A good rainy ride

The gym has been going well, 5 days in a row and lifting the effort each day by a tiny amount. I still wonder if I am whimping out a bit though with the weights, but I am happy with what I am doing. I even went this morning before mountain biking.

The drivers side electric window in my car has broken, unfortunately it is in the full down position and for the first time in weeks it is raining solidly. Luckily I got a ride to the forest today otherwise I would have been unable to ride.

The plan for the ride today was to do a fire road loop and get some consistent hill work in – though the hills are not big, high, steep or long. With the rain and wind we decided to go straight into the forest. Rode Powerball, Spaghetti to the start of Afterglow, quick break there to take the rain coat off then a fast zap down Afterglow and the down Tortellini to the car park. Over the road and up Upland straight down the Lightening and Enchanted forest and brief break at the start of Haggis. Kept riding at a reasonable pace and was aiming to stop as little as possible. Haggis was great, cleaned that again without getting out of the seat, then the same on Northern exposure. Had a quick 5 at the start of my track and then rode up that, again sitting down for as much as possible. Had to stop in the middle a shortcut line had started to appear that cut a good 250 metres out of the track. I closed it off with logs and trail trash as best I could and we rode on. I guess one of the good things about people putting short cuts in a track means that it is a challenge to ride and they have failed to meet the challenge, which makes those who meet the challenge are the better for it. Shit the track ain’t that tough, I can ride the whole thing on the SS and I am not that good a rider. We rode the first section of Ironhorse then dropped out and finished Conifer loop and Haggis the rode the road back to the start of Raceface down and back to the carpark.

Fitness wise, I rode extremely well today, I felt good, kept a reasonable pace up, rode as much as I could sitting down. I am not sure of I was going to quickly or the conditions were a bit slippery, but I felt like I was riding like a muppet, washed out the front wheel, slipped on wet roots, Pity I cannot get skill and fitness all together in the same ride…

I have decide to do the 35km N-duro race in Rotorua in 2 weeks, will do it on the SS and it s going to be the longest SS ride I have done.


Listening to the Misfits this morning, I never really liked them that much but have borrowed a bunch of CD’s from a friend to see if my tastes have changed at all. They are still only OK.