...culminating in the "Rock Garden," an awe-inspiring single-track descent complete with boulders the size your bike and drop-offs to die for.

The day after the skills course I went out with Brains and Scott. They wanted to start on Deliverance, the hardest track we ride, which begins with its most tricky downhill plunges.

Full of confidence after my awesome time on the mtb skills course, I happily agreed.

In hindsight this was very foolish. I'd just spent a day changing my stance: changing how I sit, how I stand on the bike, how I brake. While the changes were all for the good, I wasn't yet settled, it wasn't time to leap into very technical downhill. I quickly went headfirst over the handlebars at speed onto some treeroots well below me on a very steep downhill. Shaky and shocky I refused the guys suggestion that we abort and try an easier track. Then I did the same again within a minute of regaining my seat. Thankfully this was the first outing for the camelbak my brother gave me for Xmas, and it cushioned my back from the blows. But while at the time I felt scared but largely unhurt, that was the adrenalin hiding things from me. It was two weeks before the bruising on my arm had faded and my thumb still hurts when I bend it 5 weeks later, suggesting that I may have broken it in a minor way.

The guys were (of course!) great. The quietly switched the day's plan onto easier tracks, we went up to Makara Peak but came down the easy route on lazy fern.

But I was ruined.

The problem is confidence. After my spectacular end-of-end flights things changed. Instead of leaping happily into difficult spots I hung back. On a tricky downhill corner if you let the fear-reaction take hold you tense up - arms straighten, your weight lifts up off the bike, which means it moves forward (coz you're going downhill) and after that you're off-balance and it's all over. You've got to stay loose, drop low, drop you heels, lean into the turn, brake hard if you must, try to stop if you want, but as long as your bike's moving you must keep riding as if you're confident and really mean it.

Among the wreckage: my enthusiasm to ride again diminished. Blogging my rides ceased. When the other guys had to move our exploration of Karapoti off 6 Jan onto the 15th - a date I could't do - my training started to flag.