windy night hour spin

a beautiful wee ride last night... had to pick something up from my grandmother's so parked up on Takahe Drive, rode up into Vic Park, off the road, just on that trail kinda above the road up along past the dog exercise areas etc, then onto Harry Ell *ahem* walkway which goes from the carpark next to the dog exercise areas, then down the ziggers to dyers pass road track, up that to kiwi, up road to top of Worsleys, down marleys, up thomsons, down through the gums, and on down past rangerstation, then into the dog exercise area, across to the pine plantation, down the wee track on its edge, then down past the most eastern side of the top of cashmere housing, Latter's Spur track i believe its called and out onto Longhurst Tce, then back to Nainy's... lovely. lovely lovely lovely. very little tarmac, lots of dirt, full loop, 1 hour, only about 10 or 15 kms tho... fair bit of up. tricky technical up. niiiiiiiice to be out on the bike again, its what, over a week and a half.

and then dropped my bike off to me trusty mechanic and will pick it up sunday night with some Manitou Minute's on it, 130 mm travel, plush spv'ness. yeh!

off to Little Akalala this today, two nights of peninsula bliss.

no riding, well not much anyway...

its been a pretty sad couple of weeks... last ride posted was wharfdale and then capt thomas and evans with Monsieur Nelsonian, him trying out his PHAT ass 2.4 panaracers... seemed to do the trick. what with his innate fitness and his nice light ride he was no slower. since then, i cannot think of what ride i've done. yes, actually, the following saturday, so, two saturdays ago from now, i was allowed out for an hour, whilst O slept, so i ripped across town, shredded it up rapaki, huffed a bit cos i was tired and huffy and some schlep on a VT passed me, which peeved me, but, carried on up anyway, rode the slingletrack to the right, then just dropped straight onto the Farm Track, and there was the schlep, just starting out too on his downhill run. i bombed past him and never saw him again. he ate my dust. its all very well being fast up the hill on a plush ass full susser, but if ya aint got the balls to rip it on the down hill, whats the point in all that suspension?? huh?? tell me that?? eh? eh??? looked at my watch at the top, 13.41, then looked again once i was out on the road at the bottom, 13.45... hehe, less than 4 minutes top to bottom, we're talking pretty near 400 m altitude, and around 3 kms distance... average speed, huh, only 45 kph... still, theres a couple sections that are slower, so top speed generally is approaching 70, and its a rutty wee track... LOVE IT. that was a beautiful day too, over 20 degrees C, and the next day it froze, and started snowing.

i biked into town that monday morning of the snow, was fun. reminded me of Montana. havent ridden since, and i'm getting depressed for it.
had a job interview in wellington friday (for a job i didnt get), and now its wednesday... and i NEED a RIDE!!! i'm riding as fast as i can to and from work but its just not the same as hoofing it up the hill and blasting it down.
little akaloa this weekend, so still no riding. maybe tomorrow night.

one good thing tho, daylight savings on saturday, so nights will be oh so glorious, to ride withOUT the halogen babies. yay!!!

Coopers to Wharfdale and back out ViewHill

Well... Ended up being a solo musicked ride...nice clear day, nursing quite the hangover, drove out to coopers creek entrance to the oxford forest, end of whats known as mountain road, took the track to wharfdale track. crashed within the first 5 minutes, back wheel spin, right foot pedal down, failed to clip out, balance lost and over i went, down a bank of blackberry and gorse. fantastic way to start a ride, back of arms and my back all scratched up. then trail becomes unrideable in lots of bits. one section in cutover broom scrub just taller than handlebars and the path way narrower, puts on the brakes slowing progress, so mostly i walked the bike on its back wheel. had to do that a lot, and sometimes carry. but some riding. probably an hour to the Wharfdale track, then blissful singletrack riding, nice and clear, well groomed, lovely. the southfaces were damp with dripped mist and possibly rain the foothills collected that the plains didnt. the northfaces were all beautiful and dry. good progress, to the rocky outcrop bit, decided there i was tired and needed to head back. decided not to take the messy track back the way i'd come up, so rode out to viewhill carpark and down the road thru all the gates, back round woodstock rd, over the tawera bridge, round through tawera on rampaddock road and back up to the car.

tonight, Nelson and me drove to scumner and went up capt thomas and up the new evans track to top and back. the fog was fantastic. thick swirling, no visibility, getting soaked in mistiness. amazing. made for a ride of epic proportions even tho it was just a quick 3 or 4 hundred metre altitude jaunt. probably 8 kms to top and back down that... steady, middle ring climb all the way.

back to court tomorrow... JURY. silly silly boys.

lastride

quick spin round bottle lake, pre dark... first non lights ride end winter

then sunday, what the fook did we do? oooooohhh. yes, fathers day, most of us are dad's so we pooled some time, 10.30, quick spin round town. didnt get away from P's til well after eleven, spun along river to Vic Sq, then past fart's centre round hagley, up north hagley, sweeeeet little single up there, then to hospital, up lift in carpark down, to bridge remembrance andrew had a flat he re-tubed as we did lichfield carpark. c1 for coffee then home.

wednesday i rode to cannon cres, avoided humphrey's by singletracking on the slicked townKona across new wetland/dryland then devil's Elbow trail ... fast as slicks allowed, niiiice burst.

d.i.c townriding friday night... with the WHARFDALE planned for tomorrow a.m... who will ride with me? will it be a solo musicked ride, or wil i have some company?

singletrack singletrack road singletrack

ride yesterday was huge. we met at Tony's in Spreydon, Pete and me rode across there, then Andrew Steve Tony Pete this guy Mark and me rode up Worsleys, over Marleys, refilled water at Kiwi, down track below Dyers Pass Rd, up into Vic Park, up to top of Vic, round summit trail to Rapaki, onwards round next little section of summit trail, along summit road, to Castle Rock, down singletrack to Bridle Path, round summit road up to top of Richmond Hill track, ate lunch there, then down it to Evans, onto the Godley track, all the way out it, down the Anaconda into Taylors, refilled water there, up over out of there to Scumner, cafe stop there, then home... Taylors and Sumner were CRAWLING with people... all up 65 kms, most of it off road, total of 1000 metres of altitude gained and lost. total of 4 litres of water consumed. plus another 1.5 litres over night...

i rode hard, i rode fast, scary fast at times...

ridin to work this morning was hard.

thinking back over the last couple weeks, trying to work out all the riding i've done... rode last night (see magic fog below), and last saturday (13th?)-across to and up rapaki, turned left along the singletrack, along the summit road, singletrack summit road to Richmond Hill single track (Greenwood) down to Evans down Capt Thomas and back home from Sumner. gorgeous norwest day, tho the norwest was in my face all the way back from Slumner... before that? Thursday? or Tuesday? with Al? not sure... oh it all becomes so hazy... i guess before that was the sunday muddy sunday ride, cos i had to do some major maintaining of my bike after that ride. Wore out my brakepads something wicked. scored a new brake disk for $20 off a guy on the NZMtbbuysell (link on right). And sold a primal wear shirt that was too small and not the design i actually wanted...

from now on, i'm keeping a good record of rides. doing a biggie on sunday. intended is up worsleys and ALL the way along to Godley. 'sgonna take most of the day.

Magic Fog

as always a couple weeks have gone by. i've ridden a few times i believe... s'been a hard week or so, cos O caught a cold again and i had to take a couple days off work to care for him as he couldnt go into work with T.

last night, as i chuffed up the hill in the moonlight (what a glorious night it was) on my own, up into the fog, i was reminded of a blog i read, http://restarea300.blogspot.com/ where the guy is a road worker gang fellow here in nz and he wrote one time how when he's out on the road he has all these ideas of things to blog, but by the time he gets to his computer he's forgotten most of them. Exactly the same thing was happening to me last night. it was an almost zen like experience riding up the hill last night. i rode up a *ahem* no bikes trail last night. the wee valley track below the Rapaki... an awful lot of it is unrideable, but with a bit of wheeling the bike along on the back wheel or scooting with one leg while spinning the other clipped in you can get over most obstacles. anyway, ended up rejoining the rapaki, and powering up it. into the fog. with a full moon making it all glow it was like a wonderland. i saw only one other bike light, up on the summit road whilst i was huffing up the main track. no others... magic. round the summit trail and down the original Bowenvale track. i was slightly shakey and didnt manage to clean some of the more vertical rocky sections, but still managed most of it. i love the way the singletrack proper of this Bowenvale swoops and weaves...

i have a justification for riding these No Bikes trails occasionally. i tend not to ride them when theyre mucky. i also never ride them during the day, only at night when either there isnt a walker or runner likely and if there is they'll see my light a mile away... its nice to have a change of scenery.

sunday muddy sunday

well. mountain biking yesterday was a bit of a mudbath. Al, Al and me rode across to Tony's, in spreydon, where Andrew and Steve rode across to meet us. it was drizzling, tho, while we waited for A and S it rained. so we rode across to the bottom of Worsley's and Andrew, Steve and Tony all piked out and turned around. soft co cks. so, the other three of us rode up worsleys. hehe, the others were actually wise to have pulled out. especially steve, who's glasses always steam up and so he cant see where he's going. so, once we hit the trail proper, the clay surface was just wetted to about 1cm depth, meaning it was dry under neath that, but that 1 cm of clay sticks to tires quite nicely, and then, as the wheel rolls clay sticks to clay sticks to clay... so within not much distance at all, we're riding these huge clay wheeled behemoths which weigh three times the normal weight of a bike... hehe, it was fun. the clay really only built up badly when you had to walk, and you had to walk cos the clay was so built up... but once you did get riding again the clay kinda wore off and you were sweet, but getting moving again after a walking stretch was pretty tricky. hehe... anyway, got to the top and it was howling, and very very damp. decided to avoid the Marley's hill trail over the top, cos it gets stickier than anywhere on the way up, and on the way down it is a rutty rocky clay fest, so riding it would have been nigh on scary. so, joined that track half way down where it meets the summit road. it was sweet from there to the kiwi, cos there's been a bit of gravel layed. then rode up into vic park, around the summit trail to rapaki and down. rapaki was like a muddy stream. and stupidly there were tons of people riding up. we couldnt believe anyone would be out on a day like that. mad bastards... my rear brake pads wore out completely on the way down, lucky i'd put the new front ones in or i woulda been walking! my rear ones were pretty low. so, new ones of them to be purchased today. then i'll swap the fronts to the back and put the new new ones in the front.

seagulls

i wanna be a seagull. looking out my window at them flying around not giving a toss about anything except where to perch, shit and where to find food, always having a good view, and i'm stuck here in front of the computer with people's expectations heaped all over me just makes me wanna split and be free.

there's too much work to be done, too much work that hasnt been done, and i dont see any way out. its like there's always too much to do that getting started in on it and whittling away at it just isnt gonna make any difference to it and it'll just keep being too much and probably even always just keep getting bigger... bah. work schmerk.

anyhoo, rode last night. twice this week, tues and thurs. both times on the same or similar tracks. tuesday went with Al and Nels up Worsley's, over the crater rim then down kennedy's onto the new singletrack, sillily named the Crocodile (i mean, anaconda i can understand in that its twisty and curvey, but crocs are solid and rigid and hard)... then back to nels's. last night was with the boys, stv, tone, peat and me, and we rode up halswell quarry, up kennedys to top of singletrack and down. short loop, back to the car by ten to 8.
i didnt crash, but stv had a bit of an off on this TIGHT wee hunka rock most of the way down. he garked his leg and dinted his pedal.

Lurgy... and a crash, yeah!

blah, have had a dreaded lurgy for this past week or more. coughing like a coughing thing... last two days off work. Poor wee O has it too. greeeen goob oozing from his wee nose, and coughing little coughs.

stupidly, perhaps, went for a ride on tuesday night, me and the posse drove to Taylors, rode UP the Anaconda, then out Godley Head, then over and back down the snake. beautiful run, i still kicked all their asses even tho i was sick. heh heh... i crashed, first time in ages, and it was great. i've got a beautiful swirly multifacetted scrape/graze on my hip. dunno quite what did it, i think it was my handlebars. was screaming down the trail, into this big banked berm, and the front wheel just drifted out, the packed soil was very slightly damp on top and so slightly greasy, i began to lose control, couldnt keep it together, dabbed, tumbled... not really sure what happened. left some awesome marks on the trail, the tire tread skid marks, the foot scrape, the bit where my pedals dug in... first crash in a lonnnng time, so, twas good. i'd been getting faster and more loose for the last few months, and finally i hit the edge and so now i can step back from it and work my way back up to it again...

well...all of june gone then

and now we're in july. Otis is just about a year old.

rode last night. rapaki, single track to kiwi, up track from there a bit, then back down, and down below dyers, up into vic, down dazzas and out down into bowenvale. nice spin. needed. cooooool fog rolling over the hill like a waterfall, very spectacular.

blah blah blah

sHamner...

went to Hanmer for weekend... was good. rained heaps. Al and me went biking on saturday. trails were greeaasy. he showed me a bunch of tracks there's no way i would have found myself. fantastico!

soaked in the pools 3 times. lovely. O enjoyed himself, splashy splashy splashy...

buried T's grandfather yesterday. not the saddest of affairs, but when they played the last post, (on account of him being an old soldier) things got pretty teary. bunch of old soldiers there lined up and put Anzac poppies on the coffin. i was roped into pallbearing. O and Ph were both very well behaved throughout.

Better get on with this then...

Well, may as well start somewhere. Trouble is, i'm at work, and probably shouldnt actually be doing this.

rode last night, port hills, greeeaaasy, hit by waves of drizzle a few times. i was concerned my light wouldnt like the wet, but it seemed to deal pretty good. rocks and the rubber matting on the trails were diabolical. the rubber matting has a tendency to steer you in a way that is quite disconcerting... anyway, up rapaki, round the summit, pete and me did the single track whilst the others cruised on the road for the first bit. heading down through vic park pete crashed on the rocky bit before the gums. it was getting wetter and wetter as we got lower, another drizzle shower rolling in. then was dry when we were in the bottom of bowenvale. met some other riders heading down there...

working a bit late tonight. off to Hanmer for weekend. yippee.

Entrez Moi

First time...