Be my guest...blogger

After a bout of whining from Josh ("when are ya gonna blog it?", "where's the photos?") I decided to hand the reins over to him just to shut him up, and so I didn't have to tell you how I was smashed up a climb by a vegetarian midget. So it's with great trepidation and some small pleasure that I present to you our Special Guest Blogger...


After a bout of whining from Brett-o, here I am guest blogging for him. For some reason he thinks that this will be a quality way to spend my brief lunch hour at work... he's just come back over the computer to prompt me to try to sum up the "Brett experience", should I choose to. Exciting stuff...

Sunday's weather was perfect for a ride, calm weather with a slight southerly chill. Makara has been done to death lately so i figured it was time to show Brett some new trails. After meeting up at work we rode over the Brooklyn hill and down Happy Valley Road to the start of the infamous Tip Track, a Wellington classic. For the unacquainted, this is a nasty, lung burning, unreasonably steep 3km of 4wd track that begins at sea level and stops just below the summit of Hawkin's Hill. It's a popular training ride for enthusiasts pre-Karapoti; it gets largely left out of most people's riding schedules the remainder of the year on account of how shit it is.

I was in the mood to watch the old-timer suffer so it seemed the perfect choice. At the summit Brett declared that he had no intention to revisit it in a hurry; fair enough too. The views from up there are great; looking back down the hill you get a good impression of how steep it is.

Next up was Carparts (the side of the track is littered with bits of old cars), a cool little MTB-only track that begins at the wind turbine further down the hill. This was another gem that Brett hadn't yet ridden and needed to be introduced to; tight, flowing singletrack which absolutely roosts in dry conditions, which we're still fortunate to have. On the way down to the turbine Brett ("I love animals and they love me back") met some freaky new friends.


Carparts was in great shape and is a great intro to Backdoor, which it's linked to by a short stretch of 4wd track following the fenceline. More singletrack descent, which in this case you're not technically supposed to ride down (but everyone does). We encountered another rider halfway down which increased our posse to three. We only had to slow up for a bunch of tourists near the bottom; they all had cameras out by the time Brett rode past so hopefully he was looking stylish for his appearance in their future holiday snapshot albums.

This all finished back in Aro Valley where I live. We stopped at my house briefly so Brett-O could sniff my cats. I'm not going to try to start understanding why he gets off on that... anyway, cheers to Brett for the great ride and talking me into sacrificing my lunchbreak for his blog.