At the bach for the weekend and I'd planned to ride with Nelson, so I drove back out to Little River and met him early Sunday morning. LAk was in the fog when I left, but up valley I came out into basking sunshine. Pigeon was full of fog too, but Akaroa not, it holding off at the heads. Down into LR and it was cold - frost on parts of the old railway carriages. We got riding and headed around into Okuti Valley. We met one car down here and no more for a long time. Up valley then into Reynold's Valley, steep and narrow, very smooth packed gravel and a tunnel of bush. Beautiful. Lonnnnng climb - maybe an hour and a half to get to the top. Was quite good, a few steep pinches with flatter gentler bits in between. Ends up very high up on the ridge, and then climbs around a couple more corners some more once on Bossu Rd too. Little bit of frost in shady places on the way up and up top.
View out to the west...
At this stop we were overlooking Te Oka and the Devil's Gap to the left, Okuti Valley to the right, the Southern Alps right the way across. You could see the backs of Bradley, Herbert, Fitzgerald, Sinclair, all the way across to Mt Pearce and View Hill top of LA. I heard voices, then spotted some Gravel riders on their way up Bossu Rd. As we took off down and came to them they were saying "ice" (i thought they were saying 'nice' about my bike) and sure enough around the corner, ice on the road. No biggie. Some speed and a couple more riders, and more speed, fun blasting down, and chilly! Views were spectacular. Approaching Kinloch Rd spotted some motorbikes coming up. We hit the climb (on much deeper gravel) from here and they caught and overtook. Further along they were stopped for photos and we got ahead of them then. Lonnnng bomb down down down, sheep encountered, all the way down. Such a long way. Quite heavy gravel so not really trusting cornering traction much. More amazing views half way down, looking straight up the Little River main street. Then dropping down over towards Birdling it got very cold, with fog rolling over the township. Down to past the cool homestead and onto the flat, across the bridge and into the gravel, bogged. Walked a bit, then eventually it firmed up enough to ride - you'd never get a 2wd car through it.
At this stop we were overlooking Te Oka and the Devil's Gap to the left, Okuti Valley to the right, the Southern Alps right the way across. You could see the backs of Bradley, Herbert, Fitzgerald, Sinclair, all the way across to Mt Pearce and View Hill top of LA. I heard voices, then spotted some Gravel riders on their way up Bossu Rd. As we took off down and came to them they were saying "ice" (i thought they were saying 'nice' about my bike) and sure enough around the corner, ice on the road. No biggie. Some speed and a couple more riders, and more speed, fun blasting down, and chilly! Views were spectacular. Approaching Kinloch Rd spotted some motorbikes coming up. We hit the climb (on much deeper gravel) from here and they caught and overtook. Further along they were stopped for photos and we got ahead of them then. Lonnnng bomb down down down, sheep encountered, all the way down. Such a long way. Quite heavy gravel so not really trusting cornering traction much. More amazing views half way down, looking straight up the Little River main street. Then dropping down over towards Birdling it got very cold, with fog rolling over the township. Down to past the cool homestead and onto the flat, across the bridge and into the gravel, bogged. Walked a bit, then eventually it firmed up enough to ride - you'd never get a 2wd car through it.
Onto the road, a km or so to the rail trail then the slog along this, eventually me slipstreaming behind Nelson, getting totally knackered. We stopped at Caton's Bay for a snack and then rolled on the last 3 kms at a flying pace. Back to the cars at 11.40 or so. "Nice".
A tenable 33.6 kms (or probably more like 34.6 km, cos MMR was being a pain in the ass in LR and wouldnt start til we were around the corner) and rather good 960 m escalated.
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