Long one today... Quite the ride... Boxing Day, 11.43am, Troll equipped with frame-, seat- and basket- bags with sufficient gear to keep me clothed whatever the conditions, I headed up from home. At the park the rear disc started to rub the mount so I pulled up in the shade of the pines at 19th to bend and adjust. Got rid of the rub and kept moving. Push up the worst of the skidder track then at Brake Free stopped and chatted to a couple I'd met at a Halloween party (the night before I got covid, so I asked "did you get it then??" Thankfully not). Onwards up to the Summit Rd and a nice cruise east along this. Good pace, feeling good, nice descent to Rapaki and nice descent to Bridle, with the requisite climbs in between.
Into the Bridle Path and it's a lot steeper than I'd remembered... Gravel surface, and scared pedestrians. Jesus some people over-react to a bike riding past. ffs, calm down, old lady, I'm not gonna hit you, and if you didn't hear me coming you should fucking be more in tune with your surroundings instead of away with the fae. Anyway, my brakes started to heat up, then make some god-awful sounds. And by the bottom of the road section it sounded like they were already metal on metal, and were rubbing again (but it was pads this time, not against the mount/frame - cos it went away when you slightly applied them). So, down through town and to the ferry, with 5 minutes to spare for the 12.50 sailing. Yay for metrocards! Hot on the ferry, until out on the actual water, nice breeze and some salt splash through the window.
Off the boat, onto the wharf and climbing up the road, to the shop. Bought a peach ice tea and filled my first empty bottle. It was quite hot. Little more climb and then a glorious brake free cruising coast into Purau. Been ages since I'd been here. Into the climb, and feck it's hot. I stopped a little way into it, in the shade, and plugged my t-shirt onto my helmet to protect my neck. This made it better and occasionally there was a nice breeze would kick in. 
Quite the climb up here, took a good hour or more with some walking thrown in. Very few cars, couple of motorbikes. T-shirt off head, and into the descent. A 4WD had been past not too long before, but I figured they had a good lead. But no, caught them up about 2/3rds of the way down and had to pull over to let them go as they weren't going fast enough. But because the brakes were cooked and sounding even worse now I didn't want the risk of overtaking and then getting into trouble. Totally horrible sounds emanating from them the whole way down, then zz zz zz zz once I was on the flat. 2.30ish, hour and half over from DH. Baking hot in Port Levy, heat from the low-tide rocky shoreline. Brief climb then here's the Pigeon Bay turn off.
Narrow gravel road, nice gradient, cruised up this for a bit then decided to stop for a rest. Nice shade, tree, text out to T warning I might need a lift - those brakes were not going to survive Little Akaloa Rd. Snack. Feeling better. 
Had met a silver toyota coming down, then a "Virtual 4WD Tours" Range Rover bombed past, uphill. And prior to him I'd heard a motorbike in the distance. Seconds after the Range Rover goes past I'm hearing the motorbike, then seeing it sideways then stop. I ride up and the guy is pinned under it. He was okay, obviously in a bit of shock. Japanese. Couldn't lift the bike, so I helped and we got it upright. He'd been going really slowly, the Rangey had given him a fright, then he was kinda in the gutter and couldn't see properly cos of the dust, and had lost it! I rode on, seeing the Rangy on the road above on the other side of the valley. The climb continued. At some point, around 3pm, I rang T and said I'd probably be an hour to Pigeon Bay, could she? A little while later I see another 4WD heading down, across the valley. I got quite a bit further up, monitoring their progress towards me, and surprised them somewhat. Young teen driving, sedate looking father in the passenger seat. Good on him teaching his kid gravel road skills. Onwards and upwards. A couple of walking sections, quite steep. Quite tired. (this second picture is more-or-less looking directly home, the way I came, that saddle being the Purau-PortLevy one, and Cashmere is straightline behind it). More riding, more walking, meeting a couple more 4WDs in convoy. Then, nearing the top finally, one last one, and a final steep to walk to the summit at 500m(!).
Into the descent into Holmes Bay. Decades since I brought the Marina up over here. This descent would be glorious on the fatty, or the Rocky. But the Troll with no brakes, it was kinda nerve-wracking. I had one close call, sudden appearance of a fast moving white Ford Ranger (Cord or Corde emblazoned on the side). I kept well left, he 'freaked' foot off gas, veer towards fence, past and onwards. Rear brake was barely doing anything, front was threatening to skid out on the loose gravel the whole way. I wonder how Extra-terrestrials would handle this. Likely a lot better than the Big Bens. Hairy downhill, final glidey lovely speed into the bottom of Holmes valley, then the road widened up a bit and I was passed by a couple of smaller suv 4wds full of young folk on the final climb, leading to a glorious gravel, sealed, gravel descent of cruisy coasty goodness. Past the refuse station and an interesting looking kid of the dump guy and through a busy party bach zone, arriving at the Pigeon Bay Valley Road end T intersection at exactly the same time as Tra'y.
In the end, I'm quite glad I had to call short the trip at Pigeon Bay, my body wasn't really up to it - I was shattered from the heat and work of it all, and that final climb up PBay valley would have nailed me, let alone the rest of the climb up Summit Rd to LA turnoff (520m in total). And no brakes on the LA Rd is no joke.
A rather solid 41 kms, with 1600 m altitude gain.
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