Summer is here!

Been getting back into riding a bit more lately since the weather has been a whole lot better. Went out yesterday with some friends and had a bit of hoon around the Skills area at Makara Peak (NON skills area in my case!) Went back down Lives Wires which is an awesome little track that goes from the Skills area back down to Koru. Has both advanced and intermediate options so something for everyone. I chose the intermediate options :) Haven't ridden this track before so it counts towards my "new track" mission.

Gave bike a thorough clean last weekend so it's looking very shiny. Also put on a Marsh Guard I got from Mud Cycles to keep it and me a bit cleaner. Should have put one of these on ages ago but just never got round to it.

Hutt River Trail

A group of us went riding on a section of the Hutt River trail yesterday. This is a nice easy ride and like the Rimutaka Rail trail, would be a great ride to do with kids. We started at Avalon Park, rode up to Moonshine Rd, crossed the river and came back down the other side (River Road track) crossed back over the river and back the way we came. Worked out to be about 20 odd K's all up. According to tracks.org, if you rode from Petone to Upper Hutt and back, it's about 75km! Would be a good days ride :)

Updated Bike Specs

Thought I'd update this since it's changed a bit from when I bought the bike off Trade Me.

Size - M
Colour -  Black
Frame - ALUXX SL FluidFormed™ alloy Maestro 6.0” travel
Fork - Fox 32 FLOAT RL w/ 15QR axle and Tapered Steerer, 5.9”/150mm Travel
Shock- Fox Float RP2 w/XV sleeve & boost valve
COMPONENTS
Handlebar - Answer Pro Taper Aluminium 720mm
Stem - Truvativ AKA 60mm
Saddle -  Fi’zi:k Gobi XM w/Manganese rail
DRIVETRAIN
Shifters - SRAM X-5 trigger shift 27 sp.
Front Derailleur - Shimano SLX 9 sp direct mount
Rear Derailleur - SRAM X-7 9 sp
Brakes - Shimano XT M785, w/7” front & 6” rear 6 bolt rotors
Brake Levers - Shimano XT M785
Cassette - Shimano HG30 9 sp 11-34T
Chain - Shimano HG53 9 sp
Crankset - Shimano M542 22x32 (44T currently removed and replaced with Blackspire C4 bashguard)
Bottom Bracket - Shimano BB71, press fit
WHEELS
Rims - Easton Haven Alumium
Hubs - Fr: Easton Haven| Rr: Easton Haven
Tires - [F] Maxxis Minion DHF 26x2.35 [R] Maxxis Minion DHF 26x2.35

Rimutaka Rail Trail

Been wanting to bike the Rimuaka Rail Trail for a while and since it's in Wellingtons Best Bike Rides, I finally got round to it yesterday. Headed to Upper Hutt with a friend and parked at the Kaitoke car park. We biked up to the Summit in the ~130 KPH winds and at times, driving rain. It was warm enough though and the wind "pushed" us uphill (if you can call a 1% gradient uphill!) on the way to the Summit.. The way back was a bit more of a struggle with the wind nearly blowing me off my bike a few times. Had to be a big kid on the way back and ride through the stream at Munitions Bend a couple of times :) All up, it's a very fun ride and  a nice change to slogging it out on single tracks around Makara Peak. This would make a great ride with young kids with a picnic at the Summit and swim in the river on a hot day. Will definitely do it again soon and ride the Back Road track on the way back and then aim for an epic ride to Featherston and time it to catch the train back to Welly. More details on the track here

http://www.gw.govt.nz/Rimutaka-Rail-Trail/

Bike bling

Haven't posted  for a bit due to moving house\being sick\bad weather and not really having much to post about. Winter isn't my favourite time of year to ride so I haven't been out much lately (e.g I'm lazy). However, I have crossed one more track off my list, namely Deliverance. I have one word to describe this track...EEEKKK! It's advanced and I most definitely am not. When I wasn't hanging on for dear life and crashing (ouch) , it was actually quite fun so will be back...when it's drier :) *Note, elbow and knee pads are now on my "To Buy" list along with a Gloworm X2 light*

So on the bling front, I picked up some XT M785 Brakes (and Ice Tech rotors) a few weeks back. They are AWESOME! A vast improvement over the Elixir 1's (which were in turn way better then the brakes I had on my old Avanti). I also decicded to ditch my big 44T ring and replace it with a bash guard. No real reason, I just don't used it very often. I also picked up a Park Tools PC10 repair stand to make life easier when working on the bike and cleaning it. . Ummm...that's about it for now. Pics off my phone of the new stuff

Park Tools PC10 stand (and new bash guard)

XT M785..mmmmm

Salvation

Yay! I got the end cap for my Easton Haven rear wheel from Chain Reaction Cycles. Great service from these guys! So now rolling on matching wheels :) Will take some decent pics after I next clean the bike.

Yesterday I went for a ride from Fitzgerald Ave up Salvation and to the top of Wrights Hill with a friend and his dog. Back down the same way. First time I've ridden this track which is another one off the list of Wellington tracks to ride in 12 months (Feb 2013 to Feb 2014). It's a nice gentle ride up or down  Will be living near the top of Wrights Hill soon so will probably use this track a lot to get to and from Makara Peak park. Then today it was a quick ride up Koru, along the 4WD track, down Big Toms Wheelie and then down Lazy Fern. Technically, Big Toms Wheelie is part of SWIGG that starts across Snake Charmer from the Ridgeline Extension track. I haven't ridden down the Ridgeline Extension track so I wanted to ride this short (200M) piece of track so I can say I've covered the whole of SWIGG. I would have kept going along SWIGG but a group of about 6 riders went down just before me so I thought I'd take Lazy Fern to avoid the potential traffic (though chances are they would have left me in the dust\mud) The Makara Peak supporters guys were working on Koru as I went past and it's looking great. There's lots of track maintenance events coming up so I'll probably attend a session or 2.

Makara Peak Work Party

I attended my first Makara Peak work party yesterday. It was working on the Upper Leaping Lizard track I mentioned back in this post. I thought I can't complain about a track and then not help out when they're working on it! If you're a member of the Makara Peak supporters they send out Newsletters with the dates and times of the various work parties. You can join here. They also post details on their Facebook page here. The track is alot more rideable now so if you're heading up that way, give it a blast :)

After the work party, I headed on up to the Peak and then out via Zacs Track and Varleys. Both tracks have recently been worked on and are in good condition. Varleys has some quite tight switchback that slow things down but it's a track lots of walkers use so you probably don't want to be bombing down it anyway. I went across the road and then down Wahine to Karori Park and home.

Pics from my phone

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Signs at Makara Peak

Cool lookout at Makara Peak you can ride up onto with views of the windfarm

Bike with the Makara Peak antennae tower in the background