In New Zealand the Arthritis Society runs an event called ‘The Longest DayRide’, which is where your ride your bike from Sun up to Sunset on the longest day of the year, Dec 21st. Basically you make a plan and then ride all day. Very simple. Some people do all day road rides, while other do a mixture of mountain biking/road riding and bar hoping. As soon as I heard about this event I knew it was for me. I asked a mate if he was keen and he jumped at the opportunity, so we went ahead and made an itinerary.
Not only was it the longest day, but it was supposed to be the last day of the world according to the Mayan colanders. What a great way to go out of this world – on your bike.
I got picked up at 5:30am and we headed out to Maraetai, where we would start our day. There was definitely an air of excitement. Your keen to go hard, but you also know that you have a long day ahead of you, so don’t charge every hill. Pace yourself is all I kept telling my self. Maraetai has to be on of my favourite placed to ride in Auckland. Great single track, with jumps, berms, roots.. everything you want in a trail. We rode there for 2 hours.
We then headed to Whitford Forest. It is only 10 mins from Maraetai and best of all there was a portable coffee shop setup, so we got an added caffeine kick before we hit the trails. Ive ridden here before, but found it hard to find tracks. I was hoping that my mate would have an idea of the trail layout, but he didn’t. We had a map and did some bush biking at the start and we eventually find our way around. Our plan was to spend about 1.5 hours there, but it was more like +2 hours as we got lost a couple of times. The trails we did find and ride were great. Worth the work and bush bash!
Two rides down; we had a schedule breakfast brake. A quick coffee and pie at the Brick Café and we were back in the truck heading on to our next ride; The Huna Ranges.
I’ve ridden Huna before and like Whitford, I got lost and didn’t overly enjoyed it as I did a lot of gravel road riding as I couldn’t find the trail heads. My mate had a good idea of the trails and had a map, which really helped! We did the Farm Track. It’s not a technical track, but it sure is a lot of fun. It goes through all this amazing native bush and you find yourself just in awe of the place. I really enjoyed this ride. I think it would be great to go back and do a night ride there as the trails I tight and the first is really thick, so it would be pretty crazy at night. About ¾ of the way through we stopped at a stream crossing and took a dip. It was just what I needed. The cold water just revigarated me and was what I needed to get on to the next stop in the journey. This ride took roughly 2 hours.
From Huna we had a bit of a drive westward to woodhill. We stopped in Keumu for a pie and caffine kick. Unfortunately we hit traffic on the way over and it took us almost 2 hours, which really made it tough getting back on the bike. You tighten up and you just tire out. We soldiered on, but you could sense the drop in energy levels. Luckily as we were about to ride at woodhill another mate pulled in. It was just what we needed; fresh legs and energy to feed off of. We rode Woodhhill for an hour and then headed off to the WCRC Compound.
At the Compound we had another mate turn up and join the crew. This was some of the fastest tracks of the day! It was a bit of a struggle up to the top, but coming down we all came a live again. Looking at our faces after that first ride down, you could tell we got out second wind or more likely our 20th wind! With the energy levels once again high, we ripped a couple more trails before heading on to our last ride of the day.
The last ride was going to be at Riverhead and it was a beauty. We knew we were in the home stage so we were leaving it all on the trails. There were some painful ups, but the downs paid for it. Here we spent a good 2 hours. Thing were getting a bit loose; corners were getting sloppy and line choices were all over the place, breaks weren’t being used – it was great!
With the sun dropping we made it back to the car before night fall. Here we high fived and had grins from ear to ear. We did it. We rode for over 10 hours in one day. It was now off to the pub for some well deserved beers.
What a great day! This will be an annual ride for me and I’m sure our group will only be getting bigger. I haven’t had a ride like this in ages, and I now cant wait to plan another one. Im thinking maybe doing a huge ride like this once a month… if im lucky enough too!
Recently I went to Rotorua for a weekend of riding which started with carnage and ended with carnage. The plan was to get their early sat morning and make the most of the our time in mountain biking heaven. I was picked up around 630am and was on SHWY1 by 7am, which meant on the trails by at least 10:30am. A quick breakie stop in Matamata and we were on the shuttle by 10:30am as planned. With the bikes loaded on the trailer we were sitting on the bus with anticipation of the trails to come, when a rider approached the bus driver with the news that a young kid hurt himself on one of the trails.
Luckily for the young fella one of my mates has pre hospital first aide, so we got dropped half way up the hill to go find him. About ¾ way down the jump track there he was with his older brother just watching helplessly. He was curled up, crying and in a lot of pain. My mate quickly accessed the situation. It seemed he could have fractured or broke his hip – not good. We knew we had to get him down the trail and to where an ambo could pick him up, so we ditched the bikes and scooped the boy up. The first thing you notice is how steep some of the tracks are when you are walking them with someone in your arms. On a bike, your moving fast and roll through much of it, but when you are walking it is a whole different story. About 15-20 mins later we walked him out of the bush and laid him down against a tree to wait for the ambo. Ive got to say he was a pretty brave little guy as he seemed to be in a lot of pain, but sucked it up while we took him down the track. Another ½ hour and the ambo arrived. They did their own assessment and loaded him on to a stretcher. We put him in the ambo and that was the start of the trip.
Another ride on the bus and we were at the trail head. I must say it was unnerving having your trip start with an injured rider. It doesn’t really make you feel at ease with what you are about to do, as you know it could easily be you laying on the ground in agony. After a couple of runs you loosen up, forget about the recent carnage and just enjoy the trails. Saturday was pretty mint, other than starting it with the kid’s crash. No one from the group bailed and we all headed to the hotel stoked on the days ride. From my memory we did 7-8 shuttles – not to bad when the first 1.5-2hours were spent dealing with an injured rider.
The hotel had hot pools so we soaked our bones in the geothermal activity of roto-vegas. A couple beers later, we hit the sheets as we had a big day of riding a head of us.
Up early, quick breakie and right to the bikepark. Everyone was flying. Maybe the rust was shed on Saturday or everyone was trying to make the most of the day, but everyone was hitting it. Instead of just shuttling we peddle up to corridor where we repeatedly hit that trail nailing the table tops, hip jumps and massive berms. I must have rode that track about 4-5 times. After that we headed towards the shuttle pick up to do have some more gravity assisted fun.
We hit everything and even a couple sketchy secret tracks. I think the best combination of the day as jumps, to corners to jumps for the last bit of downs, which is where the end of day carnage happened. As always it was the last run that claimed one of my mates. He was behind on the way down and on the last of three jumps when he came out a bit too hot, which sent him over the bars and slamming into the ground. I didn’t see it as I was in front, but that is what he thinks happened. Me and another ride made it to the bottom and were hive fiving, discussing how much fun that was all while waiting for our other friends to arrive. 5mins, 10mins, 20mins.. we knew someone had an off. Finally he managed to walk out with the assistance of our other mates, but was def worse for wear. He initially thought it was a broken wrist, but it was much more. After an x-ray he was diagnosed with broke his wrist, collar bone, shoulder and thumb. Shitty! His riding will be done for this summer, well before it even began. It sucks seeing one of your friends get hurt, but in a sport like this it happens and that is just part of it. You know it can happen, you see it happen and you then pray it doesn’t happen to you!
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 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.
Saturday was my last day in Queenstown for riding on this trip and I wanted to make the most of it. We planned Friday night to get up early and try and get in as many runs before I had to head to the airport at mid afternoon.
I awoke to bird chirping, sunshine and blue skies at 8:30am it was straight to breaking down camp. No time to laze around. I packed up all my gear; tear down tent, prep bike for day of riding, find some clean clothes for flight and pack it into the car. Then it was into Bob’s Weigh for breakfast to charge the fuel tanks for a fun fuelled day of downhilling. After some eggs benny and a couple coffee’s it was off to the skyline for some riding.
We were first riders up on the day! Just like the other days it was non-stop action. We managed to squeak in 12 runs in just 4 hours. I wanted to hit each track at least once more and we easily did so. No crashes on the day either, which is always good for the last day of a bike trip. The bike gods were taking care of me!
At 2pm I had to get ready for my flight, so we went downtown to grab some lunch and then I went to the park to break down my bike and get myself ready for my flight. My mate left me at the park and he returned back up the hill to ride – lucky bastard. I broke down my bike for the airplane, changed out of dirty/stinky riding gear and into jeans and a t-shirt for my flight home and then caught a bus to the airport.
Once at the airport I checked my bags, had a celebratory beer, read my book and then it was time to board the plane. On board I easily fell asleep dreaming of returning back to Queenstown to ride once again. I should be back in Jan or Feb to ride again… it cant come soon enough.
With this trip now done it is time to start planning the next. So what is next on the ride radar? Of course there will be a tonne of rides around Auckland; Woodhill, Riverhead, Maraetai and hopefully Dome Valley. But I really want to make a long weekend trip to Rotorua and Taupo in the near future. Ive ridden Rotorua heaps, but Taupo is completely new to me so it’s on my ride radar!
Before I even arrived in Queenstown I was a little apprehensive when it came to camping. When I flew into Queenstown there was a cold front coming through and it was snowing/raining, but thankfully that first cold night I was in a hostel. Last night though was my first night camping and luckily I managed to stay nice and warm in my tent. I had the thermals and was rocking a toque as well, which kept me nice and cozy all night long.
I first awoke at daybreak to the chirping of birds – as you do when you are camping! I grabbed my ipod and tossed on some tunes allowing me a couple more hours of sleep before getting up for good! I crawled out of my tent at 9 am ready to go. We cleaned up the bikes, loaded the car and went into Queenstown for breakie. After a quick bite to eat we hit up the skyline at 10:30 am to start a great day of riding.
The weather was a bit overcast and there was a chance of showers, but the rain seemed to hold off for the most part and when it did rain it just made the tracks sticky! There wasn’t a track we didn’t ride! I ended up hitting some tracks that I didn’t really mean to hit. I thought they were a bit above my ability but I pulled through. Basically I was just following my mate and then all of a sudden it was drop after drop after drop through narrow trees… there nothing I could do but ride it out. There was no where else to go but down so I just rolled with it. When I came to the end of that track there was definitely a smile on my face – I survived ahah! After that it was game on for all the tracks; Vertigo, Hammy’s, Shit Sandwich, Thingymajig, Armageddon, Rock Garden, Drop Garden, Ants, Grundy.. it was steep and gnarly. Fawk yah!
We had a lunch break at 1pm and then back up the skyline. We rode until the days end and managed to get in 20 runs and we weren’t even going that hard. It was a casual 20! Everyone we spoke with thought we were completely mad for doing so many runs in one day. I would say on average people will ride 8 runs… smoked them all. When you are visiting from out of town you def want to make the most of your time.
At the end of the day we definitely deserved a beer! We headed into town to grab some Indian for dinner and then out to the house to drink some beers and play some ping-pong. My body was feeling pretty good; the only thing that was sore was my hands. It was an early night to bed as I was rinsed. The rained and wind picked up throughout the night, but it didn’t matter I managed to keep warm and sleep through the lot! Another epic day of riding! My riding has improved ten-fold… man I love this place!
I took some time off this week to head down to Queenstown and do some downhill mountain biking on the skyline. As usual it was an early flight, I like to make the most of my time off so I usually fly really freak’n early to maximise my time riding. Well this time it didn’t quite pan out! I flew into some real shit weather. We are talking about a southerly that has just covered the entire country – cold, wet and windy. Not ideal for riding. When it rains hard and the ground is muddy and soft it is best to stay off the tracks since you just end up destroying! So my day was a wash. The skyline wasn’t taking bikers up, so what was I supposed to do with my time?
Yes Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world and there is heaps to do, but when you don’t want to do a bungy, jump in a speed boat or get drunk there isn’t a lot going on especially on shit weather days. So what do I do? I go the library and read. I spent 3 hours at the library and then another two at a café reading and chilling. It’s like when people go to tropical spots to rest on the beach and read… Well I didn’t have the nice weather, but I read.
By mid avro I checked into my hostel and continued reading. I’ve pretty much polished off my book, which is – ‘two seats left’ the story of contiki travel. Good read! I also hit up the local book shop to read and cruise through some magazines. Also I sent a couple post cards… I didn’t bring my lap top so jumping online isn’t readily available. Now I am just praying for blue skies, sun and dry trails!
I guess my question to you is – what do you do when you are travelling and the weather has gone to hell? Also got any good books you can recommend?
This weekend I was out ripping around at Woodhill Bike Park have a pretty goodtime. Usually when I see someone on the trail Ill bust my ass to catch up and pass them, just a bit competitive I guess and it keeps ya pushing yourself.
Well this weekend some dude passed me and I thought, not today buddy. So I get off the saddle and catch him staying on his back wheel. He’s fast and a good rider. We have a bit a chat as I follow, just the usual; where ya from, what are you doing in NZ, have you been to Canada ect. He is a pretty chill dude, but a hell of rider. So I ride out to the trailhead on his tail and he just breaks into another track, no break/water just riding. So I follow suit and ask him if he minds me riding with him. He’s keen and we are off.
As we ride he tells me that he is an ex-pro tri athlete and that he is training for a couple races. That explains the speed and super fitness – this isn’t a ride in the forest it’s a race against time. Buddy would sprint for 4 minutes and then ride for 4 minutes and then back to sprinting – yikes! I ride with him for an hour and we hit a tonne of tracks. We end up at the back of the park and I am done. I need a water break and I know buddy is not stopping, so we part ways.
It was a great ride and really pushed me. I hope to catch up to this guy on the trails again so I can try and keep-up. That is what it is all about, meeting someone who is better and just trying to hang. It only makes you better I guess, though it did make me feel like I was going to puke ehehe.
