Sunday, July 10, 2011

First Sunday Mt Grey

Fantastic ride today. Met at Pete's and headed north. Clouds were looking pretty hairy as 6 of us drove in two cars north on the motorway, but they blew off and the sun was shining on a nice dusting of snow on the tops by the time we were heading through Balcairn. Riding were Steve, Pete, Wayne, Tony, Marie and me.

Parked up at the usual spot, "Lake" Janet, and after swapping out a tube on Wayne's borrowed (off Pete) Chameleon, we headed up to catch Steve and Marie. Good going on the access road, little soft and so dragging slightly, but not so bad. Not far up tho, we started to run into the snow we'd seen earlier. it was cool! higher we got the crisper and squeakier it got. Once we got round onto the top the wind was heinous, strong and cold. on up to the big comms tower, ice and snow all over the place.

Then the descent began. Surprising traction down the little singletrack to the top of the Mt Grey track. Sidling round with little bits of slip and slide, ice keeping the mucky bits under control, grins forming all round. A zig and a zag or two then round and out of the wind, into the forest. Now the real riding began. Switchbacks interspersed with sweet flowing singletrack. Cleaned a few more of them than i did last time, but there's still some in there that are always gonna be nigh on impossible.

Lower down parts of the trail just got faster and faster. Sweeeeeeeet flowing, smiles on all our dials. Briefly we left the beech forest and bombed down some bits in the young pine trees. the trail through here was majorly mucky, but fun, and no one lost it. Well cool. Then back into the beech and roots and rocks and fun. Photo op on the bridge, little bit more trail, and we hit the road.

Tootled up the road, i grabbed the tfc truck and headed down to pick up the stragglers, tho, they were so close i probably didnt need to.

All up, high fives were exchanged, and we skedaddled back to town, arriving home by 1.30.

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