Mountain Biking: What Is It?

I really have not had much to post about lately.

The building work here at home has taken up a lot of my spare time, work also makes it presence felt with a bit too much of this..

(yeah, I am sure they saw us too at 36 000' ???)

 ...and the weather simply has NOT been sympathetic toward MTBing since about November last year. However, we have just had three, yes count them, three glorious day of sunshine. I let the first two days go through to the keeper. Actually, I went for a road ride on day two but that doesn't really count! After these two trail drying days, for day three I organised a MTB and catch up ride at Gap Creek with Dean0.

The plan was to meet at his place in West End and ride up over Mt Cootha to Gap Creek. Sounds simple enough. I have wanted to ride over Mt Cootha for a while now and had considered doing it on my road bike as it is a sealed road but after almost not having a low enough gear on my MTB I have new found respect for all the roadies that ride this hill regularly.

We dropped of the sealed road into Kokoda, thinking that it would lead us nicely into the Gap Creek trails. Wrong! It was almost straight bloody down. I am comfortable enough with my sexuality to admit that a portion of this trail was walked down! It was a certain blood loss award for anyone that tried to ride it on our bikes and I haven't tasted gravel in about a year, so no need to start today!

The first bit of single track we hit was on the right just off Beilby Rd. I think it is called Cubberla Creek Trail, but I am not sure. It is a nice little sinewy length of flowy single track that is looking particularly green and lush at the moment. I had Dean0 riding behind me and was thinking that I need to keep the pace up so I do not hold him up too much. It is just the Kind,Understanding,Nice Type of guy I am.....Anyway, pushing fast..ish on a trail that I don't really know after not riding single track for literally months is only going to end one way. To have some honor I almost wish it had happened at a reasonable clip! Unfortunately I was almost stopped, negotiating a tight right bend around a tree with my weight too far forward.............




The end result was many laughs had by my riding "colleague" and no damage to myself, but some strange shifting from my Trek. On closer inspection we noticed that the derailuer hanger was a bit bent. While a slight inconvenience, it posed no major issue as I dug into my Camelbak for the hanger that I had carried around for the last three years, waiting for just such an occurrence. My impeccable upbringing stopped me from uttering what I was thinking as I fitted the hanger only to find that the thread on the end of it was different!! Who would have thought that the same model bike, just a different series (Trek Fuel EX 8 and 9) would have different derailuer hangers????????? Bugger!! On to plan "B" then. Just don't shift down to granny gear or the spokes will eat the derailuer.

And that is how we rolled on. The hills were a bit of a slog, but the downhill was just as much fun. We covered all of the Gap Creek trails that were open and then headed back to West End for brunch.

On the ride back toward food, chatting with Dean0, it hit me what I have been missing this year. It has been the regular rides with the guys that are fun to be around. It is the social aspect that I have been missing. There have been almost no "Regular Wednesday Morning Daisy Hill Rides" due to the rain turning the Daisy Hill trails to slop. I thought I was missing the riding and was wondering why it has been so hard to get up in the early mornings and do a solo ride. The answer was suddenly so obvious! While I love the riding in the bush for all of the enjoyment and de-stressing that it brings, I also enjoy the banter, jokes, tech talk and laughter (especially crash induced) immensely and have missed it these last four months or so.

So, at the risk of offending the rain gods and returning to seven years of drought, I sincerely wish this rain would P#$$ off for a while so that the southside regulars can catch up for a few weeks and do what we really enjoy doing....living the Mountain Biking Life.