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.