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.
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