Did my first night ride tonight - my bike's been at the Bike Hutt, and Mike kindly offered to bring it back to me by way of meeting for a night ride. He lent me a light, like a pusher offering the first hit free, and we rode at Wainui with a regular Bike Hutt group. We rode down Labyrinth and Snails, a play on the super-steep firebreaks, then up Jungle Gym. Most of the group went off to ride Spoonhill, but I piked on that. I was running out of energy after not having enough to eat and starting to ride like a mong, and I find Spoonhill/491 tough enough in the light and dry, so at night, hungry and after some light rain I left it for another time.

There will be another time - I came home to find I'd sold my windtrainer on Trademe, so I can buy a light.

Night riding is cool. It took me a while to get used to the trees disappearing as they entered what would have been my peripheral vision, but after a while I adapted to the tunnel vision effect and managed to stop expecting to hit one. Next time I'll have some more afternoon tea!

Birthday blat

Today is my 33rd birthday. For the last three years I've taken the day of work for my birthday and gone for a ride - all road rides, round the Akatarawas the last couple of times. This year I made it a mountain bike ride. Instead of riding to work, I packed the bike in the van and commuted from the Hutt into Wellington, and introduced myself to Makara Peak.

I rode up Koru, Sally Ally, Missing Link and Aratihi to the top, then down North Face, Swigg and Starfish. After a break at the van for morning tea I rode up to the top the same way, and down Leaping Lizard then back up the road to the van for lunch - then a couple of laps of Koru, Swigg and Starfish to round things off before heading back to the Hutt to visit a few bike shops before picking the kids up at school. Cool day.

Woohoo!

After heading out yesterday and riding Snail Trail and Jungle Gym, and being quite pleased to make it round without putting a foot down or touching a tree except to stop for a dog walker, I joined a workmate for a lunchtime ride today. He suggested we ride Spoonhill/491, and I stepped up to the challenge. I haven't had the guts to try Spoonhill yet, having heard that it's a tougher trail than the others in the park that I've ridden. We ended up riding up Labyrinth, then down Spoonhill/491, the link track, a bit of the wetland, Beeline Extension and the new Westside track, then back via Jungle Scout and Jungle Gym.

I was stoked to have ridden Spoonhill/491 without stuffing it up and flying off into the trees, suffering just an accidental toppling over when getting too close behind my workmate, braking and losing my momentum - other than that, I just rode it without thinking too hard. It's rooty, rocky clay singletrack, with little dropoffs and chutes - nothing wildly dramatic, but proper mountain biking. I'm getting the hang of this stuff.

All of these tracks are on tracks.org.nz, for the curious.

First week back offroad

I picked up the new machine about a week and a half ago, on Saturday, and took it out the next morning to re-acquaint myself with how to ride offroad, after a 10-year hiatus. That first ride I was unstable, unsteady and had no flow whatever - I clipped a tree with my shoulder, fell down a bank and generally rode like a total newbie. I headed into the Wainui trail park and rode
Labyrinth, Snails, Jungle Scout and Jungle Gym, then met a workmate and did another lap before heading home.

I made it out for another four rides during the weekday lunchtimes, all at Wainui, then on Sunday, as the Wainui trails were closed for the Wainiuomata mountain run, I thought I'd head up the pylon road to see what that's like. It reminded me a lot of my expeditions along the top of Flagstaff and Swampy, back in the day - decent gravel roads to rutted 4WD tracks. As it had been raining on Saturday, there was a lot of drive-train eating mud puddles, and after hitting one or two too many of these I had massive chain suck in both the middle and granny, so ended up big-ringing it home. Pinch-punctured the back too - all in all, too much repair and cleaning required for a relatively uninspiring ride.

When I got home I removed a ton of mud, cleaned and lubed, added some colour-matched PVC tape to cover the chainstay paint damage from chain suck and protect it from the next occurence and chucked a small bottle of oil in the saddlebag for next time.

New machine

My new MTB is a Fisher Mamba, bought from The Bike Hutt in Upper Hutt. They did me a good deal on the first two changes from the stock setup when I bought the bike - first replacing the stock cable disc brakes with Hayes Stroker Ryde hydraulics, and then selling me some meatier tyres at a good discount to replace the stock Bontragers, which have tread more suited to hard and dry trails. It's now wearing Maxxis Ardents, 2.4 front and 2.25 rear and the Bontragers are waiting in the shed to maybe come out in summer, or for cyclocross racing.