Last weekend I hit up a new couple new rides on the North Shore of Auckland. The first ride was at Sanders Reserve. I guess the council ended up spending $1.5 million into the development of these trials and to be honest it was a total waste. They never consulted a trail builder so there is absolute no flow to the trail. Im not really going to go on about these trails, since there really isn’t much to be said other than; don’t waste your time here.
My second ride on the North Shore was on the trails at Royal Albany. They are located at the back of the Massey Campus. Unlike Sanders Reserve, these trails deserve a visit. From what I have been told a maintenance guy who works or worked at Massey University is a mountain biker and has been plugging away for 5 years. At the moment there is roughly 14km of trails to be had. It is a one way continuous loop that winds through some native bush. You will find some tight, technical, rooty tracks that are a lot of fun to ride.
It’s always fun trying some new tracks and they cant all be good, but 1 out of 2 aint bad.
A couple weeks back I took a mate out to Woodhill to hit some jumps. He hasn’t had a lot of experience jumping, so I took him to a fairly easy jump line. You pretty much just point the bike in the right direction and you are good to go! It’s wide open, so even if you do bail there shouldn’t be dyer consequences. We hit this line for about an hour. At the start he was pretty timid and maybe a bit overly cautions but as time passed he got off the breaks and was really doing well. You could see his confidence growing.
Confidence is a funny thing. 1) You have to be confident when hitting jumps. If you think you are going to crash or you cant do it; walk away. 2) There is confidence and then over-confidence. It’s very important to know the difference.
We finished riding that jump line and decided it was time to head back to the car park. One of the trails we took on the way back has a drop and good little gap jump, well first time down my mate just went around it. While talking about it at the end of the trail and eye balling it, he thought he could manage it. I had my doubts, but didn’t say anything. I don’t want to be that guy, saying ‘you cant do it’, ‘ I don’t think you are ready for this’ so I kept my mouth shut. Well I should have said something. He hit the drop and it was all slow motion from there. When he hit the jump he turned his wheel in the air and landed a bit sideways sending him out of control. Boom… face/chin right into a tree.
He lay there, gasping for air and groaning. Ah fuck! We told him to lay still and just relax the best he could. He mentioned his neck was sore which is a pretty big issue. I didn’t want to move him in-case of serious injury, so we rang the ambo to come out and get him. He was totally concussed; didn’t know where he was, where he lived, how he go there..memory gone. The ambo showed up in 45 mins. In the end there was no major problems other than a concussion…thankfully.
A crash like that definietely takes care of that over confidence, but unfortunately destorys the confidence too. I dont think he will be coming out to play anytime soon.
A couple weekends ago I entered my first bike race at Riverhead outside of Auckland. Free Riden, a bike shop in Huapai and the West Coast Riders Club built a new track and hosted an Enduro event. An Enduro event is mixture of a downhill race and a cross country, so there is ups and downs. I am more of a fan of the downs, but like any mountain biker done my shares of the ups as well.
Now I am competitive and do want to do well… well just not come in last! Luckily I managed to come in 10th out of 40 riders. Not a bad effort, but i did learn one thing; dont do so many practice runs. I did 5 practice runs and by race time, my legs were empty.. the ups burnt! So on next race day, fuck the practice runs. Just pin it to win it and hope for the best!
Check out this lycra wearing fat bastard rage on this other mountain biker. He ended up getting charged with assault and rightly so. I dont think the other cyclist was innocent either, he was egging him on a bit and on his tail. I think he is a bit of a pussy for letting the old man push him around, plus when the old guy pokes him he says ‘ thats assualt.’ ahah what a tosser… both of them need to chillout.
And about a week later an old man toss around some bmxer’s in Christchurch as well. I guess these little punks were tossing stones and being complete idiots, so he handed them a bit of old school justice! I love when the kids call him on he doesnt back down and just toss them about. Good on ya old dude.
On Saturday I was out a woodhill riding and approached a jump to find a woman in the middle of the trail with two bikes. I locked it up and was able to stop before the end of the lip. I said oi and then turned around to get the speed up again. Hit the line and carried on. Didnt think anything of it really. I wasnt being disrepectful, just wanted her to know i was there and to not walk up the trail… it could have ended with me creaming her. After my ride I headed back to the car park and was putting my bike in the boot when the guy approaches me farily aggressively saying… i dont like how you talked to my family. All i said was oi and he then told me there was a nicer way to say it.. true. I could have said excuse me, so I appologized. He then he appologized for his family walking up the trail.. they should have known better. Really man! Senseless eh!
This past friday night I went to see Xavier Rudd at the Kings Arms in Auckland. This was the first time in 8 years he has been in New Zealand and he didnt disappoint. This guy is an amazing musician and showman. The Kings Arms is a small rock bar in Auckland and being able to see an artist like Xavier Rudd there is a pure treat. It was a very intimate show and he he played for roughly 2 hours and put his heart and soul into the show. I managed to be right up front for the entire show taking in the everything. Upfront everyone was into to it, dancing and carrying on. The man is amazing; whether he’s rocking the didg and playing the drums/guitar/singing he doesnt skip a beat. Thanks Xavier Rudd for the great show and I hope it is not another 8 years before you retrn back to New Zealand.
A interesting fact is that he spends his time between Australia and Northern Ontario… Yah Northern Ontario representing! Ill have to invite him by the cottage when I return back to Canada.
Helter Skelter at Riverhead. Great build West Coast Riders MTB Club.
It’s Easter and the weather is pretty mint, so I headed out to Riverhead to do some riding early in the morning. This past summer has been really wet, which has been ideal for Wooodhill, but the recent sunny weather has meant I have been able to get out to Riverhead to ride some of the great trails the West Coast Riders MTB Club has built. Big props to them and the variety of tracks they have. There is some really nice single track laced with some great jumps and Helter Skeleter is a massive line with some pretty big hits. I would be lying if i said i hit them all, some of it just plane intimidates me. Since i first got to NZ I have definitely progressed in my riding and hopefully one day soon I will be able to hit this entire line.
It has been way to long since I have blogged. I guess I fell off of the blaggon (blog +waggon).. bad joke eh! I kind of felt I really didnt have much to write about, which is a lie i guess. The biggest thing that i has happened in the past couple months is that I have been issued New Zealand residency. It took some time and a lot of patience, but I finally got it. Over the past year I’ve had mutiple medical checks, visa applications, police background checks (all of the came out clean) and lots of money lost or invested depending on how you see it, but in the end I am working towards becoming a New Zealand resident. I have to spend six months of each year for the next two years residing in New Zealand and then I can come and go from this beautiful country as I please. So if I want to return back to Canada to work and live I can without worrying about how to get another work visa for New Zealand. I feel lucky to have the ability to live and work in either Canada or New Zealand… two amazing countries.
So what is in the cards for the next couple of months… trips to rotorua, savings for a flight back to Canada for my bro’s wedding, a few work side projects and some beers eheh of course!
In Auckland during the summer they have Movies in the Park. It’s when they take a huge inflatable screen and hit up your local park and put on some of the past years best movies. This past Friday it was a beauty evening so we hit it up for our inaugural viewing. They recommend showing up early to find a spot as it packs out rather quickly. Of course we didn’t do that, we just rocked up and met with some mates who had a spot already and squeezed in. Since we rolled in just before it begun we missed the band, yup they have bands too! Cool eh! Everyone brought blankets, drinks (lots of alcoholic!!), food and some even brought their couches. It was similar feel to the classic drive in theater (which they dont really do here). It was a great night out with friends – a definite must do if in Auckland during the summer months.
This past week I had a bike roadie planned! Its been a while since ive been on a bike trip – last one was in October to Queenstown so I took Thursday and Friday off of work and decided to head down to Taupo and Rotorua.
I’ve never ridden Taupo, but have heard that they have some pretty sweet single track so I figured it was time to go test it out. Up early and on the road by 6:30am, I was stoked for this bike adventure. After 3.5hours I made it to Taupo where I visited the iSite to pick up a trail map. I headed to the carp park lot, had a bite to eat and then off I went.
There are quite a few tracks, so my plan was to ride the northern block in the first couple hours and then ride the southern block in the avro. I wanted to ride all the tracks as I wasn’t sure when I would be back in Taupo next.
The tracks in the northern block are pretty sweet. Nothing to technical or overly sketchy, but a nice ride. In about 2hours I knocked off all of the tracks and managed to find my way back to the car park. I then made myself a coffee and had a bite to eat before I headed off into the southern block.
Just as I was peddling up into the tracks I heard a crack. They same sound I heard riding when I was in Nelson last Christmas. I new instantly that my bike trip was over. I jumped off the bike and looked at my lower linkage and my intuition was right. I had once again snapped the lower linkage on the drive train side of the bike. Argh. What a pain in the ass. This is a design flaw with this bike. Ive read online about this happening to other Giant Reign X’s. I guess the link is too weak to withstand the torque of peddling up hill and snaps. I shot back to the car and headed into Taupo to see if any shops there carry links – they don’t. The trip was over. No ripping it up in Rotorua, no southern block in Taupo, no bike, no camping, no more fun. Bit pissed to be honest.
I spent more time in the car driving there and back then on my bike – that is just wrong. I called the Giant shop in Auckland to see if they could just order the part, but they had to see it before they would do anything. So I headed straight there and after a look – they ordered the part. I believe it will be under warranty, but my issue is will it ever be properly fixed. The link needs to be redesigned. It’s shitty not having faith in your bike, especially if you are going on a trip. Ill be picking up my bike tomorrow and hopefully then get an explanation from Giant. I was told earlier that I had a newly designed link installed last time, but if so they need to redesign it because it doesn’t work.
I enjoyed the little riding that I managed in Taupo. If you are in Taupo go out for a ride, you wont be disappointed. Well that’s if your bike doesn’t break on ya!
Update – March 26th 2012
So Giant sent me a new ‘redesigned’ link, which i was told by the shop manager that it wasnt redesigned at all. Not surprised. It is a 2010 and they already have my money, so why fix it. Ive kept the link as a spare and I am pretty much waiting for it to happen again. I do love the bike, other than it breaks under peddling duress… which isnt ideal eh! Moral of the story – dont buy Giant. Easy.
So Michelle and I have been using our stand up paddleboards (SUP) in our spare time and love it. We manage to get out on the weekends and in the evenings. I’m loving riding my bike in the morning and then paddling around in the avro. It’s a bit more balanced lifestyle, compared to just being on the bike all the time.
We purchased these inflatable paddle boards (Red Paddle Co.), which I know sounds suspect but are really good. Michelle researched them online, but I was very skeptical until I saw one when we were down in Raglan. To be honest if you saw them blown up you wouldn’t realize they were inflatable. They are made of heavy PVC and are incredibly strong. It only takes 5-8mins to blow up. We purchased both a 10ft and 11 ft board.
They are perfect for us! You can rip around a shoreline and surf them in small swells.. pretty sick! They come in a bag you can wear as a back pack and with a pump. The size of them is perfect for a city dweller – you can pack them into the bag and store them in a closet. I don’t have to worry strapping them down on the car when we head out, or theft from the top of my car if I want to do a shop after paddling. The paddle is adjustable so friends can give it a go without having to buy a paddle to fit them.
I would highly recommend these to anyone! We love them and you would too! It’s gotten us out to new bays and beaches around Auckland. When pumping them up I get an odd look from most passer by, but once we hit the water with them people are mostly impressed. It’s a great product… go get one and enjoy the sun, sand and surf.
