The Ride So Far

After a bit of rain Saturday afternoon it was all systems go again on Sunday.

60km and 2000m climbing? Yes please.

Today we are off to Taupo for a roll along the W2K trail.

See you after that.

Sneaking Into Aotearoa

This morning I managed to sneak into the Land Of The Long White Cloud. Again....

I like this place and I will be calling where the skinny red arrow is pointing to, home for the next week. Yup, the Redwood forests of Rotorua will be ringing to the melodic sound of Aussie voices and the pubs tinkling with the sound of our loose change for the next week.

Look Out!

Bye bye to the land of the Long Winding Singletrack

Time is a funny thing. It can drag along, seemingly barely passing at all. Other times it zips by so fast you feel that you cannot take everything in. The last ten days have been more of the latter version of time perception.

I seems only yesterday that we were assembling our bikes and going for a ride at Woodhill in Auckland. Now, here we were, winging our way home.

The experience of riding the trails in bicycle mad New Zealand have forever changed how I will look at singletrack. I now know how good it can be. Even the trails we rode on a destination ride were unbelievable. Yes, New Zealand has something special going on, nation wide.

Thanks to the guys that shared the trip. It was a laid back, easygoing week that made the riding even better. According to my GPS we managed to be out on our bikes for 36 hours, ride 254 kilometres and climb 6836 metres vertically. Pretty much all on sweet singletrack. Thanks fellas!

Where will we go next time? Soooooo many choices.

Single Track Minds

For the last two days we have been pedalling our way around Whakerewarewa Forest, sampling the amazing flow of trails like Billy T, Corners (yes there are!) and Split Enz. We have paid the price for our fun with 2000m climbing over 80 kilometres and the legs are definitely feeling it! We are all still rolling up for a start each morning, the grin factor overcoming the fatigue.

A Sapling.

Warming up.

There is a trail between those rocks.

Nick further along the trail on Rock Drop.

Dave smashing Challenge.

Rich Challenging.

Ball and Chain.

Washing away the dust of another day in MTB Paradise. (Yes there is dust in heaven!)

Wooooooooooo Hoooooooooo!!!!!!!

Day three in New Zealand and what can I say? These trails are mind blowingly full on! We met up with Jody and Greame this morning and mapped out a strategy. As they had been here for a few days longer than us they had ridden some of the trails we were planning on hitting up, but that didn't stop us sharing some of the lower trails like Genesis and Challenge as well as the first big climb.

Daisy Hill Crew, Rotorua style.

From here we decided to climb it up to the very top of the park to take in Tuhoto Ariki and Split Enz. The route looked simple enough on a map but the reality put a bit of hurt on us. Luckily we were in no hurry, we had all day and no place to be. Frontal Lobotomy beat climbing fire road....just.

We stopped at the top of the National Downhill track for a rest and bite to eat, then it was on to the top of the climb at 765 metres, the start of the Tuhoto Ariki trail. This trail is a rough, rooty track through rainforest like bush. It is like parts of the Coffs Harbour Pleasure and Pain course and runs for just on five kilometres. It is tough, but rewarding. We took a break to let the heart rates settle and take on some calories at the Hatupatu intersection.

Nick taking it to Tuhoto Ariki

Once through this maze of forest we hit some more fire road before taking in Split Enz. I do not have the vocabulary to describe this trail!!! Think smooth clay, through rainforest, with sculptured berms that go on and on and on. Think unlimited grip. Think wooden bridges around blind corners. Then imagine all this when on the rivet. Flat. Stick.....

We managed to stop on Split Enz for this photo only because Nick had worded us up on the spectacular viewing point. Otherwise we would have blown by at 30-40 km/h. This trail is the new benchmark!! (and yes, my arms ARE locked into the riding position!!)

The next trail was Pondy, which proved to be an exposed(not much need for sunscreen here with all the tree cover) and fast downhill blast. We found ourselves at the bottom with our first mechanical of the trip. Not surprisingly it was a flat tyre.

Rich pulled out an obscenely large carrot to eat and a nice rest time was had by all (but Nick)!!

The fatigue was starting to set into the legs by this stage so we were taking it easy on the climbs and then bombing the descents to save energy. Rollercoaster, Spring Roll, Chop Suey and possibly some other trails were sampled before we hit the mandatory Exit trail on the way out.

It was a fairly subdued group that headed out for a bite to eat tonight. We were SMASHED! Totals for the day stand at 40km with just over 1000m climbing. Not huge numbers by themselves
, but as the third day of riding the toll on our legs was starting to build. Being resilient Aussies we will find a way to push through..........

Cheeeerrrzzzz..........from our honorary Aussie.

What a day!!!!

Whakarewarewa Forest

Today we loaded up the van and left Auckland behind for Rotorua. The anticipation was building and after a couple of hours on the road we rolled into Rotorua. We checked some of the many bike shops and scoped out some lunch. Next it was time to find our accomodation and saddle up for a poke in the forest. We met up with Rich ,who had flown in from Brisbane this morning, at the motel. After a short amount of time we were ready to roll.

Our digs are literally along the road from the forest entrance so it wasn't long before we were standing at the foot af a huge Redwood tree. Very impressive even at the young age of these trees.

We intially rode The Grinder and a couple of close in tracks to warm up and get a feel for the trails. The first thing I noticed was how rooty the trails were. We were lucky it was dry as it would be very interesting with some moisture on the ground. The bermed turns had us all whooping and even the pine needle surface was grippy.

From here we consulted the map and decided to swing past A-Trail and up to Tickler, which we knew was closed for logging.

A-Trail proved to be an awesome roll and pump through rainforest with berms galore. Unfortunately for Rich, one of these berms had a tree growing out of the end of it, which neatly clipped his bar end and sent him skittering into the leaf litter in a tangle of rider and bike! If only I had a video rolling! To my (and Rich's) relief, he jumped up totally unscathed due to the soft landing.

At the end of A-Trail we climbed up to the start of Tickler to plan out next trail attack.

We decided to climb Katore link trail then up to Gunna Gotta trail. This proved to be quite a solid little climb with the kicker being that when we crested the hilltop at Gunna Gotta we were greeted by a scene of desolation. The area had been logged in the last few days and the trailhead was obliterated. We searched around for twenty minutes and finally spotted a fleeting glimpse of some riders in the treeline above us. There was only a small stand of trees on the hilltop after the logging (think bowl haircut here) and we needed to hike a bike up to the trail. The trail was steep,eroded and rooty with the odd section getting us whooping again until we popped out down on the fire road.

We rode a few more trails then after about three hours decided to head for home via the appropriately named Exit trail(we are going to love leaving via this trail each day!!) and home to clean up and eat.

So day one in the Redwoods saw us cover twenty five kilometres with 550 metres of climbing. Not bad for an introductory ride by a bunch of old blokes in Whakarewarewa Forest.

                                
                                                                               Cheers!