traverse.  A little sketchy for the first stretch, so at top of Lavaflow I 'adjusted my suspension' (ie, let air out of tyres).  A guy rolled up, "need any help?" "nah, i'm good, just adjusting my "suspension"" "hey, you look familiar..." and a chat ensued where we worked out how we might have known each other.  (turned out he knows Derek well (plus a whole bunch of others I know)).  

Onwards, around Traverse, Trolie performing exceedingly well, and me having a jolly time.  Under Sugarloaf up rolls Ranger Nick Singletrack, so we stopped and chatted (especially about my suggested options of climbing track out of Bowenvale).  Finished with him, I rolled on and across top of Vic, down Rabbit, into Rocks and down my favourite Gummies, clearing yet more sticks off track.  Out to Skidder and bommmmb down road to home.

Grand total of 15 kms with 485 climbed.

Tuesday Fatso up to Lumberjackery

Bad weather coming over next few days, with potential for snow, and I felt the need for a quick fatty up the hill to sort out that log blocking my favourite route through the gums.  

Chuffed up the track from our driveway, onto the road, and around up into 19th, bumped into Doug, over to Skidder then up the grunter.  Grabbed some water from the fountain, adjusted my 'suspension,' and rode down into the rocks, across, around, and down to the log.  (see my hatchet sitting on the log in the top picture...) Chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop chop.  

Took it's toll on my arms - must have taken 15 or so minutes hard yakka (cos total ride time was 28 minutes, but total time elapsed was 47 - you can see the location by the squiggly bit on the MMR track) Got through it in the end and moved the lower half well off the track, and tidied up the other sticks and stuff around. Pics or it didn't happen:

Pushed the bike backwards up the trail a bit ready to ride down and down comes a dude who obviously didn't even know there'd been a log there.  After he'd passed I jumped on and chased, not seeing him for quite a ways, him taking my exact usual route all the way down.  At the 19th, I was gasping for water, total cotton mouth, so I zigged and zagged up the grass to the fountain up there behind the olive tree.  Had to lay on the ground gasping for a bit before having a good guzzle.  From here, around through the trees and then buzzing down the road, off into 235, nicely nicely through the muckery, jumps, oaks, right, up, up road, through carpark, and bombing down the back.  Home. 

Short and fat, 4.8 kms, with 152 m climbed. 

Sunday Grease Skool

Greasy spin out with Nelson today.  Up the usual from mine, road, grass, over19th trail to Skidder and up the gutser, what a grind.  Up Worm and onto the Traverse.  Not many around as we'd left mine just after 8, so the usual 9am Rapaki crowd hadn't arrived out this far yet.  Good going around this, a few puddles around after the smattering of rain we'd got overnight.  All the way to the end of Traverse, then decided further east would be skittery, so we headed back to the HuntsburyDH, with trepidation.

Skittery AF down this.  Rocks with minimal grip, we skittered and pinged our way down, skipping one or two of the jumps each.  Over the final gap and then into the continuation, grabbing the old left and sketching around this trail, then across the landing strip and into the climb over the techy wee Rock Up.  Both bailed on the final descent as grip just wasn't happening.  Decided to climb back over and drop into AliExpress and Old Skool.  A bit sketch down the first drop to cattlestop, then into the 'new' detour section, which was one big greasy sheepshit.  One dab, but trickeriness was in action.  Further down, and more sketch on slick rocks, on and on.  Somewhere we stopped and Nelson put a bit more air in his tire.

Into Old Skool, and mostly good but the odd ping from rear wheels and keeping to the lowest line possible.  Lots of fun, and a bit of adrenalin to boot.  Straight into the climb, and the grinding grunt began.  Ugh, I've GOT to get in and build a climbing trail, it's just a bit ridiculous how horrible the climb is.  Grind grind grind noticing Nelson's rear tire was a bit low under the pylons, pumped it up.  Kept grinding and over the 19th.  He wasn't behind me, but then I saw him on the road below, nursing the low tire.  He continued down the road, while I peeled off at the lower dogpark carpark do run the fun down behind the houses, to home. 

Just shy of 13kms with a commensurate 542m clambered