Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Mudnight Express

Finally got back on the MTB last night, even if it was only due to the constant nagging by Big Nath, who just bought himself this sweet '08 Enduro Expert. He was thinking of getting a Big Hit (a throwback to his DH days), but I talked some sense into him and he actually listened! It's a mean bike, 6 inches of travel and under 14kg! It looked pretty nice before the ride.

He was glad he listened when he was suffering up the climbs in the gloop. Dragging a 20kg DH bike up the sloppy singletrack wouldn't have been much fun.

The after shot. It wasn't too bad really, mostly just a lot of puddles and a few sections were quite boggy, the further up we got the worse the trails were. We decided at the foot of Aratihi that we wouldn't see the summit tonight, as light rain started to fall and Nath's lack of riding started to tell. So it was back up Missing Link to Ridgeline extension, then SWIGG and Starfish to finish (both were pretty slippery, but always fun).

That's a contented man right there! Except for the crash damage on his elbow and hip, the big Tongan/Samoan/Fijian made it through his first night ride in years unscathed. Hey, where'd you get that helmet?

My feet got wetter and colder washing the Stumpy than they did on the whole ride. Shoe covers are a Godsend, especially on the ride home from work on the fixie later on. I got some strange looks, riding through the city covered in mud on a clean road bike. With no rain for three days now, things are looking good for the weekend.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

just back from glenrock. had to abort because of loss of air pressure in fork of enduro SL. the fork travel restricter also not working properly. bike left at shop to investigate.

on a positive note, scout camp track is now almost clear of fallen trees.

slug

brettok said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Bolton played well at the weekend then? A prime candidate for demotion me thinks!!!

brettok said...

Gotta be Matt.... only one game buddy. Hey drop us an email, brettok@telpacific.com.au