Good ride tonight with Nelson. Drove to his, took his car to Slumnervale and hit up Captain Thomas, stopping a few times to scoff some blackberries. At the second stop the old 29er crew we'd ridden with a few times over the years turned up. They were moving so we got in behind and followed, variously attempting (not me) to sketch up some techknuckle rock sections, with various success or failment. Some were on eeebs. Up above one of the walky dropdowns one of them had a derailleur mechanical and they all stopped and Nelson caught up with his old buddy, then we got going and they were ready go to too, so variously passed, or didn't, us on the rest of the way up. I was 4th to the top, nearly fucking dying of asthma - gasping. We split our separate ways at Evans, with them heading down the Scarborough Bluffs track to venture all the way along and over to Taylors Rd, while we headed up Godley.
The tech was good - I walked or dabbed a few sections. Nelson cleaned 99%. On the ridge we headed into the descent. Railing down towards Livingston my back end was making some weird noises. Stopped, couldn't find anything wrong, continued, and we triple checked it over at the Col. Found the rear left dropout pivot bolt loose! That's the second bolt to loosen on this bike. Not enough loctite? .... Tighened it up, checked all the rest, and headed up the road. Up the usual farm track, light starting to diminish, some nice sunset action out on the plains, and into the descent(ish) back to Evans. Good railing. Lots of near muppetry, including one adrenalin-raising near-off that I just managed to dab through. Then into the Captain. Oh yes. Very nice. Flowy, techy speed fun. Nice through the OG, tho Nelson mysteriously offed and ended up inside his bike and not on the ground. Lower down it was DARK in the trees. Was a bit of a shock. Slowed a bit then it wasn't quite so dark. Nice finish down and out, then across to the car and she was getting pretty dusky.
Well-nigh 13 km, with a luxuriant 727 541 m climbed (previously 20km, 727m, but that's cos I didn't turn off MMR until Nelson's place... now deleted)
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