Wet wet wet

What a shite 'band' they were.... anyway, I digress. U.S.-D.4, the finale, was run (swum?) on Wainui's Spoon Hill yesterday. Conditions were sloppy at best, and because I don't like cleaning my bike and with the prospect of carnage in the offing, I took the soft option and snapped a few pics. But seeing the way the guys handled the soap-like steeps made me wish I was racing with them.

Shiny, crappy people.

Tryfan nailed it for the win, putting his home-ground advantage to good use.

Callum hits hyperdrive and gets 'pic of the day.'

Will looks like he's in trouble, but made it easily on his hardtail.

Wellington's fastest Pommy downhilling rigid singlespeeder, Jim.

Caleb floats like a stone doesn't.

This guy decides that tree doesn't belong there...

Evidence (albeit blurry) of Ricky re-mounting after WALKING a section....

Aidan introduces his face to the Wainui flora after being startled by the Grim Reaper at the side of the track.

Aaron thought the crowd was screaming his name, but it was just someone saying "awwright".

Eyes on the prize... better than anything you get at a 'real' race.

The podium was pure class...

Until these guys got on it!

Hadley uses his preferred double-handed grip.

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.

The Race of the Dead

Underground Super D 3 was (yes, was, I can't do the clandestine thing anymore) a spirited affair, starting at the top of Johnson's Hill, and finishing in the cemetery at the bottom, in the dead centre of Wilton.

Drake, downhill dog extrordinaire. He put in a pretty good time too, beating most of the field (following Hadley will do that).

Downhillers love a climb....

Much worse carrying bikes up this than riding back down it.

Stairs not enough challenge? Chuck in a fence for good measure.

Who said these races were pointless?

Caleb had to get home before his wife put him in an early grave.

Hadley was cruising down the tar, saw the camera and deployed the 'attack position'.

Ghost on the machine. Aidan got spooked on the next corner and almost ended up eating tombstone.

Ricky imitating Hadley. Not quite well enough though, but still good for second.

Paul took the wrong line down this section, completely stuffing up my photo opportunity... thanks Paul.

I got a "cheers mate" from this guy, probably sarcastically after blinding him with flash.

Mike The Hippy buries it into a corner.

Stellaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh! The 'Mexican Tui' was mostly neglected in favour of the Belgian brew, not surprisingly.

Backward thinking

I did a double-take when I spotted this beast locked up in the lane at the front of my abode. At first I thought the owner had spun the bars and wheel around so it could be locked easily...
But then I noticed the fork was the right way around, and the brake levers were pointing the right way. I can't imagine how badly it handles, or if I'll spot the owner easily by his multiple contusions and plaster casts.

Nothing to see here (2)

For the second week running, no 'underground super d' race was held, this time not from Makara Peak to Karori Park. I didn't decide to have a ride this week, and didn't get any pictures again. Here they aren't.

There was no wind to speak of at the top, so huddling behind a concrete bunker wasn't necessary.

Tryfan didn't ride first to record the times at the bottom.

That's not Karori Park down there... between 10 and 12 minutes wasn't the time it took to get down.

Not a very inspiring view, eh?

Aidan who? Why does no-one think of him?

Big Canadians still not spotted.

Just a bunch of tourists checking out the view.

Hadley not putting the power down off the line.

Jim's legs weren't spinning at 230 rpm on his SS in the sprint to the line.

This little kid didn't kick that big guy's arse in the sprint either.

Not the reason we all turned up to 'race'.

Don't know what the hell that is all about... etchings maybe?

The finishing touches

My Stumpy is pretty well loaded now, adorned with XTR, XO and the best bits from Ritchey, DT and Specialized. But there were still some areas which could be 'enhanced' so here are the latest additions to the best bike I've ever owned.

Fraser (Avanti rep) slipped me these XTR skewers, they saved the massive amount of ONE GRAM! but look so good.

Specialized Phenom saddle saved me about 40g's, and it's more comfortable than it looks.

Ah, the king of bling, Chris King headset. I've been meaning to get one of these for years, and finally I ponied up for one from Hillman, the rep with the best man-hugs going. Allegedly.

Josh kindly donated this Salsa Flip-off seatpost QR, replacing the clunky and not very-well-functioning Specialized one that came standard. Josh also just pointed out that I haven't ridden the bike since the headset, skewers and QR went on, so it's off for a suffer-session up the Tip Track this afternoon.

Sport?

Beckham-mania hit Wellington last night, with 32,000 people packing the Cake Tin to watch Golden Balls in action. And a few of them were even football fans.
A perfect night for perving...um, football. If it were, say, Angelina Jolie playing, and 20,000 men were there ogling her, wearing shirts and waving banners adorned with openly sexual slogans, there'd be cries of sexism and chauvinism from the ladies.... but not when the boot is on the other foot it seems.

There were some dodgy looking hooligan types there causing bovver. Typical Arsenal riff-raff. There were a few incidents close to us caused by people standing in front of people sitting, with one fine example of fatherhood (in Man U livery, typical) yelling in front of his kids "sit fuckin down" over and over to a punter in front of him (that guy just behind Mike, actually).
Ooh, look, there he is! I couldn't bring myself to put up the pic of him with his shirt off... I'll keep that for my private viewing. Oh yeah, the Galaxy beat the Phoenix 4-1, as if anyone really cared. Wellington fans are getting used to defeat by now.