Sunday, April 29, 2012

Sunday Rich Green God Snake and Trailwerks

Small posse this week, just Pete, Wayne, Marie and myself. We met at Slotcom Dumbner and headed up the shaken Richmond Hill, knowing that somewhere up there there would be trail pixies with whom we'd join. Usually an email would have done the rounds, but Graham had issues with his Outlook and so i'd only noticed this last night. Peaked to Summit Rd and big trees, via the gravelled farm road on the upper half, then up road to Greenwood entrance.

Cruisy lead off into Greenwood, just kinda idling along nicely, nothing tweaky nothing jazzin' just moseying. Grubbers were collected from the trails intersection above the ruins and we tentatively rolled down to where Graham and one other were playing with rocks and dirt. We parked our steeds here and started to walk, mainly just cleaning the square edges off bermy corners, and also adding in or augmenting drains on low points. Made pretty good progress down the trail because its been worked well in recent years and is holding up pretty good. Put in maybe an hour and then decided we'd done enough and walked back up to our bikes to try out our efforts. Rolling through them they're barely noticeable, but they'll add to the future of the track.

Good bomb down Greenwood, Marie had headed down waaay ahead of us and i only caught sight of her as i rounded into a slippery gloomy gulch. Caught her up further down, then proceeded to notice (see and feel) a wasp or bee fly into one of my helmet vents. Pulled over and removed the offending headgear to find nothing, thankfully no stings neither. Chased and caught Marie again, and then had a ripper of a trip down the next wee while til i wrong geared the rocky up, allowing Pete to catch up, and we roared down the rest of the blissful singletrack to the road.

Across the deserted Evans Pass and onto Godley. Made it up the steepest first bit, but then my balance pulled me left and nearly into the old holey rocky mess, so i dab-number-oned it there, but got pedalling exactly where i'd dabbed and cleaned out the top of it, then the next bit i was nearly out the top of the worst offender and 2 rock bumps stopped both wheels at once dab-number-twoing me. Bit of a pause and regroup here before heading up the rest, which i cleaned up all good, except that annoying hard left hander with a rock in the wrong place, underneath the cliff up where the trail starts allowing a higher gear.

Stopped at the previously stopped at (twice now) spot, sort of the highest point, and scoffed muesli bars and watched a big fire on South Brighton Spit. The distant sounds of sirens subtly making their way up to us. Onwards, flying round and down, then, on the last descent to Livingston Col, i peeled right as i came through the wee gap in the fence, and found myself on a reasonably well trod trail across, above the actual track, missing the zig zags they tried to instate in there a couple years back, and then eventually came down on a final section of the walkway to the Col, meeting Pete and the other two eventually there. Last bit up and over to Breeze, with a call from Matt interrupting it briefly.

Anda the anaconda. Excellent blast down here today. Absolutely flying. railed all the raily bits and yumped all the yumpy bits, all of us had excellent descents. Finally out the tail, just picking our ways along this easily, over the fence and time for the climb. I ground off ahead and just pushed myself up to get it over and done with. At the top, waited for the others and got my breath back, then we headed on down thinking to give Nicholson Park a blast, down to a big arse fence where the Flowers Track met our usual, so, off down this. Hairpins and steps. not overly rideable, but kinda fun, and nothing heinous. Was a long ride with the track work in the middle, and it was nearly 1pm when we got back to Dotcom. Pete and me bailed, things to do, while Marie and Wayne stayed for coffees...



42 tomorrow...

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