Adventure Mountain Biking Central Styles

Went for a wee mtb ride yesterday.
Alright it's not that simple.
Keighley was going out but that got scuttled as the girls posse couldn't get it going to suit their (menstrual) cycles and/or baby sitters.
So Leighton and I said lets go and knock of the Touheys Gully loop from the top of the Crown Range - altitude about 1000 metres (remember this fact.)
Then Barney from Queenstown rings and says "what are you doing?" I tell him to meet us at the top of the Crown Range. Yep no worries except Fenella (his girl) was riding to Wanaka on the road and would need Keighley to grab a change of clothes for her arrival - Keighley was running us up to the top while Leighton's truck was at the end of the trail.
Barney then invited Christina Sargent as well....
So we got started about 11.45 instead of 10am....

And holy crap it was steep.
I'll be the first to say I need to gear the 29er down a fraction - seems I was riding the equivalent of a 28 when you really would have appreciated a 34 on the back...
Barney who is not human rode all but the super steep bits in his middle chainring (freak)
Leighton rode it all, but he's between careers at the moment so does more than his fair share of riding and Christina put a in a solid effort on her new dualie - I did see her hop back on for the photos though...
So yeah, basically I walked a lot, my lungs are still full of little green men and my legs turned into planks of wood.
I pulled the pin after about an hour and 500 metres of altitude gain.

Not sure when I've bailed out on a (mid) ride before so it was a whole new experience.
Did I feel less of a person ?
Would this mean the end of my cycling career?

Nah.

It's ok.
I just rode back retracing my steps, had lunch overlooking the Gibbston Valley and pottered back down the Cardrona Valley to meet the others.
Only had to wait 12 minutes for them.

The girls had whipped up a great spread when we got home followed by a picnic dinner at Dublin Bay.
Then some fairly amazing beers with Leighton (Black Sheep Ale, Youngs Double Chocolate followed by a Chimay) and that was it.

Leighton was up all night throwing up - might be dehydration/sunstroke or the flu.
But man was he crook today.

Keighley got out for her ride, a visit to the Farmers Market and generally left the kids to me.
Emily helped me clean the 29er and then we all went to the nieghbours for Deans's birthday bbq.

Phew.

Our recent holidays

Can be viewed here at Emily's blog (that we write for her, cause she's only little)

1st Adventure ride with Hugh & Rick

Another weekend neglecting my pushbikes - well I did get the fixie out and ride to the mail box.

With the arrival of new Yamaha, Sunday afternoon was a quick jaunt from Hawea Flat up the Eastern side of Lake Hawea to the Dingle Station -well as far as the locked gate would let us.

Photos here

Hugh couldn't wait to find a track that was off the main gravel road...in the trees, blasting through a Ford at warp factor ten and filling his boots with water....
- and then he sees a guy in moto gear walking towards him who has run out of gas -"hop on mate, we'll sort you out"
Hugh's tail was thumping so hard at the prospect of helping someone there was a dust cloud.
Got him sorted and we're on our way again.
Had a play at Timaru Creek - crossing a few braids and not dropping it luckily. Hugh might need a snorkel to curb his enthusiasm.

Then home for a bbq with the neighbours, welcome summer, welcome.

Oh, My God..

I had a cup of instant coffee.

Yeah I know.

What was I thinking?

It's possible I wasn't.

In my defence I was wrestling between luke and darth.

This was the temptation:

Since then I have given up on my boyhood dreams of becoming a Fireman, Space astronaut, Policeman, etc.

My favourites file is full of search phrases such as:

Australian Rally Safari

Dakar Rally

KTM 640 ralle bike rebuild

Oh, dear. I may need a lot of post it notes left around the house with cute messages like "I fed the kids- see at 6pm tonight" and "Wow, you're the best Keighley see you Sunday avo"

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update: 11/10/2008

Um, I got my own instead of dribbling over

pictures on the www.... ......................................................exhibit A:

Had a spin on Saturday morning, rode it home from Alexandra that afternoon.

Left at about 4.45, got home about 8pm.

It's only 100km by road....

My post it notes seemed to have worked pretty well.

Lucky for me I didn't need to ring home as the cell b8atry was flat, the snow was deep and it was getting low on available light. Oh and gas level was unknown......

Lucky I was on an adventure bike :-)

Pictures to follow.

A nice drive in the country

Under the pretence of staff training, Alastair (my boss) and I spent last Saturday here
Basically we got to drive 3 wicked - well ok, two wicked and one chicks car in the snow and ice all day under the supervision of this guy: Hunter Edwards; apparentley he doesn't google (WTF?)

Check this link for Hunter's gallery
We were the group dated 16/08/2008 and yes, that is me behind the wheel of the Golf in pictures 3-15.
Yes, the car did nearly a full 360 spin and yes, Alastair did grab the hand brake moments prior!
And that's me again reversing out of the snow bank in the same car a bit later on as well.

Here's some data gathered from the GPS gizmo in the BMW from the morning session:
STUDENT - rick - alastair
LAP 1 - 70.5 - 72.3
LAP 2 - 72.4 - 72.4
LAP 3 - 74.5 - 72.7
AVG.SPEED - 30.4 - 29.4
MAXSPEED - 45.7 - 44.1
STDEV - 2.00 - 0.21

And because the boss has only heard of a blog, but never read one I'm fairly safe to mention that I did post a faster lap than him and did I also mention he hopped out of the Beemer leaving it in drive ? Lucky the Golf was parked in front to halt it's travels...... :-)

Whilst freaking expensive, it was a great time and a good one to tick off the list.

Oh & here's a link to Shaun Summerfield doing the very thing but at the tax payers expense.
(It takes an age to load, but it is the best way to show what happended)

Momma & Poppa Redwood go ridin'

After much confusion on Saturday morning Hugh turned up with a very pregnant Jess (due that day), who looked after the nippers while we went out riding.

This was a big thing for myself and Keighley as the littlies pretty much put the kybosh on going "hey, let's just go out for a bike ride" In fact it's the first time since we moved here a year ago that we've been out into the Sticky Forest together.

Hugh wasn't even like a third wheel ! More like a studly version of myself - he was wearing my vest which I purchased from Big Bear Bikes - wait for it - in Big Bear Lake, California...............they even have Tinker Juarez's Etto Helmet in the window.

This is officially the middle of winter - the rest of the country is getting slammed with less than ideal bike riding weather.

We however had dust coming off our tires.

Not that I'm bragging.

The Boys in Blue

Nah, not the cops - a couple of bikes I own.

One is broke.

& the other one is it for off road at the mo - what's that you say?

No Foes ? Yep it's sold, 1st time in 8 years without a Foes

I've even been de-Kleined !

Indeed the '98 Attitude comp has gone too.

Clark Kent: used to belong to Stephen Swart when he was racing for the Coors Light team in the USA, prior to the team switching to Serottas the next year.

It has unceremoniously been sitting in a bike box for the last 12 months waiting and waiting and waiting......finally after a wiff of cafeine inspiration from http://rewiretrorides.blogspot.com/ I'm into it.

The paint is stuffed and there is a hairline crack in the gusset under the down tube.

So it's off to http://www.kiwibikes.co.nz/ for some love with the welding torch and then down to Wellington to get some new paint and decals from Ross Bee.

The 8 speed down tube shifter Dura Ace groupset complete with "Coors Light" marker pen on the rims will be re-instated.