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around home, bikes, family, friends, MTB, NZ

Wires Rd hike-a-bike

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I couldn’t stay at home for a complete set of days-off two weeks in a row, so Monday I packed up the bike & a few other things & went out for my first ride around the Farm Loop at Hunua in three months. As expected, after all the rain in the recent months & general Hunua conditions (it’s not a water catchment area for nothing) it was pretty slippy & bits of the track had changed slightly (not to mention an extension I hadn’t done before). Due to general lack of riding & being by myself (although I was surprised to see three other groups of riders out there on a Monday afternoon) it was a pretty cruisy ride, but I loved getting back in to the slightly more technical single track – & the Challenge Downhill is always a bit of fun. As always, saw a few wild pheasants.

For a change from Hunua, I ducked out to SH2 (it’s always nice to be on roads I’ve never been on before – even if they are close to home) & headed off to stay with Betsy & Paul (Aunt & Uncle) as they have recently moved close to Thames. Good to catch up & sit through another sitting of UK & Europe photos & see their new place. Leaving early enough for a day off, next stop was Maratoto (home of the Maratoto Challenge – which I think of as a mini-Karapoti) & the Wires Rd track – just north of Paeroa. It must be about three years since about six or seven of us did part of this track (back when I wasn’t on shift & had a social life) from the Whangamata side. Short history is that the track goes over the ranges from Maratoto to Whangamata sort following the old telegraph wires that had to be put through during the Land War. Anyway, this time I was attacking it from the west side & it just happens that one of the guys on my shift at work lives close by so I dropped in for a visit. Interesting to see the earthen-walled house that Tim is building & the small wind & hydro turbines that he has installed around his 90 acres of bush & grazing block that has great views down the valley.

Somehow, Tim was persuaded to come on the ride up the Wires – it’s always good to have a bit of local knowledge. It turned out just as well, as the ride that Tim had in mind for me was nothing like the one I had initially envisaged. Our ride started off in the cloud down the road for a while before we got to Wires Rd, with Tim filling me on recent local history & meeting a couple of locals along the way for a chat – & Tyler the dog trying to keep up. It wasn’t long before we slowed significantly as we hit the up hill for two hours & Tyler was constantly waiting for us. Being maintained by a 4WD club the track was nice & wide & mostly-comfortably rideable in the middle chainring – although I did have one impressive fall trying to tackle a two-stage steep incline of smooth rock. I got up the first bit ok, ran out of momentum halfway up the second, realised disaster was creeping up on me & unclipped one foot & tried a dismount. After a few seconds of hopping around on one foot, but still on the saddle I was over backwards leaving an amused Tim to come around the corner to find me lying on my back!

Eventually we reached the ridge & it was the normal up & down with some nice rocky downhills to keep me interested & a few stream crossings.

We eventually reached the Loop Track, which must have been what we did three years ago – but nothing really looked familiar. Anywho, Tim had other ideas – the Waipaheke Motorbike Track. This apparently used to be part of a much longer Maratoto Challenge, but was taken out because it was so hard (it was done in the reverse direction to the way were going), they couldn’t get enough crazy people to do it. We found the track easily enough & there was some conjecture of which peaks we were actually going to go around – by now the sun was out nicely & we had some decent views occasionally. In the end that didn’t really matter as we spent most of the next hour an a half looking at the track as we pushed our bike along. Since Tim had last been along here a few years ago, the region has had some massive deluges & the track was now severely rutted & overgrown. We battled on & the rest/food stops became a bit more frequent. Eventually we reached the saddle were rewarded with some good views of the ranges & all the way down to Whangamata.

Unfortunately, the first half hour or so of the downhill the bikes were mostly pushed as it was very steep & very rocky. I did get some nice bits of riding in at times – big rocks strewn around the track always make things challenging & I tended to bounce around all over the track. My enthusiasm only landed on the ground once – who knows what really happened there? The size of the some of the slips that had carried the track away were quite impressive, even if it did mean more carrying. Eventually, & to my immense relief, the track became more & more rideable & as it had been previously used by motorbikes, a lot of the corners were very nicely bermed & great fun to ride. Plenty of stream crossing & then we were down following & crossing the river – it sure got a lot muddier here. Five hours after setting off, we were finally back facing the climb that is Tim’s driveway – what a great ride/push/carry. Rush back home for dinner & now I’m slightly jaded after two pretty quiet night shifts & waiting for the Warriors game tonight.

bikes, friends, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, UK

The longest ride for a while, for me

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The ride John & Richard took me on may have been the biggest that I had been on since N-Duro 1 almost two months ago – but it was nothing compared to what John (crazy guy that he is) completed a few days later. That is, 300 km+ solo during a 24 hour event – and to top it off on a singlespeed. It makes me tired just thinking about it – or perhaps that is just recovering from the first shift set starting the day after I got back. Either way, I can’t quite face sorting over a thousand photos from the last six weeks in to some sort of highlight package that some one may be able to view some day with out getting completely bored. I’d much rather think about great rides in far off (& warmer) places…

Arriving in Taunton, it was pleasing to see Anna home & not off at work (almost everytime I visited in Mt Maunganui I was left wondering if John actually did have a wife or was just making it up – as Anna always seemed to be at work). Although that didn’t last for long as Anna was soon off for her week of night shifts at the hospital – John & I took off for the a look around the Quantrocks (some hills close by). After following a car with a very flat tyre up the steep road, we discovered our first mistake as three mountain bikers tore past us down a hill – there was still plenty of light at 8.30 & we should have brought our bikes. Instead we wandered around looking across to Wales, finding previously ridden singletrack & John remarking how much faster it was on a bike – oh well, there was always tomorrow. We had to get back home to meet Richard (who I met last year when he came out to visit John in NZ) who was driving down from near Oxford for tomorrow’s ride. There we discovered our second mistake, we didn’t have house keys – off John went to the hospital while Richard & I unloaded & put our bikes together on the side of the street. To set the mountain-biking tone we watched The Collective’s Seasons – great. I think I like mountain biking movies more when there is a small chance I could see myself riding the same trails without certain death being involved somewhere. Obviously, my life is just not all about big air.

A reasonably undisturbed sleep (except waking up at about 5.00 thinking I was at the beach thanks to the loud but geographically challenged seagulls – we were no where near the beach) & another cooked breakfast later, we were off to Minehead & Exmoor National Park. A little bit of road riding through the seaside town took us the quaint little village of Dunster; from there we were on to bridleways (quite steep climb to start with) and then riding along the top of a ridge. As John & Richard pointed out where we were going, I couldn’t help thinking that it was an awful long way off & much further than I had ridden for a while. Just as well that the weather was a lot better than what they described last time – consequently, the icebreaker came off fairly early & the jacket stayed firmly (metaphorically speaking, that it could work its way out is never far from my mind) on the Camelbak. It sure is fun riding in different places – contrasting with my normal NZ riding, I could see a lot further, it was generally rockier & more attention was paid to wear the front wheel was going between those rocks.

After a bit of ridge riding, it was down to the small village of Wootton Courtenay via a nice long chute that was filled with rocks & at these nice big corners that were naturally bermed. The rocks reminded me a bit of the 6 km downhill I went down in Pokhara, Nepal – only this time I was hoping that I wasn’t going to go over the bars & split my chin open near the bottom. While I managed to avoid the endover, I did puncture a hundred metres from the end (it’s always strangely satisfying to have a mechanical problem at the end of a sweet bit of track, as opposed to the start). This was a good spot for lunch & the necessary tube replacement.

Crossing through the village it was back to the bridleway, up on top of another ridge, along the ridge & we got to a point where the guys weren’t sure which was the best way down. Thankfully, they chose a sweet descent & all smiles, we arrived at the turnaround point – Porlock (although the return was slightly more direct). It was off down some sealed lanes for a while to Bossington Green (nice steep climb here). On the way we had a photo stop as it looked English.

After John made us ride through that stream for the photos, I had great delight in riding up behind much too fast & soaking him – of course, I had rather wet socks too, but it was worth it. Especially considering how far behind I was up the next hill. Just as well riding back along the moors towards Minehead there was one nice long fast downhill. And that was about the ride. Back to Taunton, where Andy (who I also met & rode with when he was out visiting & touring NZ last year) turned up for dinner (well cooked by John) & we settled down to watch Seasons again – I think I enjoyed it more that time, possibly because I’d just been out for a great ride.

bikes, family, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, UK

Much water in the Lake District

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From Campbeltown it was off to the Lake District in the north of England. Instead of the road up Argyll, east & then down to Glasgow we opted for a little less driving & two short ferry hops across to just west of Glasgow. From there it was A-roads down until we turned off in to the Lake District. Unbeknown to us, the last part of the journey took us on some ridiculously narrow roads & then what turned out to be the steepest road in England – a mountain (in some sense of the word). Lucky for me, I had my done my driving in the morning & I sat at the back and enjoyed the view as the clouds got closer & closer. Completing the first pass (Wrynose) , we saw an impossibly windy & skinny road snaking up a 30% incline in to the clouds & immediately dismissed this as not the way we were meant to go. Of course the roads signs had other ideas & it was up & around & down many corners where the road in front simply disappeared from view as it was so steep (this was Hardknot pass). Eventually we made it & were off for dinner down the road to the Woolpack Inn – perhaps the worst meal we had our whole trip. Being a hostel dormitory that I ended up staying in, naturally there were at least two snorers, grrrr.

Of course the cloud hadn’t lifted by the next morning, but being encouraged by all the mountain bike I had seen on the drive in yesterday I hauled the much travelled & little ridden GT out of the boot, put it together & set off for a ride in the rain down a riverside bridle path towards the coast. As the weather was utterly miserable, I was pretty sure that I would be the only insane one out & about down this path. Crossing stone bridges, opening & closing countless gates (I think I perfected the MTB magazine technique there, John) I would see that that was not the case as I came across all number of people kitted out for the rain strolling/rambling/hiking/tramping along. The weather improved slightly as I got down to the coast (with one very big hill to climb along the way – quite a shock after the last few weeks). A spot of lunch at the small Ravenglass station (where my burger actually had salad inside it, not sitting on the plate beside burger consisting of nothing but bread & meat) & I caught one of the few narrow gauge railways left in Britain back to near where I started.

It was half way back up the pass (the not-so-steep part) that we returned to look at the remains of one of Hadrian’s forts. The sheep seemed to like grazing around the area & dodging their presents & the myriad streams running down the grass we could get a good look at the remains. Why anyone would have built a fort all the way up here close on two thousand years ago eludes me…

The following day we took the easier coastal route to Arnside where we stayed for Dad’s final night in the UK. From Arnside we drove down, dropped Dad off at the coach stop in Birmingham (coach to Heathrow) & continued on to visit second cousins of Mum, drop Mum off at another second cousin’s place & then made my way to Taunton to stay with English friends that I had met randomly mountain-biking in Rotorua about a year ago. That was some three hundred miles & unfortunately we lost the second driver when Dad left us.

bikes, city, friends, MTB, roadtrip, travel, UK

A decent ride, finally

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Have finally found some proper internet time to update this not very exhaustive account. As it was nearly two weeks since the last happenings were posted I’ll try my best to remember some of the many things we have been up to. Our full day in Edinburgh was much better weather wise & there was even some hope that we wouldn’t get wet on our ride.

Dad & I started off our day (Mum was off doing family history stuff) walking up to the top of Calton Hill & checking out the view – could just make out the bridges over the Firth. Then a bit of an explore around New Town – found a very shut Oxford bar (Rebus ties), it was Sunday morning after all. After our walking tiki tour found us at the bottom of the castle (even if we were on the wrong side to enter), we figured there was just enough time to squeeze in a rush tour before lunch. I remember quite enjoying Edinburgh Castle for the view & some of the history (unfortunately after two weeks it’s joined the historic-building-haze in my mind). Big rush back to the hostel to change for MTBing & meet Jamie (a uni friend).

Managed to meet up ok, but the first problem was the bike Jamie had borrowed off his wife, Rachel, had not met quick-release & neither of us had the cumbersome tools required to remove the wheels. Nevermind, eventually by turning the handlebars on the stem the trusty Passat saloon (which deserves a posting of its own) swallowed the bike whole & mine fitted on top it & the boot even closed. The drive south to Peebles was uneventful, except for my introduction to Tescos for a lunch on the run – actually, that doesn’t really qualify as an event. By now the sun was even out & shining. (I should have savoured that moment for much longer.)

Arriving at Glentress, it was a record time for assembling my bike from its travel bag & we were off in to the forest. A better description would be off up in to the forest – as we pretty much rode up hill for an hour (I hadn’t done any exercise of the sort since the first N-Duro in Rotorua some four weeks ago – at least it felt like it). It must be said that the climb was punctuated by a neat little downhill skills section where I perfected my backflip (have watched too much of the Collective’s Seasons this week) and also a nice little bit of singletrack. Having made it to the top (Jamie having told me on the way up he used to race nationals) it was time to rip in to some strangely varied singletrack. The first big difference to my normal riding was due to the Scottish rainfall – all the tracks were hard packed gravel so that they are still rideable after big rain. This made for a lot more tyre noise than I was used to. There were some sweet berms & lots of decent sized rocks placed in nice places in the track to keep me on my toes. I was just glad that I didn’t have the pogo-forks that Jamie had… A great ride, thanks to the guide.

Back in to the city to meet up with Rachel & Nicola (yet another uni mate over here working) for dinner. They had been up north half way to Aberdeen meeting Dan (you guessed it – uni) & got stuck half way back when the train developed some fault. Never mind, it was great to catch up eventually, get some tips for what to see & have a good meal – haggis wasn’t even too bad.

The next morning before leaving, I dragged Mum & Dad up Arthur’s Seat for the view (mind you, we could see most of the cloud from sea level) – well worth it. Then off to Oban for two nights; we managed to drive past T in the Park without too many traffic worries – although I was disappointed to learn I had missed R.E.M. playing there during the weekend. Once over the Firth, the weather closed in nicely & we would get used to the sight of low cloud.