Once again, the weekend dawned sunny and calm after an atrocious wet working week. So yes, I found myself up here again.

The tracks were a bit wet and muddy but hey: the sun was out and there was no wind. It wasn’t cold unless you were in the shade and not moving.

So many people were out and about. Lots of runners, some with dogs; a few other mountain bikers; a couple of horses with their riders, and a group of international students taking in the views.

Everyone had that kind of relieved look to once again see blue sky and feel the sun on their faces.

It’s a great feeling.

A nice calm warm winter’s day, after almost a week of average weather. You can guess what I did in the late afternoon.

So here’s a sunsetting view over the Raukawa sea towards the land where the rivers run with greenstone.

Up on the green plateaus of Kilmister Tops was only a whisper of a southerly, and on that breath the fog was slow walking behind me back into the harbour.

It got colder as the sun went, so I turned the bike around and raced down for home, exercise quota for the day fulfilled.

More mid-winter sunshine, finally, so I thought I’d ride to the supermarket as if it were summer again… taking Highbury Fling through the bush of the Waimapihi Reserve across to the top of Brooklyn.

In summer the birds are a little more active and you can often hear or see tīeke (saddlebacks) and hihi (stitchbirds) spilling over from the predator-free sanctuary next door. There was little of that today though, just a few walkers picking their way along the muddy track (and none of them were singing).

Out the other side though I get to whiz down the streets of Brooklyn, taking in the views (but trying not to get too distracted)…

Definitely a good way to get the daily exercise in.

Another calm sunny winter day (after some truly rubbish weather earlier in the week), so off to the top of the nearest hill for me.

So this morning - a Sunday! - was cold and clear, but best of all there was no wind… usually I am far too lazy to take advantage of this but luckily not today.

I decided I wanted to try a new (to me) track up in the Makara Peak Mountain Bike Park called Kārearea - it’s downward pointing without being a downhill track, if you know what I mean. But first I had to get to the top of the hill.

Pretty good view from up there:

Lots of people out and about, and it being still relatively early the crowds skewed older and more sedate (which I liked).

It’s always nice to see the streets far below that I rode on to get to the foot of the hill:

From here I could drop down over a couple of remodelled tracks I hadn’t been on in years to get to Kārearea which was as fun and swoopy as the name suggests without being too advanced for my spectacular lack of actual skill.

I carried on across the ridgelines of the Skyline Track to just above Otari-Wilton’s Bush, where I could look back to our house on the hill opposite…

I need to do more of this.

I posted about my new mountainbike a week or so ago, and on Friday I got to pick it up from Jonty’s shop just in time for the long weekend. It could not have been better timed considering the good weather forecast!

I rode it home but with a little detour up Silversky to take a glamour shot of the clean and shiny. It may never look as nice as this again.

I hadn’t ridden my old Kona Satori much since getting a fat-tired road bike, first the Surly Straggler and more recently a Ritchey Outback. By comparison the dual-suspension Satori increasingly felt heavy and sluggish, with the rear suspension feeling like it was sucking energy from me on every uphill pedal stroke. And for lots of easy mountain bike tracks the fat tired road bikes were just fine.

I still felt there was room for a mountain bike in the shed though, so long as I could be guaranteed to ride it more. So I decided I wanted a nice steel hardtail, and settled on the Ritchey Ultra. I like the bike brand (and love my Outback); and its geometry is pretty much identical to the Satori.

Most steel hardtails seem orientated towards people who like far more exciting terrain than I do, whereas the Ultra seems way more balanced and hopefully won’t make any statements about me being some kind of insane shredder. I’m not breaking any records anymore, and I’m not even breaking any of my own from 5 years ago. I just want to get out into the trees or hills and return tired and happy.

Given the value of the Satori after 10 years was probably about $0 (despite it only having travelled about 3,500km) I figured I could save cost and waste by using as many components as possible off the old bike on the new bike.

Jonty did a whole lot of magic to make this work.

• the fork had to go to Shockcraft for shortening and servicing; and
• the rear wheel needed a new hub and spokes from Roadworks so that it would fit the new Boost standard that was invented after the Satori.

That was probably the easier stuff. Since 2013 lots of small things have changed; a major one causing issues here being the presumption that a mountain bike will only have one cog up front so Jonty had to source a special front derailleur hanger to fit with the one off the Satori.

He was able to reuse all the drivetrain (chain, gears, and cranks; reasonably nice Shimano SLX stuff) and brakes (more SLX stuff). It was a bit tricky to fit the mechanism for the front derailleur into the tiny space between rear wheel and seat post, but he did it and it changes flawlessly.

We had to get a new dropper post as the old one wouldn’t fit, and Jonty advised me I should also get a new wider handlebar and shorter stem so we did that too.

So after all that how does it ride?

I love it. It’s only a kilo lighter than the Satori - using all the same components, especially the old wheels doesn’t help here - but it feels a lot lighter and the uphills seem more fun and direct without the rear suspension.

The short stem and wider bar make it more maneuverable and my longer ride today at Makara Peak, whose twisty downward tracks I haven’t ridden in over 5 years, were lots of fun.

So. Now I just need to get out and make a point of using it more.

I’ve been hankering after a new bike for some time. No really good reason other than my beloved Surly Straggler is now outfitted for commuting for work and around town duties with practical mudguards and a heavy rack. And this meant that I had been doing less and less riding at the weekends. I ascribed this to the bike rather than my motivation, in a classic middle-aged bloke way.

So I have been looking at new bikes I could take out and about on the weekends, and in summer particularly I could take away down south for those long warm days on high country gravel roads.

For various reasons, I eventually settled on the Ritchey Outback. Not only is it nice springy steel from a legendary manufacturer but it can take really nice fat tyres for comfort… and… the pièce de résistance… this particular version comes with a suitcase and can be broken down for travel.

In my dreams I am catching a train somewhere, unpacking my bike at the end of the journey, and exploring a new place.

Those are some good dreams.

It had been a while since I’d had a decently long bike ride, so a couple months ago I conceived the notion of riding to Martinborough for lunch - but taking the day off work to do it. I’d avoid most of the vehicle traffic by using the Hutt River Trail and the Rimutaka Rail Trail; and I figured the roads on the other side of the mountains wouldn’t be too spooky, being wide and relatively unpopulated.

As this was about a 90km ride and my fitness levels aren’t really what they were, I asked R. if she’d come meet me for lunch (and not co-incidentally provide the sag-wagon for the return journey). She was keen, so I booked the leave.

Unfortunately, when the day rolled around the weather was looking a bit average. No actual rain was forecast, but it was damp and misty as I headed up the Hutt River Trail.

It was nice to be travelling in the opposite direction to all the traffic heading into town though.

As I got further up the valley the mistiness turned to occasional showers. This was a bit of a problem as I had not packed my raincoat (why oh why did I believe the forecasts?). Luckily though, I got hold of R. and she brought my waterproof cycling jacket in the car with her; and we crossed over just before the start of the Rimutaka Rail Trail.

As always, this is a nice ride; and the showers mostly held off right up to the summit.

Once I got through the tunnel and on to the downward Incline the rain turned into torrents and the wind was furious. This was the area where back when it was a working railway a locomotive was once blown off the tracks by a gust of wind and while it was nowhere near that windy it wasn’t exactly pleasant.

I sheltered in the entrance of one of the Incline’s tunnels, waiting for the rain to stop. Which it didn’t.

Eventually, with the wind at my back, I popped out onto the plains. But now I had to turn left and north towards Featherston; and the crosswinds off the mountain were incredible. At times I had to hop off and push the bike, and at one point while I was doing this a gust of wind actually blew the wheels off the road and swung the bike away from me.

At least the rain was confined to the mountains; when I turned east again and got further away still the wind dropped too. The rest of the ride to Martinborough was fairly uneventful.

By this time though I was pretty much knackered, and in town R. was a welcome sight. I needed lunch badly but first I needed to buy some dry socks so that my feet, wet through from unexpectedly having to ford a creek back near Featherston, wouldn’t freeze.

But oh, what a lunch:

Afterwards we had a bit of a drive around. Looking back towards the Rimutaka Ranges you could see the cloud flowing over the tops and dropping their rain. I had ridden out from under all that apocalyptic looking weather and it felt pretty good.

I could definitely do with being a little fitter before I try something like that again though.

We had an offsite for work at a senior manager’s house in Normandale. I thought I’d take my bike so I could ride home the long way over Belmont Regional Park.

This was a great decision (even though it was a bit of a longer effort than I thought it would be).

There had been rain earlier in the day and everything had that late spring verdancy (here over-enhanced by ProCamera’s rather great HDR mode):

We’re looking south east; over those immediate hills is the Hutt Valley and you can see the harbour in the distance.

I love my bike - it takes me to places I would never have thought to go otherwise.

Well, it turns out this is the fifteenth spring we’ve had in this house. Sometimes I get the feeling people look at us a bit strangely for staying so long in the same, modest little house.

But it’s all we need. I’m not keen on the idea of martyring personal and financial comfort to purchase a monstrous and ugly new place on the city’s fringe (and neither is R., for that matter) and nicer places closer by seem overpriced. So here we stay.

Anyway, spring is upon us, and so our cherry tree. I’ve been a little busy with the new toy to take much notice - this toy:

I did finally snap a couple quick shots of the blossom today - just with the iPhone, which gets more capable with each iteration.

It’s such a nice time of year, before the endless rolling weather fronts of the equinoctials get stuck in until Christmas…

Previous springtimes:

• 22 September 2013
• 16 September 2012
• 25 September 2011
• 22 September 2010
• 4 September 2009
• 21 September 2008
• 22 September 2007
• 10 September 2006
• 11 September 2005
• 29 September 2004
• 2 October 2003
• 22 September 2002

First ride with the new bike… it’s a Kona Satori. I may have more bike than I can handle, here.

It’s a wee bit of an upgrade over the last one.

This weekend past, due to a slight scheduling mishap, the Film Festival film we were to take the kids to turned out to practically clash with a film I was quite keen to see. So R. took the girls to their film, and I thought I’d ride my bike over to Penthouse in Brooklyn to see mine.

I think it’s quite good to use my bike for such mundane city transportational activities - I feel strongly that I should be using it more on a day to day basis rather than just off-road as a weekend hobby - but I’m generally too chicken (though gaining in confidence a little) to go up against Wellington’s traffic and roads.

A Sunday afternoon though? That’s doable… especially as I could avoid dropping down to the centre of town by riding up alongside the Zealandia fence to where there’s a track down to the top of Brooklyn.

Anyway, getting to the theatre took less time that I thought, and it felt great.

The film was In the Fog, a really quite beautifully shot and formally constructed story about three people, their personalities and the choices they make in the face of a series of terrible situations. It was very Russian, and I liked it a lot.

Back out, and after some lunch I had a little more time to look about. It was such a nice day for August:

There was not a breath of wind, even at the top of Polhill at about 300m above sea level. And also up here was something left behind by the ubiquitous Luna:

Nice detail work in there.

The one-way downhill back along the Zealandia fence is called the Rollercoaster, and has lots of jumps which I took care to avoid. Luckily there was no-one behind me to be held up by my cautious descent. But going slow had benefits: over the fence I saw a saddleback in full sun on a bare branch.

Did I have my good camera with me? Of course not. But I suspect I’ll be back again before long - there are tracks in them thar hills leading all the way down to the South Coast…

School holidays… so last week we were up in the Rotorua area, sharing a lovely crib (sorry, “bach”) on the shores of Lake Tarawera with our cycling friends from back on the Rail Trail.

This was our view.

Tarawera is pretty impressive, and always catches the light in interesting ways, especially in the evening. The lake was cold and clear, but that did not deter the kids who went for a swim anyway; and there were kayaks for everyone else (except me - I’m not really one for getting on the water, though I do like looking at it).

We also had our bikes with us and we’d heard that no trip to Rotorua is complete without a visit to the Mountain Bike Park right beside town. I hadn’t been on single track since my only disastrous visit to the Makara Peak Mountain Bike Park over two years ago - I have been riding instead around the open country 4WD trails west of the city, like the Skyline Trail.

I had collected some maps from the Redwoods Visitor Centre, including a rather cool microfibre cloth map handy for stuffing into a pocket, and so I plotted a roughly 15km route across the various logging roads from the Tikitapu (Blue Lake) side of the park through to the car parking area to get an idea of the lay of the land. Although I had been assured that the trail style in this park was more sweeping and “flowy” than Makara I didn’t want to take any chances.

I wish now that I did take some more chances.

Starting out in a cool frosty morning, we climbed hard to just about the highest point in the park, and I snapped a triumphal pic of a trail sign to email back to a co-worker trapped in the office back in Wellington.

He sent back a dutifully envious email… but of course I hadn’t gone down any trails, I had just ridden past their entrances. Turns out that the joke was on me, as I later discovered that Split Enz was probably within my skill level.

While we were traversing the park on the logging roads, the others were ripping around the trails close to the main carpark, and once we all met up for lunch the others had had enough and it was time to go.

Luckily I did get to have another visit one morning a couple days later and that was when I had one of those little revelations when one finds one is actually a little bit better at something than one thinks.

On this visit, we started out on Tahi, then did the Dipper twice because it was so much fun, sweeping around banked-up turns through the trees. Then we headed further up, where we got a bit lost trying to find a way to the lookout overlooking town and had a couple of good frights on a trail called the Tickler. At the end of that trail we consulted a map board, where a friendly local rider advised us to try Be Rude Not 2: more fast downhill sweeps around bermed tracks. We’d seen people come down it and it did seem like the best option for the last trail of session before meeting the kids at the luge.

This last track was insanely good, even for my level of expertise and general timidity. My co-rider thought he was on the wrong trail, because I had gotten so far ahead of him he couldn’t see me anymore. I waited for him at an intersection, heart pounding, a stupid grin on my face.

“Yeah”, I thought, “I get this now”.

It seemed a little bit of a shame to get saddled up and head to the luge for some processed (and expensive) entertainment but family holidays are all about this sort of small compromise. There will be another chance.

Since I’ve been back home I’ve been scoping out new trips (Dun Mountain sounds great once the kids are a bit more confident) and new gear and jargon (a 29" hardtail with Shimano Alfine internally geared hub is the current fantasy bike) but what I really need to be doing is more riding… and a return to Makara Peak.

Not today though. Wellington wind, Wellington rain: Winter.

Doing the Otago Central Rail Trail as a family was one of the best holiday experiences we’ve ever had.

We teamed up with my Mum and another family from Wellington and spread the 150km out over five days in late January. This meant that the daily distances were challenging, but doable for our seven and ten year olds. We could also stop lots and take many photos.

R. sorted everything out through Trail Journeys, one of a number of similar operators (their website has heaps of useful information, too). They organised accommodation and baggage transfers between our stops, and could have hired bikes to us had we needed them.

This freed us up to simply enjoy the ride. While we we could have camped, and carried all our own gear, we figured that if we were to subject the kids (and ourselves) to nearly 40km of bike riding in a day the least we could do was give them a nice comfy bed at the end of it.

There were lots of highlights:

• finding several full fruiting cherry plum trees at Galloway;

• stopping at the Chatto Creek pub for a much needed cold beer;
• staying in the old Omakau Post Office;

• the Poolburn Gorge and tunnels;

• the Ida Valley –yes, all of it;

• the Hayes Engineering Works;
• the wide open spaces –lots of them;

• dinner at the Otago Central Hotel;

• the passports that my Mum bought for B₂ and R₂, which they had a lot of fun stamping at each station along the way;

• The weather, apart from that first hot day, which was generally temperate and not too windy, and no rain until an hour after we finished at Middlemarch; and
• The other trail riders, the same groups of which we’d come across every day and chat with on stops.

But most of all, just being outdoors for days on end, away from cars and noise and speed and any external pressures was very very nice. And at the end of it, we felt like we’d really achieved something good. Which we had. B₂ wanted to do it again, immediately, a feeling we all shared (except for the timing - the rest of us needed a rest!).

I’d thoroughly recommend the Rail Trail to anyone.

We’re on our annual holiday-down-south.

This time, we’re going to spend five days with the kids, their grandmother, and another family doing the Otago Central Rail Trail. And so, ignoring the ironies inherent in carting them half the length of the country on the back of our car, we have our own bikes with us. Which means we can cycle about wherever we go.

Having spent a little time on the farm we’re now back in Hawea for a week before cycling the Rail Trail next week, and I thought it was high time I tried out a couple of the new riverside cycle trails between Wanaka and Hawea. These are fairly new, built by the Upper Clutha Tracks Trust and are eventually intended to link up and enable cycling from Hawea right through to Queenstown, away from the roads.

Anyway, the kids wanted to go to the Maze, so instead I decided I’d ride down the track to Alberttown and then on to Wanaka itself and meet them and R. there, via the Outlet Track, about a (as it turned out) 25km ride.

There was a roaring Northerly at my back, which I figured would be a good thing, and soon I was riding along a beautifully formed track above the Hawea River:

There were no roads nearby; very very few people; the only houses were across the river. The solitude was very nice, and the tailwind and the generally downhill aspect made for an exceedingly pleasant ride.

One of the things I’ve always loved about the Upper Clutha Basin (and I’ve holidayed here for 40 years) is the smell of the place. It’s this kind of dusty, dry admixture of pine, briar rose, and manuka; and there was lots of this scent along the track. I breathed deeply.

Eventually the track ran across a river terrace, cutting off a long meander, and as the terrace ended I was presented with this beautiful vista:

Not that I suppose it is especially obvious from that stitched-up pano but spread out below the terrace edge is a lovely flat area left from a former oxbow loop of the Hawea River, speckled with manuka and just inviting a picnic.

From here it was a short ride to the new swingbridge over the river to the DoC campground, and from there to the Alberttown Bridge, which I crossed so that I could follow the young Clutha to Lake Wanaka. Which I did; this track, the Outlet Track, was considerably rougher and more testing (though still a beginner track by MTB standards) and I’m glad I rode it myself before insisting the kids follow me along (as one Dad I passed was about to do - hope they came through alright without putting their quite young kids off, as they were about to start the Rail Trail the next day).

Then, still following the Outlet Track along the shoreline of Lake Wanaka I rolled into Wanaka town itself, in time to meet R., score some beers, and pick up the kids from the maze. Hurrah!

Now I just have to figure out the logistics of us all having a ride down the Hawea River track in the next few days. Though if it’s not windy we all should be able to ride down to the Oxbow flat and back.

Time to check the forecasts then.

R. had arranged for us to meet up with four other families, originally from our Playcentre, for a bike ride up the Rimutaka Rail Trail.

This is another cycle trail built on an old Railway formation: in this case, the old line that used to run over the top of the Rimutaka Ranges northwest of Wellington before the tunnel was built in the mid-1950s. We planned to ride up to the top and back again.

We could not have had a more lovely day.

R₂ is still getting used to her new bike, and took a little coaxing to get up to full speed. So we took a little longer than the others to get to the top (10.3km), where we stopped for lunch.

This was a site of a very isolated little Railway settlement. There’s not much here anymore, although the area is host to a few interesting birds: I saw kererū, and also my first ever pair of cuckoo (until they were chased off by a grey warbler)… and a tomtit:

Unfortunately I had left behind the long lens, thinking that I wouldn’t see any birds in the cutover forest that I’d read was here. So no better photos.

Anyway, a couple hundred metres further on is a long tunnel through to the other side of the hill. Once all the kids had cooled themselves off by riding through the tunnel and back I thought I’d have a go too. It was a little tricky without adequate lighting: although you can focus on the light at the end it’s not always easy to know how far from side to side you are swinging, especially if you are, er, too cowardly to get up enough speed to give yourself a straight line.

But I got there eventually, fellow Dad Charles following me through (whose ghostly image you can see in the stitched up photo above) some distance behind. For some reason, the tunnel exit had a couple of extra arches built. Perhaps they’re to accommodate the waterfalls on either side…

This side, the eastern or Wairarapa side, was a lot steeper and the workers from the Summit were needed to operate the Fell engines that worked here. There was a tempting track leading down eventually to Featherston, but that wasn’t for today.

I followed Charles back through and caught up with R. and R₂ and some of the others. B₂ was in a forward group, and we didn’t catch up with her (again) until we got to the end.

R₂ needed a little coaching on the confident usage of brakes enabling travel downhill: she was wanting to walk her bike downhill instead. With a bit of support (which I was not the best person to provide, sadly) she was on her way.

Eventually she got her speed on and the trip down was comparatively quick. We met the others in the carpark, about an hour after departing the summit.

We could see why lots of family groups do this trail: it’s got a nice grade (we didn’t feel like we were climbing, though we certainly felt the trip back was a lot easier) and it’s clearly doable, and would make a nice achievement, for probably most confident cyclists over the age of six or so. And it’s great training for the four of us: we’ll be on the Central Otago Rail Trail in late January…

I’m typing this with one hand. (Please, no jokes.) After dinner my left wrist blew up and I think it might be sprained—it has a bag of frozen peas sitting on it now. And I’m wearing my sunglasses inside.

We’d decided to take the bikes and head into the Makara Peak Mountain Bike Park this afternoon. There were a couple routes marked as “Easy”, and while we weren’t sure exactly what that meant we thought we’d have a look.

What we found was pretty cool. Even and easily graded tracks zig-zagging up the side of a hillside of re-generating bush. Birdsong. Friendly other bikers.

The four of us worked our way up the hill on the Koru trail, letting the girls set the (fairly slow) pace. They’d push up most of the slopes, R₂ gamely pushing her way as far as she could with her ungeared bike and B₂ getting to grips with her new geared bike. There would be little down slopes from time to time, and both girls would ride down these, gaining confidence as they went. Every so often we’d all pull over and let other, faster riders past.

We stopped to watch some people getting lessons in how to do jumps and handle difficult terrain at the skills area before heading to the highest point on the Koru and crossing over onto the Lazy Fern, another “Easy” rated downhill run to the carpark.

By this time I was a little impatient with trailing along after the girls and volunteered to lead the way; and B₂ followed closely behind me.

I rode down the track, not too quickly so as not to leave B₂ behind, for some way. But then I opened it up a little, and picked up speed down a nice sloping part of the track with the hill to the left. I wasn’t paying enough attention to the track ahead as I swerved slightly to the right to dodge a branch. Just past the branch though the track narrowed slightly as it came to a part of the hill so steep they’d had to bridge it to get the track across it. I was a little too fast to correct or brake hard without losing it… and so I missed the approach and flew off the side.

B₂ screamed out “Dad!” and skidded her bike to a halt up the track and ran down to see if I was ok. I was, mostly. The peak of my helmet had prevented a full face-plant but something hit my cheek, breaking my beloved glasses across the bridge. A sapling had broken my fall without me hitting the rocks too hard; and the bike seemed OK. I was just bleeding and bruised, and seeing the funny side.

I dusted myself off. My right pocket was full of dirt and leaf-mould. And at the bottom was a slug. We waited for R. and R₂ to catch up.

R. helped me get the bike back on the track and we moved on. Somewhat chastened, I let the R. and B₂ go ahead while R₂ volunteered to be my “eyes”. I pushed the bike very slowly down the hill behind her.

And so eventually we got home. R. has glued my glasses back together for me temporarily but until the glue cures I’m wearing my prescription sunnies.

Tomorrow, assuming my wrist isn’t completely screwed we’ll be glasses shopping.

The girls have both started really getting into riding their bikes lately. After they get home from school they’ll get them out and take it in turn to ride down the narrow concrete ramp at the side of the house and on to the lawn.

In fact, they’re so keen that we thought we’d better get a tow bar fitted so we could put their bikes onto a rack and cart them about with us.

R. had suggested that we two should also get bikes at some point soon. I hadn’t thought too hard about this, until last week, when I strolled into a bike shop, you know, as you do, just to check out the prices.

This is the result.

Yesterday I rode it home from the shop. It was the first time I’d been on a bike in any meaningful way for nearly 20 years. It was scary. It was fun. It was also bloody hard work, and I had to push the bike most of the way up Wadestown Road. But coming down the other side was GREAT. And afterwards, I had the weary glow of exercise-having-been-done. I am not used to that. It was good.

So now I have a bike. R.’s arrives in a couple days. I’ve been scoping out rides and paths across Wellington and wider afield for little family field-trips, and for other slightly more taxing adventures for me when my fitness levels improve.

Because that bike needs some mud.

Sadly though, it’s never going to be that easy to get all the bikes out our gate and up the steps to the road. But I can pretend this is part of the exercise thing, right?