Wainui? Wainot!

For months I've been wanting to get out to Wainuiomata to check out the new trails which are being built and which I'd read lots about in mags and on the web. But as none of my riding cronies knew where the trails were, we'd been sticking around Makara, Mt. Vic and all points in between. While we were at work on Sunday, Josh got a call from Carl who claimed some prior (read years ago) knowledge of roughly where to go, and we were off.
Armed only with a map downloaded from the net and an unwavering confidence in Carl's ability to read it, Josh, Bryce and I trailed Carl into the wild, windy Wainui hills.

The first part was nice, smooth trails with rolling climbs, nothing too spectacular or challenging though.

But the views back over the harbour were great, there's always spectacular scenery to be had on any ride around Wellington.

By the time we got to this point the trails had become a lot more technical, with myriads of roots and leaf mulch covering the twisty, undulating singletrack. We were too busy grunting our bikes up, down and around the trail to get any pics, and we were working hard for our money (Carl's doing a story for NZMTB mag on the trails).


Carl snapped these couple of pics of Bryce and me pulling some roots manuva's.



After the awesome singletrack of the Rata Ridge trail (twisty, flowing, rooty, drops, the lot) we nailed some long downhill fireroad and then transitioned along the road to the bottom of Spoon Hill, site for this weeks underground super d (you didn't hear that from me). At the top we turned around and nailed it back down, a real blast. Then some climbing up the road to the entrance of the new trail network... Tryfan and his crew have done an amazing job of creating another gem of a system, with perfectly flowing gradual climbs and just right switchbacks. We climbed to the top of the Labyrinth trail, then pointed our bikes and now tired selves back down it towards the cars, all of us singing the praises of the trails and Carl's ability to not get us lost.

With the sun setting on a great ride, the only thing to do was get fish n chips, and we found a great little shop in Petone called Go Fish, check it out, they do great food. Driving back into Wellington the sunset was pretty cool, and I thought to myself that it doesn't get much better for a mountain biker anywhere in the world.