Afternoon off work ride

Our illustrious team leader of the single speed team for the 12 hour event this weekend has come up to Auckland early and I volunteered to take the afternoon off work and show him the pleasures of Woodhill mountain bike park.

The weather was not bad for a ride, little bit cloudy and a little bit cool, but certainly a good winter’s afternoon. The park was pretty empty as you would expect mid-week, though the event organisers were there taping up the course.

We started riding up the road towards the trail block but saw that the event trail was being marked out next to the road so jumped the fence and started up the hill, the climb was not bad and well suited for a single speed, gentle climbs for a 100 meters then flatting out and then climbing again, climb was probably a km all up, with over half of it on single track, some on the new trail we had been digging – with some nice rooty bits to keep it honest – though it was an all skill level event. At the top of the hill we had to guess which way the trail went (and I think we guessed wrong) and we headed down the spaghetti trail, this was a great section for racing as it is quite flowy, some nice turns, some rooty corners but plenty of room for passing. About ¾ of the way through Spag stage 1 there was a newly dug and very narrow descent back which aimed back to the carpark, we shot down there to the bottom and then cut into the end of Charlies Angels and pushed up the hill back to Spag and off the event course. Had a flier down SPCA , so much fun and then took the road up to and I showed my guest Northern Exposure and my trail, then down Python, end of Haggis, Enchanted Forest the wrong way, up Link to Cookie. The Cookie trail was marked off for the event which was really pleasing as it is hard packed fairly fast trail with a couple of small jumps, plenty of passing room and I can do it in my sleep at reasonable pace. We picked up another SSer who I had never met before, who was young and fast, so we chatted to him for a while and he followed us back down Raceface Down to the carpark.

Nice ride, good last minute preparation for the race on Saturday. The bike rode well with its new cranks and brakes. Few minor adjustments to the rear brake, a re-tighten off the cranks and she will be ready for the race.

I would so much rather be riding than working.