The creek crossing marks the start of the final climb, a 3km haul up to the 531m high Dopers Hill

Well, dear reader, there I was: bike in the shop, again. Rear cassette and chain broken. Middle ring on the front buckled. Ticking noise from the headset when it turns. Front derailleur bent. Hubs starting to go.

Scott made the point that maybe I should stop throwing money at repairing a bike that's falling apart and accelerate my plan to get a new bike. My partner agreed. But it was 15 days until the race: if I wanted a new bike before the race, it'd better be now so I could get a few rides in on it.
I'd admired Brains' fully-suspended GT Force 0 and could get one in that very weekend. Very tempting, it's a nice bike at a good price. But... no. Too much money to spend quickly. Instead I draw up long-term plans for Jonty to get me a 29er after the Karapoti race.

$300 in repairs got my poor wee hardtail back into shape: and a grippy tyre on the back to match the front one. Then a hard ride up the tip track and down the roller coaster with Gordie, and it's all looking good.

Last big ride on Sunday morning: one week out from the race. Makara at 8am, up Koru, up Sally Alley, down and up Missing Link, up the gravel road to the top of Leaping Lizard. Then down. Down, down, down. Leaping Lizard's swoopy and fast, but gets dryer and looser and slipperier. I bring up the rear, obviously the slowest among us downhill and just not able to get into the flow. Then I round the corner and Scott's standing himself up half-way down a rocky slope with his bike ten feet above him. He'd rolled clean over the handlebars. Scott tackles the rest at a fair speed but not his normal clip: I hang back with him. And I practice carrying my bike on the uphills. Not sure I'm going to able to run far doing that.

Then Scott departs homeward to ice his damaged shins and we head up Wright's Hill on Salvation. A beautiful track, the first I ever rode back at the start of this. I do like that singletrack. Then down Wright's Hill along the Karori Sanctuary fence. We pause at Long Gully to watch the downhill races and I bludge some dosh off Brains and Jono (Jono wasn't riding with us, he was just watching the downhill) to buy a coffee from the espresso cart. Stop a bit long as my muscles start to freeze up, but after that rest it's up to the windmill, down Car Parts then down the RollerCoaster and home.