Saturday ride

Had an average ride on Saturday, not sure if I am a bit tired but I felt I rode OK, certainly cleaned some sections while remaining fully seated, which I always view as a good sign. But I also rode like a muppet in other sections, washed out tires, dug my front wheel in on a corner and just about went over the bars and failed to make a technical climb I have done dozens of time due to bad line choice.

Rode with my normal riding buddy and a friend of his that hasnt ridden with for a very long time. Last time we rode together he cleaned us out with his power and fitness, though I was pretty confident we were a hell of a lot stronger now.

Rode up the normal Powerball trail then took the back road of Cookie to the water tower and down the Travis trail. I haven’t ridden that track for a while and had a little bit of fun on the small jumps at the end. I am getting more confident getting small amounts of air while riding with the seat right up. We then road Upland, Lightening, Enchanted Forest, Haggis, Northern Exposure, No brakes, Ironhorse – where I did drop my seat and got some air, back through Haggis and the Doris to Slipperies Delight. Slipperies was riding well, I love that trail, it is probably the most technical bit of single track in the park, nothing too complex, a few rooty tight sections with pinch climbs and drops all through it - it is fun to ride. We then rode Tree Huggas, link, by passed Cookie again and did the new section on Raceface down. We were out for 2 half hours and covered quite a bit of ground. Rode at a reasonable pace on average and had a few breaks. We did break the new guy a bit, which is always good !

It is my birthday in a couple of weeks so I will pick myself up a cheap cycle computer as I am quite keen to see how much ground we cover on some of these rides. We are certainly doing a lot more than we used to.

The next event is in 3 weeks time, the Taupo day Night Thriller 12 hour. I have done it 6 times now (maybe 5) once as a solo. I was not going to do it this year but am now in a team of 4 single speeders so it should be fun. Though the track is not really that SS compatible with quite a long grass section that is just hard work on a geared bike, will be a b*stard on the SS.

I watched a bit of the worlds on TV, it is on quite late (by my standards). Lasty night they had the 4X. pretty cool to watch, of course I would have loved to have been there !