Another Shorty with the Doge, and T, on the Troll

Ebike Tra'y and me on the Troll quick spun the doggy up the hill. He ran and panted. I rode and panted. Tra'y just toodled along. We parted ways and I took Jet down the 235 trail for a good hunk of fun. 

Just over a mile again.  One happy dog.

Sunday Short Local Dog Troll

Love To Ride month and needed to keep up the content. Forecast leading up to today was looking like it was going to be shitty but it turned out to be a lovely day. T and me were intending on going out for another e-hoon but got stuck into the garden instead, so later in the day I took Jet out for a wee blast on the Troll, keeping it very local.  Barely worth mentioning, 1 mile with 50 m climbed, but greasy fun with inappropriate tires was had.  And the dog loved it!

Saturday Morning Summit Eeee-berries Breakfast. Then Late Afternoon Troll to Dinner

T and me took our ebikes up thru Vic to the top.  Down the road to Kiwi, and then a long way out the Summit Rd, checking out the views, and Omahu Bush all the way to Ahuriri cattlestop, overlooking Teddington.  Then turned back. Stopped and feasted on blackberries several times along the way.  Totalled 25 kms with a good chunk of 800 m climbed (with e assist, obvs)

Later in the day, I jumped on the Troll, rode up the hill to top of Vic then most of the way along the Summit Rd, into main (V-twin) Britten entrance, taking it easy on the greasy singletrack then across the front and down the steep to the pylon (nearly losing control here - street-tires on steep dirt, not so good).  Bombed down Longridge and Mt Pleasant Rd to Joy's for a family dinner.  Just under 15 kms and 570 m clambered (non-assisted...)

Friday Night Fatty, Dog Run

Weather inclement all day but no precipitation and dog needed a spin so I took him out on the fatty up into the park. Some good climbing and singletrack fun times.  Up the walking track, then bottom of dog park, back down road a little, down the access track then climbed up the 235 dh track.  From carpark, across road up onto the 'new' zig to behind the slide, around through the picnic shelters and up the walking track over behind the infocentre, then up behind the ranger station behind 19th, as usual to Skidder, then up the gutzer...  hung a hard right before the cattlestop and sidled along to start of Sesame St, flowing through into the Gums trails, fun blast down this all the way to 19th, then below road cutting up to Tawhairanui, poaching this, then from Dogpark carpark down the fun single and home.

Minimalia, 4.15 kms and 137m climbed

Saturday Afternoon XC Intro Ride For Paul

First time out for Paul (our German exchange student) on a mountain bike. He's very fit, riding a road bike up the hill every day from school, not to mention being a bouldering legend, so nothing was much of a problem for him. I gave him a few skill tips along the way and we rode some fun trails. 

Up from home, usual 19th, skidder, grunter.  Then Worm, and onto the Traverse.  A couple of rocks caught him out and he learned the lesson of not stepping to the downhill side for letting people pass.  Stopped for other riders quite a few times, but he kept up with me pretty good.  Over Vernon and he really enjoyed the downhill.  Again, one or two of the rocks were tricky for him, but he was definitely improving.  Then down the upper cRapaki trail, Full Monty, from the top, fun blast down this.  The steep hairpins were hard for him, but I think he managed pretty good.  I had major speed on the lower reaches beside the main track.  Then up onto Taramea, and he really liked this one too.  All the way round, with a wee pause at the rock play ground over which I rode all the features.  

Then into the singletrack above Rapaki and onto the main drag for the final climb.  Around the road on Vernon, and back onto the Traverse for a good spin towards home.  Into the trees, and I warned him I'd do the jumps, then pointed out the see-saw over which I went meeting him on Brake Free.  Another guy was on the trail just ahead of me, and he moved aside for me, then followed us into the Rock Garden.  Both of them had to walk the final rockiest section.  The other guy was from Rotovegas and hadn't ridden for a while.  Had no idea where he was going, but I sent him off down my favourite while I waited for Paul to negotiate some tech.  We cruised down through the Gums and around my usual favourite route.  He only walked the one steep corner (below where I cleared the most recent tree), then all the way down and down the road into the DogCarPark trail for a nearly final hoon.  Jumped the jumpies and then we climbed up to the Dog Park and down the final blast behind the houses.  

Half way down the last blast, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted an insect incoming on a collision course with my cheek.  It impacted and I was hit with instant pain.  Fucking wasp, sting, to the cheek just below my glasses.  OUCH!  

Quite a warm 19.73 kms and 623 m climbed. Not bad at all!

Sunday Arvo Death by a thousand Climbs

Oh..  E-biked with the fam to Nostalgia Fest and home again on Saturday.

On Sunday I managed to get out on my own for a couple of hours of climbing and descending, climbing and descending, then climbing a bunch and descending again.

Around about 3 pm, headed out and up the usual route, hot in the sun but a good bit of wind around.  Over the 19th and through the skidder and into the grind up the grunterbastard.  Bumped into Nick from work with his fam at Brake Free, then rolled on up to top of Vic.  Dropped straight into the jumpies, around them then back up Worm to the top and dropped down over the cattlestop-stile-thing into the top of Pedalfine.  

Nice bloop bloop blootch down this, not turning left at the usual spot but slightly further down, which led me onto the lower part of that usual route at about that wee bridge, rolling out onto the 4wd track and dropping into the new one I've been eyeing for a while now.  It took me across RadiGarden and eventually down to where Pedalfine comes out on the next road-track down.  A couple of features I wasn't game to take on blind, but that I rolled (except for one log) from a standstill.   Left out to the Radi/Rad/Raceline intersection, climbing back up the Access track here to Razza's.  Nice drop through here, riding good, then hung a right and climbed back up to the intersection again, this time dropping into the rest of Pedalfine, good blitz down this section, then climbed again on Access track up to Rad^Sick finally hitting up the jump I missed Thursday.  Across same route as Thursday to Sneaky Ridge, dropping down this finding some nice lines, then dropped into Bridges, nubridges and bombed down the valleybottom.  

Into the Hidden Valley climb, gasping but cleaning it all, around and up to high point for a brief pause before hitting Old Skool bombing.  Much better run down here not worrying about the rear wheel being supposedly flat.  Straight into the climb again, grinding up the valley.  Stopped for a poke around in the bushes at the bottom of Hospital, eyeing up my future climbing trail.  Pretty dense country, but the bush is tall enough to get through, just a matter of cutting out the gorse and blackberry.  Up K2, walked a bit, then onto the sidle-climb through the pines, and stopped on the ridge for a over and below as to where the track might come.  I reckon it can be done, will involve a few switchbacks.  

Climbed up under Texaco (27footer) and up the shit climb.  I reckon I've found another place here for a climbing trail...  Then up under Ponos and through the 40footer zone and onwards up around the climbs I'd already done to the skidder where I topped up my water/tea.  Into Lower gums out to 19th, below road, nice coast through forest, up onto wheelchair trail, onto road around to dogcarpark and into 235 for a rapid and loose but flowy descent.  Mint.  Popped the jumps good then out through the oaks, hard right up to road, climb again for one last time, and a fast bomb behind the houses. 

An 11.2 km jaunt, climbing a couple metres shy of 500.

Thursday Evening Out the Numb

Bloody good one tonight. I popped down at 5ish and picked Nelson up from Bowenvale Ave, leaving his car there, and we rode up into Vic from mine. Up thru the usual combo of: road, 19th, Skidder, gutser to the top.  Spotted a FLOCK of kereru from up here, flying past.  Musta been about 12-15 of them.  Amazing!.  Then dropped into both Thompsons for the funtimes they always provide (walkers leaping out of the way etc).  

From Kiwi up the Scummit to the upper Governor's bay trail entrance for a good blast down.  I was taking it a bit cautiously, not sure why.  Wasn't feeling on my game at this point.  Hit this all the way around above the dude's stone house then down the zigs and zags, progressively tighter and now flowing through very nice bushy tunnels.  Across the dude's driveway and stopped in the gums for a moment, then hit downhill trail, which was cool and had been a long time (over 4 years).  It was tinder dry.  Stopped at Reuters Park (halfway down, trail heading around above Gov's to the right), spotted some blackberries, then more, then more. 

Had a good gorge on them.  Then knucked in for the rest.  Across, then dropping down through the valley, cleaning all, nice and dry (wet in the past) followed by a couple of tight wee climbs, before sidling around a little more and dropping into the switchies to the finish.  This time (unlike the last two (only) times) we headed up up the road.  Thankfully hardly any traffic.  Bit of a grind but a hell of a lot less taxing than riding (and walking) up the singletrack.  From the Kiwi, up the road to the top of Vic.

Down here, around over the two jumps, see-saw, Brakefree, and onto Sesame St.  I baulked and rode nanna line into it, but had fun on the rest.  Through the skidder, lots of people here, and into Razza's which was fun as hell, steep and dry and loose.  Into Rad, I should have, but didn't jump the jump in here (gotta session it some time), then across into Sneaky Ridge for a rock filled gravity propelled gnar-fest down and around.  Nelson dropped me by taking the No Road Bikes section.  Jump of the fence and then down through nuBridges, bombing down the valley and straight into Hidden Valley Climb.  Hot work.  Around and we stopped at the high point for Old Skool.  Some blokes turned up, they rested so we took off.  Gooooood blast down here, but starting to feel tired.  Then I heard a rim-strike and after that was paranoid my rear tyre was going down and getting washy so was kinda nursing it down.  At the bottom I discovered this was not so, and we cruised effortlessly down the road to Nelson's car.

A superlative 527m climbed (740ish descended on account of starting high), with 14.8km roamed.

Sundazed Haute E-Townbiking

30 odd degrees, and T and me rode to see her dad 'the long way' then home via Bally's - 25 odd kms.  Then later (not MMR'd) rode to Smashies for a session... tootled home sans lights in the dark via footpaths...

Thursday Steep'n'Hot Ups'n'Downs in Urumau-ns

Parked up on Fosters and rang Nelson.  Him and Craig (who'd parked at the gondola and ridden over the Bridle Path (in 29 degree heat)) were at the top already so they headed off for a lap while I climbed to the top.  It was hot going.  Right to the top, I perched myself on the top of the rocks and waited.  Eventually I saw them come into view below, and saw Craig head off down, but Nelson coming up to me.  

We set off down Stormer, and veered into Zombie Lurch.  Nelson did the log ride.  I just wasn't feeling gungho tonight, so I stayed on the ground.  All the steepness tech was fine, but trickery like logs and big gaps were beyond me this evening.  Into the climb back up Sloanstar and ugh, but my puff was clear having had 2 blasts of asthma-begone before I left the car.  Around the front and up the zigs again.  

From the not-quite-top this time down Sunnyside, with Nelson taking a turn on the super mad steep drop off to the right.  I went down the top of Sunny and he rode to meet me there.  Then down this, loose dusty steep goodness.  Corner that's always got me before was fine and then we took a slightly further line out and down.  Climbing again, zig and zag to the top top again.  

This time into Jackasaurus, dropping over the droppy starts.  I really wasn't feeling 100% confident and so what looked like a gap jump but wasn't, spooked me.  Down to the gutsy dropzone, steeper than I remember getting to it.  I rolled in several times and then still chickened out...  Down from there and I cleaned some more good steeps that were probably just as bad as the piece I chickened out on.  Into Grommies, nice hoon down through here, not even hesitating to drop the log drop.  Around into the Slabstacles, rocky wall drops.  Good for a bit of a freak out but easy as...  Climbing again.  This time just up around and off down the new exit trail (which meander-flows nicely). And down to the car.

The ups are steeeep and the downs are tech.

Extreme ups and downs, minimal distance... 4.94 kms with 309 m (according to MMR -  but my calculation based on low points and high points is 351 m) climbed.