After my last trip to Queenstown I started planning the next. I kept an eye out of some cheap flights on Grabaseat.co.nz and managed to score a mid week 4 day trip from the 16th to 20th of December.
Day 1
Up at 5:30 am and loaded into the car by 6:00am I was off to the airport. Now that I am not living on the airbus route I take the car and park at the airport – luxury! My flight was at 7:30am and I arrived in Queenstown around 9:00am. I did what I usually do; grab the bus into town, cross the road to the park and build my bike, then head off to the hostel to change and head to the gondola. By 10:30am I was on my way up for my first ride down. Usually I would meet up with my mate, but he was a no show, not sure where he was… maybe a cave.
The first day of downhilling is always a bit of a challenge. You have to get used to the speed. Things happen so much faster and if you don’t ride it all the time, there definitely is a warm up period. At first I just didn’t feel good.. kind of awkward, but after the next couple of runs you loosen up and start to lay off the breaks and you find your flow. I managed to get in 15 runs and packed it up at 6pm, rinsed.
I headed back to the hostel, checked in, dropped my bike and headed out for some fergburger! With a Southern Swine and with a quick visit to the dairy for some yogurt (breakie) I headed back to the hotel, devoured it and passed out by 9:30pm a happy boy!
Day 2
Up at 7:30 am I did a bit of a stretch as I was stiff and sore from my first day. I tend to feel it mostly in my forearms and hands. Going down a track is like doing 100 push ups and you doing those while your holding on for dear life. I had a big bowl of muesli and yogurt, two bananas and some tea. Today I decided to do something a bit different. I wanted to ride out to 7-mile and spend half a day there and then ride the gondie for the other half. 7 mile is a half hour ride out and is some pretty wicked single track. I spent 4 hours here, just looping the tracks. I was about to head back to town to ride the gondie when I found another track across the road, called Gold Digger. It was amazing track that went through native bush a long side a stream and had everything you would want; roots, steeps, rocks, switchbacks, berms… heaven. I loved it so much that I spent my avo there. I rode it 5 times! The ride back to the town was slow and pretty painful.. I was whipped. I never made it up the Gondie. I was back in town by 4pm, tired and hungry. Burger and bed.
Day 3
Today was a full out charge on the gondie. The body was feeling good. Taking the day to ride single track saved my body. I was first up the hill and was keen to get in as many runs as possible. Hammy’s to loosen up, vertigo, thingy-myjig, orginal, original vertigo, ants, rock garden, Armageddon, ben lemmond, world cup, fern hill.. I rode it all. By mid avo I was hauling. A mate had the avo off so he came in and we rode a couple new tracks that aren’t posted. We had to push up to them and it was well worth it! It was great to ride with my mate, as he had fresh legs and dude has some crazy lines, up over, on the side of things, popping of everything… it was great to watch and follow. At 7:30pm I had been riding for close to 9 hours.. I was rinsed and things were getting loose. It was time to get off the bike and have a beer. 2 beers, a burger later I was in bed.
Day 4
My last day in Queenie, I was keen to make the most of it. Once again I was first up the gondie and planned to ride hard for a half day. I hit up all my favourite tracks and managed a day of 13 runs. By 2pm my pass had run out and I had to get ready for the airport. I headed to the hostel, changed and then headed back to the park where I unpack to pack up my bike. Half hour later I was on the bus to the airport to head back to Auckland after another amazing bike trip in Queenstown, but of course I managed to also get in one more burger before I left.
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!
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!
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.
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.
While I was over in Waiheke I managed to get out to some of the there local bike trails and I must say they didn’t disappoint! Weather was pretty average, so the trails were sticky getting to the point of muddy by the end of the ride. They are located Onetangi Sports Club and the trails are marked very well so you cant miss them.
I would classify all of the trails at Ranghoua Hill single track/cross-country. There are some enjoyable downs and switch backs, but no big jumps, drops or gaps. It is all pretty flowy stuff.
The first trail I rode was Ragihoua Loop track. This trail will take you to other trailheads or you can ride it as a loop. It is a short climb up and then it winds it way through native bush with a lot of fun turns to keep you on your toes. It isn’t overly long, but fun to loop out over and over. It also links to Zoom-Zoom and Nice & Easy. These tracks start at the top of the hill, which gives you a great view of some wineries and Waiheke.
I then hit up Zoom-Zoom, as I thought the name was promising and it didn’t disappoint. It was pretty much all down and a lot of fun to ride. There isn’t a lot of peddling involved, its pretty much winds you down the hill and has some nice off-camber spots. You can get some good speed going and if you are creative pop off of some of nature’s booters to make it even more enjoyable!
I pushed back up zoom-zoom so I could ride it again! I really didn’t want to ride all the way back around the family loop and up Rangihoua loop to get to the trail head. It took about 15 mins and I then decided I would only ride it a couple more times as I really wasn’t enjoying the pushes… since it was all down the push was all up. Argh! I may have been a bit out of shape since all I was doing the couple days prior was drinking and eating. Heheh.
After hussing Zoom-Zoom a couple of times I hit up Nice & Easy. The name is deceiving. I was thinking it would be a nana track, but I was wrong. This was a great trail too! It is a tight winding track that takes you through thick native bush. With the majority of the trail being covered by bush it was the wettest/muddiest of the trails after all of the rain we had. I really enjoyed this trail as it was just switch back after switch back. This track comes out to the mid point of the Rangihoua Loop, so you can either keep looping it, hit up Zoom-Zoom or jump on to the Rangihoura Loop and head back to the car park. I looped it a couple of times as well.
There were a couple linking tracks too. The Prairies takes you through a field and on too Chicken Run, which links you back to the start of the track. Both of the tracks are just linking trails and not much to go on about here.
Overall it is a fun place to ride your bike. I rode each track a couple times and then headed back to the batch muddy and happy! Kudos to the Waiheke Mountain Bike Club for creating and maintaining such great little trail network. I cant wait to come back and ride again!
The tracks in the morning were closed since it rained last night, which didn’t really bother me. After riding a full day prior a half day up the hill was sounding pretty good. The morning consisted of eating day old Indian for breakie, cleaning and checking my bike and finishing my book. Nice chill way to start the day – let the body rest before thrashing it again!
At 11:30am we headed into Queenstown to grab a lunch at Bob’s Weigh – my favorite café in Queenstown. You will also get a good coffee and feed at Bob’s! All fuelled up off to the skyline to huss some tracks.
We got out first ride in around 12:30 and managed to get 12 runs in throughout the half-day. Same as the other days; we rode everything. I did manage to have a pretty good crash on Rock Garden. Somehow I went over the bars and head first into the ground. I was pretty lucky not to hurt my neck and am now considering getting one of those neck braces for riding DH – probably a smart move. Our plan was too meet up with a mate at 5pm who was willing to show us a bit of the Fern Hill Loop. You can access it from the trails with a bit of pushing the bike. We met at the bottom of the track at 5pm and hit up a couple of runs together. There were 4 of us, which was pretty sweet. On a couple of tracks we all broke off and headed different routes which pretty cool seeing all these guys rolling together and then all of sudden they flick off in different directions – it reminded me of a bike movie. We waited until the last run up the skyline to head up the Fern Hill Loop. This way we would have an extended day of riding, which is always good!
The push up was about half-hour and being that it was the end of the day it felt like an hour. There was even a river crossing in the middle. The track was steep, rooty & rocky – similar to craigieburn. It was all native bush so lots of beach trees, which means a tonne of roots and slippery ness. Walking up it and seeing what I would be riding back down left a happy/nervous feeling in my gut – it will be fun but there is potential for a good crash ehehe. The thing with roots is they can spit your bike out from underneath you very easily. To ride them you want lots of speed and to be light on the bike so you sort of just skip a long the top of them. Fun eh! After the exhausting push up we had a bit of a breather taking in the amazing view and then it was time to ride. Helmet on, goggles in place, drop in and start hussing. All the apprehension that I felt walking up was instantly gone. My bike was just skipping a long the tops of the roots and the suspension was getting a full work out as I tried to keep up with my mates. A couple of times the back of my bike went sideways, but I always managed to stay on it and keep rolling. Exhilarating! What an amazing trail. I think it is better then some in the park. Definitely worth the push up.
Once back at the car it was time for a beer and then we headed off to Fergburger for a feed. This time I got the Cod Burger… good as! Definitely give it a go! After the feed it was back home for a couple more beers and then bed. Another exhausting, but epic day!
