Makara Peak has some of the best mountain biking in New Zealand - and the world. Or so they tell me. So Sunday 8am we met at the car park and headed up.
My geography is hazy, but I think we went up Koru. It's single-track through bush, smooth but tight with trees close at hand. Fun but very straightforward, as such things go. Mostly Brains, Gordie and Ricardo go on ahead, with me and Scott bringing up the rear. That track turned at some point into Sally Alley.
Then we paused to lower our seats before diving down into the next valley on Missing Link. It's more rugged: cut into a stoney hillside at places the track was a bit bumpy and I envied Brains his new full-suspension bike. There are some steep drops off the side of the track. Missing Link runs down to a bridge on a corner at the bottom of a faster downhill bit - I'm told that Brains missed the bridge last time. And then an arduous climb up the other side of the gully.
I think we went up Aratihi next. But to be honest I don't know. There seemed to be an awful lot of uphill grind. We passed the spot where Scott broke his ribs a couple of months ago - he jerked forwards trying to ride slowly uphill over a rock and hit the handlebars.
Leaping Lizard downhill was great! Fast easy downhill singletrack. Yeehaa!
Then the hard Nikau Valley track, rated "expert" by my list of tracks. Midway down, after a difficult downhill turn, Gordie warned "there are some more gnarly bits" and hared off down a steep twisty slope. I followed and was surprised to survive. Brains came next, and went over his handlebars on the steepest downhill. He rolled and landed under his bike on his back and shoulders - as good a landing as you can hope for from a fall like that, I guess. He came up with a small scratch in his leg and a slightly bruised arm, but a bit rattled with lots of jangley adrenaline pumping around his bloodstream. The rest of Nikau Valley was less gnarly, though there was lots of narrow rough track. I lost it somewhere there as tiredness set in - started putting my foot down as I lost my balance more often on the little uphills and had trouble re-starting.
We came out near Brain's Bridge, and headed homewards back up Missing Link. By this time I was very tired, grovelling along slowly at the back with Scott as the others grovelled along slowly ahead of us.
Then back around the top on a bit of 4 wheel drive track, to the top of Starfish and SWIGG. Hard, but achievable, downhills. I again followed Scott, though this time with some aplomb.
2 1/2 hours riding, including a few rest breaks, and by the time I rode home I was quite wrecked. Karapoti's going to be more like 4 hours. We're going to get there, but we've certainly got a way to go yet.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
...a 6km long, 575m high climb that is actually three climbs broken up with a couple of downhills.
7:30am Sunday I'm awaiting Gordie and Brains at a small playground at the top of Highbury. 7:35am I'm biking back home to get my helmet. How embarrassing. As always the guys are great - they do a quick ride up and down the Rollercoaster while I get my helmet.
The Rollercoaster downhill is wide, fast easy singletrack downhill with a few gentle uphills to prevent you from accidentally passing the speed of light and exploding. It is awesomely great fun. The admission price is the parallel Rollercoaster uphill: a dirt road up the Karori Sanctuary fence from Highbury Park towards the windmill, long steep ups and a few small downs to gain a little momentum for the next big climb. Many people recommend the Rollercoaster uphill as practice for Karapoti.
I keep up with Gordie and Brains going up hills - mostly. Technique matters: four times on the steepest slopes my wheels slip, or I brush the fence trying to find the steadier ground close to it, and I need to stop and push. Weight to far back and you'll pop off backwards (I've avoided that so far). Weight too far forwards and the back wheel spins. Steady pedalling with no fast pushes is important: if you stand up to push hard you need to do so without spinning your wheels. Gordie's good at this, Brains is close, I'm getting there.
I find it harder to match their speed going down. If I can see the bottom I'm fine because then I know how I'm going to stop: if not then I find it hard to take the act of faith to just lay off the brakes and begin an unstoppable descent.
We go up past the Brooklyn windmill and continue around the sanctuary fence, down a big slope and then up Wright's Hill (our fourth different route up Wright's Hill). Then we turn around and come back the same way, finishing with a glorious descent of the Rollercoaster.
I'm much better at the downhills on our way back, having figured out that an inability to stop is just an essential part of living. Wheee!
The Rollercoaster downhill is wide, fast easy singletrack downhill with a few gentle uphills to prevent you from accidentally passing the speed of light and exploding. It is awesomely great fun. The admission price is the parallel Rollercoaster uphill: a dirt road up the Karori Sanctuary fence from Highbury Park towards the windmill, long steep ups and a few small downs to gain a little momentum for the next big climb. Many people recommend the Rollercoaster uphill as practice for Karapoti.
I keep up with Gordie and Brains going up hills - mostly. Technique matters: four times on the steepest slopes my wheels slip, or I brush the fence trying to find the steadier ground close to it, and I need to stop and push. Weight to far back and you'll pop off backwards (I've avoided that so far). Weight too far forwards and the back wheel spins. Steady pedalling with no fast pushes is important: if you stand up to push hard you need to do so without spinning your wheels. Gordie's good at this, Brains is close, I'm getting there.
I find it harder to match their speed going down. If I can see the bottom I'm fine because then I know how I'm going to stop: if not then I find it hard to take the act of faith to just lay off the brakes and begin an unstoppable descent.
We go up past the Brooklyn windmill and continue around the sanctuary fence, down a big slope and then up Wright's Hill (our fourth different route up Wright's Hill). Then we turn around and come back the same way, finishing with a glorious descent of the Rollercoaster.
I'm much better at the downhills on our way back, having figured out that an inability to stop is just an essential part of living. Wheee!
Friday, December 7, 2007
Then you're into Deadwood...
Sunday afternoon the kids, the inlaws, S and I walk up the bottom half of Salvation. It's a lovely bush-walk - sheltered and shady. The kids feel included in dad's new obsession, the inlaws love bush walks, and my best-beloved's continues her amused support for my odd new hobby. Younger Daughter (who is 3) has her own obsession - with completing things. So we then had to go see the top of the track. At the top the daughters liked Salvation but really love a the steep clamber down other track down from the same point - Deliverance.
Deliverance is steep, and twisty, and has lots of tree-roots. I'm told it's not a classic "downhill" track, but a twisty track that happens to go downhill a lot. I figure it's something to work up to. And in the meantime Brain's bike isn't up for anything too interesting in downhill work, so I'm safe.
Friday. Brain's old bike being deader than a dead thing, he's paid good money to have the new one air-freighted in. Gordie and he are keen on doing Deliverance. Am I interested?
You only die once. Hair-pin-laden Scout Hall track is a good starter. Then we stop to lower our bike seats at the top of track and go down. Dear god! People ride this? The start is a steep drop to a hairpin to a steep drop. My kids having played here I'm aware that the bush around the drop has bits of rusty metal scattered in it from an old crashed car. It would not be a good place to land.
You stand on your pedals and stick your bum back on downhill tracks. Way back. No, further than that. My tummy's on the seat and I'm trying very hard not to go forwards over the handlebars. Things are okay until I slow for a corner and look down - and down - - and down the tree-root covered track ahead. Uh-uh. Not me. Not this bit. Brains is with me on this and we stop and walk the really hard bits. Even Gordie's not game to try the two big drop-offs on the track either. But we all ride some gnarly track through gorgeous steep bush hills, splashing through streams and down a rock-garden. I come off the back of my bike three or four times trying not to come off the front, sideways twice, and stop to put a foot down innumerable times. Once while going off the back my seat knackers me on the way by. Ooochie. 30 seconds of crouching with bent knees and I'm back on, with sore nads. Good thing I'm standing up on my pedals all the way down.
We do the track in about 25 minutes. The good guys do it in 7. Oh lordie, I've got a lot to work up to. Back up Salvation we take around 20 minutes. The good guys do it in 15. We're well within range of the fitness we need, though couple of months training will help. The skills - especially my skills - need more work.
I've been riding just over 2 weeks, and I've done Deliverance. The serious bikers on-line call it "intermediate" but the city council handouts for average punters call it "expert". I didn't do it with style, grace or speed but that will come. It's huge progress.
I'm very pleased. But I'm also wearing loose-fitting undies and trousers and sitting on an extra cushion.
Deliverance is steep, and twisty, and has lots of tree-roots. I'm told it's not a classic "downhill" track, but a twisty track that happens to go downhill a lot. I figure it's something to work up to. And in the meantime Brain's bike isn't up for anything too interesting in downhill work, so I'm safe.
Friday. Brain's old bike being deader than a dead thing, he's paid good money to have the new one air-freighted in. Gordie and he are keen on doing Deliverance. Am I interested?
You only die once. Hair-pin-laden Scout Hall track is a good starter. Then we stop to lower our bike seats at the top of track and go down. Dear god! People ride this? The start is a steep drop to a hairpin to a steep drop. My kids having played here I'm aware that the bush around the drop has bits of rusty metal scattered in it from an old crashed car. It would not be a good place to land.
You stand on your pedals and stick your bum back on downhill tracks. Way back. No, further than that. My tummy's on the seat and I'm trying very hard not to go forwards over the handlebars. Things are okay until I slow for a corner and look down - and down - - and down the tree-root covered track ahead. Uh-uh. Not me. Not this bit. Brains is with me on this and we stop and walk the really hard bits. Even Gordie's not game to try the two big drop-offs on the track either. But we all ride some gnarly track through gorgeous steep bush hills, splashing through streams and down a rock-garden. I come off the back of my bike three or four times trying not to come off the front, sideways twice, and stop to put a foot down innumerable times. Once while going off the back my seat knackers me on the way by. Ooochie. 30 seconds of crouching with bent knees and I'm back on, with sore nads. Good thing I'm standing up on my pedals all the way down.
We do the track in about 25 minutes. The good guys do it in 7. Oh lordie, I've got a lot to work up to. Back up Salvation we take around 20 minutes. The good guys do it in 15. We're well within range of the fitness we need, though couple of months training will help. The skills - especially my skills - need more work.
I've been riding just over 2 weeks, and I've done Deliverance. The serious bikers on-line call it "intermediate" but the city council handouts for average punters call it "expert". I didn't do it with style, grace or speed but that will come. It's huge progress.
I'm very pleased. But I'm also wearing loose-fitting undies and trousers and sitting on an extra cushion.
...before a 10km warm up through Karapoti Gorge.
After a good first ride on Wednesday, I snuck out on Saturday morning to go back up and down Salvation again. It was fun and went very well. I tried to go down the track without putting my foot down at all, but had to twice - once being an almost unrideable hairpin bend at the bottom. Oh, and when I stopped to let the nice lady with the dog past, but that doesn't count.
Then Sunday I left home 7:30am and met R, Scott, Brains and Gordie at Karori Fire Station. We went up a track behind Karori Park called Wahine. Very different riding than Salvation, which is very narrow through the bush with good footing under the wheels. Wahine starts as more your classic kiwi pine-trees-growing-on-steep-hillside. Slippery but wide. Interesting. I walked the hard bits, but so did the others so I guess that's okay.
After that we followed farm tracks along the ridgeline heading from Makara towards Mt Kaukau. Good fun, chatting and riding, with lots of ups and downs. The farm gates that we carefully closed behind us all seemed to be at the bottom of a long downhill, designed to ruin momentum before the next big uphill.
Gordie and Brains sprint the end of some uphills, racing each other. After a couple of hours Brains won spectacularly their longest sprint - but then stopped with a broken spoke. R is a bike mechanic wizard, but even the wiz can't fix this. Much chatter about Brains' crappy old bike (I tried it - the front suspension is shot and that makes it very hard to ride over rugged downhills) and the new bike he has ordered and paid for but which is not due for 6 weeks. So Brains departed downhill, dropping off the ridgeline down a track to Churton Park, and we spun around to loop back toward Makara.
Back is steeper, and the pack walks the steep bits. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed by the amount of walking we do. We followed some single-track, with occasional steep dropoffs covered in bracken to our right. At one point a rapid downhill corner goes over an edge - and then has a hidden cut right with a bracken slope for any who fail to make the turn. Gordie and I both barely brake in time to make the turn. I remember that Jono rode this track last week, and said he encountered something like this - but at very high speed, and he's got the grazes to prove it. Heh.
We finish with a set of downhill bits back down to/through Wahine (I don't know where it starts and ends). I manage what seem to me some quite insanely steep bits of track, though I fall at the end of my best piece of riding just as Gordie is congratulating me on it.
Three hours riding on hills, much of it rutted farm tracks, some steep uphill/downhill on single-track. Home by 10:30am in time to help prepare lunch for my inlaws.
Then Sunday I left home 7:30am and met R, Scott, Brains and Gordie at Karori Fire Station. We went up a track behind Karori Park called Wahine. Very different riding than Salvation, which is very narrow through the bush with good footing under the wheels. Wahine starts as more your classic kiwi pine-trees-growing-on-steep-hillside. Slippery but wide. Interesting. I walked the hard bits, but so did the others so I guess that's okay.
After that we followed farm tracks along the ridgeline heading from Makara towards Mt Kaukau. Good fun, chatting and riding, with lots of ups and downs. The farm gates that we carefully closed behind us all seemed to be at the bottom of a long downhill, designed to ruin momentum before the next big uphill.
Gordie and Brains sprint the end of some uphills, racing each other. After a couple of hours Brains won spectacularly their longest sprint - but then stopped with a broken spoke. R is a bike mechanic wizard, but even the wiz can't fix this. Much chatter about Brains' crappy old bike (I tried it - the front suspension is shot and that makes it very hard to ride over rugged downhills) and the new bike he has ordered and paid for but which is not due for 6 weeks. So Brains departed downhill, dropping off the ridgeline down a track to Churton Park, and we spun around to loop back toward Makara.
Back is steeper, and the pack walks the steep bits. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed by the amount of walking we do. We followed some single-track, with occasional steep dropoffs covered in bracken to our right. At one point a rapid downhill corner goes over an edge - and then has a hidden cut right with a bracken slope for any who fail to make the turn. Gordie and I both barely brake in time to make the turn. I remember that Jono rode this track last week, and said he encountered something like this - but at very high speed, and he's got the grazes to prove it. Heh.
We finish with a set of downhill bits back down to/through Wahine (I don't know where it starts and ends). I manage what seem to me some quite insanely steep bits of track, though I fall at the end of my best piece of riding just as Gordie is congratulating me on it.
Three hours riding on hills, much of it rutted farm tracks, some steep uphill/downhill on single-track. Home by 10:30am in time to help prepare lunch for my inlaws.
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