Big Boys weekend.

  Last weekend me and Craig headed North for a Biking get away.
So off we headed Saturday afternon. First stop our addequate accommadation only minutes from Parklands, in Yandina.

  Quick cahnge and we were headed forParklands. I'd ridden there once previously and had mainly done the South eastern corner of the park and loved it. This tie around we decided to hit up the northern corner. Well we found hills and more hills. " Road Rage" is Hard technical climbs followed by short fun downhill sections. Too short for my liking. But they some great riding to be had. Except for the fact that is mostly sub tropical surroundings. Which is beautiful to look at and ride thru but STINKING hot in the afternoon.



  Next after a grueling climb to the power line junction. We hit up "Cancer tree" WOW what a hoot. Started off with a flying 35km/hr+ bolt down the ride line then into a loose gravel rocky decent. Now that was more like it. From there we headed UP AND UP again thru rock and roll and onto the southern end. Wher we promptly got stuck into some flowy XC type trails and got lost.
We ended up making our way out near dark via " Ho Chi Hoe".

Garmin track for the day.

  The adventures continued into the night when we were waiting for pizzas we decided to see if we could find a Geocache located about 2km away in a Parking area off the highway. So armed with a set of bike lights and an iPhone for navigation we headed into the bush next to a busy parking camping area ( did we look suss or what!) So after ten minutes of searching we found this underneath a log.



  Sunday came aorund and we decided ot head back to Parklands for a play on "Ho Chi Hoe" and "Lower NZ". Then off to test our skills at "Posties".
Posties is a Downhill track built by Downhill From Here. Now I looked at all the pics and videos and thought "Yeah we'll be right we can do that".

  As you arrive you are greeted with a 20% decent tarmac road with Waterbars which the car struggled to get down without frying the brakes. Wow if thats the road what's the track like?

  Well.... OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!! This place is CRAZY!. This steps up the difficulty level by a hundred fold. I quickly realised we had the wrong bikes, pedals, skills, helmets and Gonad size for this place. The last jump is a 10 foot drop road gap. WOW! ( Unforunately all my pics failed)

 SO after an hour of watching in awe and scoping out a bit fo the track it was decided that it wasn't for us. Not at $60 a head to try it out. So off we went with Plan B Hennessey's Hill Beerburrum.

  Hennessey's is anoter Downhill track with a road right next to it making it ideal for shuttles. As we arrived a Father and Son do were about to head down for a run and after a quick chat we had a shuttle piloted by there Wife/ Mother ( I think). What a score!
Hennessey's was a lot more up our alley with many alternate lines and lacking the mental steepness of Posties it was a challenge without being too over our heads. End result we ended up doing 7 runs down each time attempting a new obstacle or line to try and get quicker and smoother down.

  So the weekend didn't turn out quite as planned but as good as hoped. WIth a greuling ride around Parklands Saturday, First Geocache find, Then checking out what has to the premiere Downhill track in queensland, to taking on a recognised DH track at Hennessey's with my first ever shuttle runs. ( except the gondola at Queenstown).

Got to love Mountain Biking!

I'm Back

Ok so I'm back and a lot has been happening. Every Saturday has seen the construction of a new MTB track in Cornubia forest by a bunch of volunteers. End result an awesome 1.7km track with 100m of decent, built by mountain bikers so there's a lot of fun stuff on the trip down. Here's Dave's video taken a few days before completion.

Pump Track Update. I got a little silly and decided to whack a BIG ASS wooden berm in. So with help from Craig we came up with this.

http://vimeo.com/39459517

End result we a have a whopping big berm which mostly works. Unfortunately the berm is too big to get enough speed up to hit it perfectly. But it's still a hoot and looks cool.

MTBO News. First race was Karingal and unfortunately I'd been battling flew and sickness for a month or so. So fitness was shocking. Still raced of course and ended up getting 12th. Was really happy with my Navigation just fitness was the issue. Missed ou ont he second race at Beerburrum due to fitness and the course being 34km+ so thought it better to give it a miss. Next one is Alex Hills sprint distance so hoping for a better showing on that one.

Ride News. This weekend heading to Parklands tomorrow and hopefully Posties on Sunday.

That's it for now. Hope to update a bit more often.

Update finally

Ok so Otago is done and dusted. So It's been a very long time coming but time for an update on the whole deal.

Day 1

Flew out form Brisvegas for Christchurch, Landed there about 2:30pm and flew thru customs ( good thing about having a bike)
After getting phone sorted I found some strangers with bike boxes and jumped on the bus.

We madly rushed to get our bikes sorted and get to our first race at 4.

The digs for the first few nights. Beware the snorers.





So the first race was a warm up event at Macleans Island Recreation area. This was a maze of fairly flat and smooth trails. Really well done for what they were as there was Bike, Horse and running trails all really welll marked and one way tracks all over the place.

I rode reasonably ok and didnt make to many mistakes, except being distracted by single tracks. which were actually quicker as the fireroads were like old train track lines and rough as guts.

Map for Maclean.

Map for Maclean was an A3 1:15,000. Just nmoticed I have the wrong map. this is the Short course map. The long used the same map but had a few extra checkpoints. And was around 18km.

Well all was going well in the race till I had a rush of blood to take over some Kiwis and ended up missing a turn off. This put me nto a sweet looking overgrown singletrack. So what was I to do but PING IT!. Until I went to go around a rose bush and ended up over the bars and in a ditch. I managed to bust me ribs again THE FIRST F$@#en DAY!!!!!!!!!!!.  Anyway was a decent race and a good warm up for the week ahead.

Weird as I discovered was that it was still daylight at 10pm at night which made the 2 sets of nightlights I took completely pointless.

Anyway that will d for now I'll try and update it a race at a time.





The Final Count Down!

Well 3 more sleeps till NZ TIME!!!!! Got my new cranks today. A set of shimano SLX twin rings with bash guard.22-36 tooth.  This to go with the new cassette 11-34tooth,Rear deraillieur Short cage, new pedals and new shoes. This was done to attempt to make it more reliable. Happy days! Welll Almost!
Got the bike serviced about 5 weeks ago and had a heap of stuff suposedly fixed on it. From the day it came back the gears were playing and slipping all over the place. Result me over the top and bruised ribs. Finally over them now. Only occasional pain.

The bike hasn't felt right for a while now so I was cleaning it today egtting it ready for NZ and decided to pull the rear suspension apart. this was also "Meant" to be fixed. NOPE! One pivot Loose and the main bottom arm was MASSIVELY over tightened so wasn't moving AT ALL! So stripped it completely apart and recleaned and greased EVERYTHING. then whacked on the new cranks and Rear deraillieur, re tuned everything and WOW LOK AT THAT FULL REAR SUSPENSION AGAIN!

Amazes me how a Reputible bike shop "FOR THE RIDERS" can FUCK it up so bad!

Anyway back to the good stuff. Been reading up on where we are racing and looks like there will be some pretty awesome riding over there to be had. THEN WOW! the last race "RELAY" race is being held at a Snow farm 1500M UP! COOL can't wait for that one. Then got the final instructions tonight and there is absolute MUSIC to my Ears! and I QUOTE
"There is a downhill track from the Lodge to the bottom of the hill which may be used." I HAVE SO GOT TO HAVE A GO AT THAT!!! 1000M+ DECENT!!!

Tomorrow nights job pack the bike.

The Southside Epic

Well finally it's done and dusted. What started out as an idea to link up a few of the MTB parks on the southside turned into an 82km Group ride of Epic proportions.
The idea was to go from Capalaba thru Daisy Hill, Cornubia forest, Bayview, Mt Cotton, Scribbly gum, and then back to Capalaba. Going via as much as dirt and single track as possible.

First major stop was Daisy Hill where we picked up a few stragglers leaving the park with a total of 26 riders. I took the group down Stone Henge, Turning Japanese, Tunnel of Love, Joala Trail, Ripley's and Gillians. Before heading up the big red hill.

Next on the list was the untamed wilds of Cornubia Forest. Where we wound our way down Stupidly happy and then on to West MT Cotton Rd for some tarmac riding thru to Bayview.





Bayview was always going to be hard work. Due to its exposed tracks and the heat starting to hit. We made our way up Bensons and down Grass trees. Then up a rough climb and onto the killer climb of Doom Hippy ( hard after 40kms and some heat thrown in) Then we regrouped at the top before a split up decent down Blow and Fluffer ( probably my favourite tracks) and thru some rough stuff out onto Days rd and Lunch.

My lovely wife Michelle was good enough to put on a spread and deliver down to us for a quick lunch break and much neeeded rest before the real climbing begins.

Next challenge was the long climb up to the Mt Cotton Summit for the Eastern Escarpment "Granny Ring King Challenge". This was always as I feared the hardest part of the ride. Due to the long slow climb of around 10km along the road and the up thru the MT cotton Gardens.

At the top of the hill those with the will and the lungs to do so attempted the EE. Very Technical and steep climb which only the bravest and gutsiest of riders can make it up. As expected only Jason and Jim were up to the challenge where Jim smashed it up followed closely by Jason. Who made with only putting a foot down once. Hell of an effort for his first attempt. Althought some parties will argue that they didn't complete the true EE challenge as they only did the top section. But anyone who can make that section with 60km's on the legs is dam good in my books.

Picture does not do the hill justice. From there we hammered dwn the track past Karingal and onto Thornlands. There we ducked into Scribbly Gum for some more single track and thru to the Bike path and Home for a much needed BBQ and drinks.

Huge thanks to all who turned up to make this a Great ride. And to my wonderful wife for getting up before the sun and getting me and the food organised.

Otago Update: 8 days to go. New bike bits have arrived- New pedals flats with clips. New shoes-A lot more grippy for running when needed, New cassette, rear deraillieur and have new Cranks on there way. Going to change to a 2 X 9 setup with a bash guard. hope it to be a bit more reliable.

NZ here we come!!! Forecast for Wanaka on the day we land is 5-16 Gunna be cold!

Yarrabilba Photo shoot

Sunday I managed to drag a couple of mates out for a spin at Yarrabilba. None of us was up for a big ride so we decided to do a photo shoot instead.

Halfway up a single track Craig spotted an obstacle we had to have a go at getting over.

Don't know why but I like this piccie

Up the top of the hill we found some fun drops amongst the boulders. I didn't realise I wasn't wearing my helmet for this one.

Another big rock Craig had to tackle. Doesn't look it but the rock is about 5 foot high. He was using all 150mm of travel so I wasn't having a go with only 100mm of travel.

This is probably the best shot of Yarrabilba I've seen. Captures the mood of the place perfectly. Rocky and side by side riding. Choose your own adventure.

And one of my dodgy Pics This track is really steep and now has the nickname os S.A.B.I.P. Steering and braking is pointless.

Hope you enjoy the pics. All the good ones are Gav's. More here More Pictures Here.

Update for the Epic. Only for those that read this. Shhhhhhhhhhhh

Duck Creek Rd Kerry

Sunday saw a group of us heading up Duck Creek rd Kerry. After a foggy drive down this is the view which waited us as we headed off.

The first few climbs are quite a battle. With a 1000m of climbing over around 14km with road adding a further 4km to get to Oreilly's

 Andrew aka Hootsman ( All shots courtesy of him)enjoying the friendly and persistant birds at the Cafe at the top. Pancakes were the order of the day but the milkshake is not advisable when you've got 18km to go back down.

 A Beautiful shot of one of the trees at the lookout halfway up.

 The sign at the main lookout which spells the end of the main climbing sections.

 Troy doing his Superman inpersonation at the lookout.

 The view from the top over Oreilly's farm.

 The crew at the bottom. After the high speed decent, we decided to have an impromptu road race. Which really hurt the legs averaging over 35km/hr for the last 10 minutes immitating roadies.

Thanks to Jason for putting it together always a good ride and challenging ride. And to Andrew for the use of his piccies. I was on Video duty. And to everyne else for an enjoyable ride.

Last thoughts- BRING ON NZ!!!!! After a 60km ride Friday and then Duck creek rd Sunday I finally feel ready for NZ and The Southside Epic.