Dirty Riverhead Winter Ride

Had a most awesome ride today. Organised by the Freeriden shop guys, the first of,what will hopefully be, a series of Riverhead rides. The weather had been pretty bad during the week with some quite heavy rain - Riverhead is clay based and does not like rain, Saturday however was a great day for riding, sunny with a gentle breeze. 21 riders turned up for the 18km afternoon ride which is a large number by Auckland standards.














The ride was a mix of slippery, gluey, dirty generally downhill single track and nice stony climbs. The single speed worked a treat and I managed to get up most of the hills, some of the greasy clay was impossible (for me) to climb, in fact it was hard to walk in some places. Though I easily cleared this climb, but the boys on the heavy free ride bikes with an extra 5 kilos of clay stuck to their wheels did not find the up hills as much fun as me. 1 of the back 2 riders broke his rear free wheel so had no pedals. We had 1 read deraileur snap off and 2 flats, but apart from that it was an injury and damage free ride.













I walked down 1 steepish section but otherwise stayed on the bike for the rest of the ride.Thats me at the top in the black shirt













It was damn good dirty muddy fun...













The bike the next day before it was cleaned. The big chunks were scraped off before I put the bike in trhe car to come home.