I managed to get 2 mountain bike rides in and 1 failed road ride so I may as well start with the failed road ride. I got up nice and early on Saturday morning and planned to do a quick 2 hourish road ride on the Cindercone which had been recently fitted with slicks. I got out of the house on time and about 10km from home when I started hearing loud grinding/crunching noises from my front hub. The hub has been on the way out for a while and had finally decided to collapse. I managed to slowly nurse the bike back home again, and when I got off and had a look the wheel had about 2 inches of sideways movement at the rim.
Being broke at the moment has meant that bike has been shelved until I get some cash together to get the hub rebuilt. I am planning on a big sell up of old bike parts to see if I can raise enough funds to get my wheels sorted on both my bikes, along with 2 new speedos and a mechanical disk for the single speed.
Back to the real riding...
Friday morning I went up to Woodhill for a ride with the normal crew, for the first time in ages the whole team was riding. The Woodhill carpark had been moved about 4 km's down the road back towards the highway which has reduced the amount of driving on the metal road and increased the amount of riding possibilities. The one drawback or good thing depending on your point of view is the riding in the northern block is significantly further away, which means it will get ridden a lot less, which means the track extension I have put in will take longer to bed down.
From the new carpark there is about a KM of single track to the start of the forest and where you would normally ride up the Link and Cookie trails to get to the start of Big Mama and Spaghetti you are now right there. I stayed with the main bunch till the Big Mama jump and then Miles and I took off for a longer more XC friendly ride and left the huckers to it. Miles has just bought himself a new GT Ruckus single speed. It is a nice little bike, steel framed and 1 gear - lovely. We did quite a long ride up to my track and along the new section and back to the carpark, out for about 3 hours all up.
By Sunday I had the new Continental Explorer mud tyres on the SS and Miles and I shot out for a dirt session at Riverhead. Surprisingly when we got there at 9.00 AM there was no-one there. There has been a lot of talk about riding Riverhead all year round and not paying to ride at Woodhill etc etc so I did expect to see more riders than none... The weather was fine though it had been raining during the week. Riverhead is a clay based forest and is 'challenging' in the wet. It is very rooty, quite steep in parts and the tracks were not very well designed, leading to huge mud holes and steep off camber corners that are extremely greasy when wet. The conditions on Sunday were Ok. The motorbikes had been through the forest, seeing as they built most of the trail network, I cannot complain but they had chewed some of the newer trails up quite badly leaving thick gluggy clay which was tiring to ride through. Miles and I rode Pattersons 1 and 2, up Christ hill (I made it), Richies, Blackwood road, a trail I do not know the name of, but I call it the Rollercoaster, and back to the carpark, we got lost twice as I left the map at home. The riding was Ok, Rollercoaster was tough as you could not get the speed up on the downhill bits to easily make the uphills. There were quite a few bogs forming as well. I doubt I will be back too many times before next summer...
The bike after Riverhead.
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