Huntsbury Beerfest Ride...

Friday night last week I dropped round to Swtchbckrs and had a very tasty and energy giving roast chicken meal with the family. After dinner Rich and I set off in the recently re-warranted and fully operational Bongo RS rally van. We made our way over to the hills and parked on Centaurus Ave, conveniently next to a little boutique wine and beer shop. In we went and made a few selections for later, and then mounted up for the slog up the hill. We were going to do the Rapaki, but decided not to break the run of not having ridden it for god knows how long now and headed up the smoothly paved Major Aitken Drive. We did a little exploring on a little piece of single track about half way up which kind of petered out in several houses back or front yards but Rich assured me we were still on park land. A neighboring dog disagreed and set of its bark alarm which brought out its owner who told it to shut up. So I guess we were right or maybe seeing 2 guys with weird clothing and incredibly bright lights wandering around below your house would be a little off putting???? In the end we had to lug our bikes out up a pretty steep slope back to the road and continued on. We joined onto Huntsbury Ave and hit the steep section of the road. I was feeling pretty good here but decided not to push to much to save my legs for the nasty gravel at the top. Once we hit the end of the road it didn't seem to take to long to get to the top of the old airstrip although Rich had a lighting issue to fix at one stage. I didn't wait around though as the wind was cold and I could have done with another layer on, but I had forgotten to load my pack into the van when I left home so couldn't bring anything with me. The top section of gravel wasn't to bad as a slightly smoother and grippier line has been worn in by the increase in riders going down to do the new old skool track. I can remember a few years ago the original trail was almost overgrown in places and now it is a fav again...

Anyway, at the top we crossed the road and headed up onto the Mt Vernon track and headed off, me in front holding Rich up as I was not confident on the new surface they are swathing all over the place, I think it is to dangerous on any steep sections and the idea of building it up in the middle to run off the water is not suitable for these kinds of narrow trails as there is no room for error if you get off line. It works at Bottle Lake etc on a 2 foot wide trail, but not elsewhere if you ask me. I think better track design and more drainage channels are far more effective and cheaper too. We headed straight across the top of Rapaki and onto the Witch Hill track. I managed most of the climb OK but had one blunder losing balance on a straight section. Made it out feeling in good form though. On up the road to the top of Castle Rock trail. I let Rich go ahead and couldn't get my foot in the pedal for a few seconds leaving a decent gap between us and then felt off form suddenly and he was gone. I was put off by some odd sounds from the chain rattling and things felt loose. I tried to ignore it and kept going (at the bottom of trail I looked and found the front ring had dropped to granny somehow making to chain slacker than usual, hence the different sound) getting to just before the first hairpin and bounced to the left off a rock, I looked down and saw a line to the track and took that anyway, shortening the track by about 8m or so. I managed to ride the bottom section well and had a good pace on up the climb which caught me up to within a few seconds of Rich. We turned around pretty much right away and reversed the trails we had just done. I had a really great run up to Castle Rock and cleaned it all at a good pace. Flew down the road and onto Witch Hill again where I cleaned all the hard bits but had another sill dab on a fairly simple part of the decent. Came out at good pace and headed up Mt Vernon. Put some power down on the first bit of the climb knowing that you get a rest faster if you maintain a good pace to the point about 80m after the pond thing where the trail flattens off. Around the corner I took the old switch back line over the rocks which I found really fun and then got to the rocky gnarly corner which normally catches me out. I took the high line but hit a bump and lost balance to the right so tried to drop down to the low line, somehow finding the front wheel rodeoing up a 40cm or so up into the air as my weight transferred back to fast until another rock must have halted the back wheel and shot the weight forward again putting the wheel back down and allowing me to ride on without a dab for balance. A bit flukey of course, but I will take that. Came across the south face and dropped down to the road off a little rock face at the bottom. Apparently it looked pretty impressive as I heard a parked up Boy Racer across the road say "You are awesome bro!" To which I replied "Cheers ou!" and sat by the start of Summit trial to watch Rich come down. It did look pretty good seeing him come down the last bit at pace so I am going to say the 'racers' were not being sarcastic...

We decided to call it a night and headed across the first section of the Summit highway as it is now known, and turned off onto the old entrance trail to Bowenvale. Shot down the 4 by section as fast as I could manage, also knowing Rich normally drops me here so was expecting to get passed, not really seeing much with the bumps and wind affecting vision. Managed to not slow him down to much I think. Over the gate we explored a few lines down the 4 by switchies and Rich found a nice line down the second to last section with the rock drop. I took a line that lead to thick tussocks and rocks and had to stop. Got to Old Skool and had a nice run, had my first run up the new banking on one of the first tight left handers which was fun, good work to the trail pixies. Enjoyed the other new section built to avoid the water issues from last winter too, so it will be interesting to see how that goes. Got out all OK and cruised back to Swtchbckrs to sample one of the Fantas we had acquired earlier.