Finally got away for the weekend and headed up to the Nelson Lakes area
on Saturday to spend the night camping and biking.
The weather was perfect, low 20's (that's centigrade to you) and not a
cloud in the sky. We had a few jobs to do so didn't get away until
early afternoon but that was OK. Threw the sea kayak on the roof and the
bikes on the back.
After the 1 1/2 hour drive my partner and I registered at the lakeside
campground at Lake Rotoiti, met some friends and set up the tent.
Insect repellant and sunblock was applied.
Got the bikes off the back of the car, pumped up tyres and did a few
last minute checks before riding around in circles and jumping off a few
small boulders and rocks. I wheelie-dropped off a small rock and was
rewarded with a loud BANG. Not good. The sidewall of my rear 2.1 UST
FireXC pro had blown out. Initially I was pretty [censored]. I didn't
have a spare tyre with me and I was wondering how on Earth it had
happened. I haven't even had a flat in two years riding tubeless with
Stan's so this was an entirely new concept for me and I was damned if I
could figure out a solution.
After some consultation with the others, one of the girl's suggested
that I raid the parts off her bike and she would go kayaking with the
other girls instead. It sounded like a plan and she wasn't too worried
- she preferred her kayaking to MTBing usually as it happened.
Put her tyre on my rim and threw her tube into my tyre. Half a dozen
pumps and the valve stem broke. Hmmm. Talk about a day of technical
hitches. I was getting a little frustrated now.
Pulled out my spare tube from the camelback. Almost at pressure and the
valve stem on this one broke. I've never had two break in a row and I'm
wondering what I've been doing wrong. I figure it must have been
something I've been doing but I have used this pump a thousand times and
never broken them before!
That was pretty much it. By now it was getting a bit late in the day to
go riding and I was rapidly running out of spare everything. The others
decided that they were going to break out the beer instead of riding and
declare that today was not a day for riding due to God's will and that
it would be a dangerous thing to go against the will of God. Tomorrow
morning was another day and the riding would occur then.
We had a pleasant evening sitting around with a brew or two - as you do.
The morning started bright and sunny - if not damned cold. A front had
gone over during the night and fresh snow was on the peaks at the head
of the lake. It'd been a damned cold night. I had woken at 2.53am
frozen to the bone. Extra clothes and trousers had me avoiding frost bite.
Had breakfast, coffee got rid of the minor hangover. By 9.30am the sun
was well and truely out and I raided the third and last tube from the
front tyre of the friend's bike. All good this time. Inflated with
pressure! We were off.
The lake area itself is National park and biking is banned in National
parks. However the Nelson MTBing Club has a network of tracks a couple
of km's away behind the township and that was where we were headed. We
had a bit of a time limit as one of the guys had been called into work
later in the day, we lost no time riding up through the network of
tracks and scrub to a track called Big Hill Loop. Tem km along
singletrack on grassland and riverflats and gravel roads before climbing
850' to the summit of a ridge and riding through beech forest back to
where we started. It was meant to be a tough ride and I had ridden part
of it last year so I had some idea of what to expect.
Little did I know that the beech forest was still very wet underneath.
The ride/walk to the top was bad enough. Very steep at the top third
and impossible to ride. We pushed and lugged the bikes to the top. 4km
along the ridge under the beeches. Difficult to believe that this was a
Dept. of Conservation administered area. The 4 wheeled quad bike that
they used to check the Rat traps and monitoring stations on the ridge
had turned many parts of the trail to soup. Thick, gluggy, beech leaves
and water and gloopy mud. Unrideable for at least half of it. And
where you could ride the thick layer of beech leaves covers soft ground.
It was like trying to walk through snow - exhausting.
The final downhill was rough too. The track had been rained out and
rocks and stones covered the surface completely. It was like a stream
bed. Although ridable, it was very, very rough. Spills and falls
aplenty. In many areas the track had become a stream with water running
down it. Completely ruined.
Four hours after we had started we staggered back to the camp ground
with no-one saying anything. We were too stuffed to be capable of talking.
After a shower and some time to recover the best that we could agree on
was that the 'exercise' was the best part of the ride. It was sad to
see a track that had been so good 12 months ago completely ruined....
--
Westie