marks
28th November 2007, 18:59
My son Glen has this week off work so on Saturday afternoon we loaded the bikes onto the trailer and headed off to stay at a neat bach about 10km out of Ngawi at the bottom of the Wairarapa
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/DSCN6445.jpg>
Gunna was meeting us there and as his Scrambler was a bit heavy for what we had in mind to do we had brought the mighty zonk for him to ride. Notice that we fitted a customized refrigerated top box to carry our refreshments.
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/PICT1583.jpg>
Sunday morning saw us up at 6.30-7.00 and by about 8.30 we headed off up the hill beside the Pinicles and headed towards Sutherlands Hut in the Aorangi Forest Park.
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/PICT1514.jpg>
It was a great ride and as you climb quite high up the views were spectacular..
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/PICT1522.jpg>
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/PICT1524.jpg>
Once we started the descent towards Sutherlands Hut everything went a bit pear shaped. You go over a rise and are instantly on a long steep downhill composed of vast amounts of baseball sized rocks.
I was the first casualty when I high sided and got thrown completely off the track and about 3-4 metres down the bank. Luckily I landed in flax bushes and a brushy soft tree stopped my descent. It was so damned steep that we never stopped for photos as we were struggling to hold bikes upright and keep from sliding.
The track leveled out for a while before descending steeply again and here Glen barrel rolled his DT - twisting the forks and scratching and bending plenty of misc bits and pieces. Still too steep for photos
Gunna being Gunna rode down all of this on the worst bike (which had just blown a fork seal and dumped the entire contents onto the front disk and caliper) without any drama and eventually rode back up to find out what was keeping us girls.....
The last bit was easy so we limped into the Hut and collapsed...
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/PICT1527.jpg>
After we recovered we spent about 45-60 minutes aligning forks and repairing various bits on Glens DT to make it properly ridable.
Gunna was keen to go back the way we came but Glen and I didn't want to face those two climbs again. Gunna rode my WR up to the top and back and said it was do-able but he is in an entirely different class than Glen or I and we weren't having a bar of it.
So we took the long way home - via Haurangi Rd and Martinbourough then back down to the coast. Can't have been very nice for Gunna riding the zonk 50km on the road at about 70km/hr.
It was a great ride and we were all pretty rooted by the time we got back.
more to come....
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/DSCN6445.jpg>
Gunna was meeting us there and as his Scrambler was a bit heavy for what we had in mind to do we had brought the mighty zonk for him to ride. Notice that we fitted a customized refrigerated top box to carry our refreshments.
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/PICT1583.jpg>
Sunday morning saw us up at 6.30-7.00 and by about 8.30 we headed off up the hill beside the Pinicles and headed towards Sutherlands Hut in the Aorangi Forest Park.
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/PICT1514.jpg>
It was a great ride and as you climb quite high up the views were spectacular..
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/PICT1522.jpg>
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/PICT1524.jpg>
Once we started the descent towards Sutherlands Hut everything went a bit pear shaped. You go over a rise and are instantly on a long steep downhill composed of vast amounts of baseball sized rocks.
I was the first casualty when I high sided and got thrown completely off the track and about 3-4 metres down the bank. Luckily I landed in flax bushes and a brushy soft tree stopped my descent. It was so damned steep that we never stopped for photos as we were struggling to hold bikes upright and keep from sliding.
The track leveled out for a while before descending steeply again and here Glen barrel rolled his DT - twisting the forks and scratching and bending plenty of misc bits and pieces. Still too steep for photos
Gunna being Gunna rode down all of this on the worst bike (which had just blown a fork seal and dumped the entire contents onto the front disk and caliper) without any drama and eventually rode back up to find out what was keeping us girls.....
The last bit was easy so we limped into the Hut and collapsed...
<img src=http://webcoda.com/images/bike/PICT1527.jpg>
After we recovered we spent about 45-60 minutes aligning forks and repairing various bits on Glens DT to make it properly ridable.
Gunna was keen to go back the way we came but Glen and I didn't want to face those two climbs again. Gunna rode my WR up to the top and back and said it was do-able but he is in an entirely different class than Glen or I and we weren't having a bar of it.
So we took the long way home - via Haurangi Rd and Martinbourough then back down to the coast. Can't have been very nice for Gunna riding the zonk 50km on the road at about 70km/hr.
It was a great ride and we were all pretty rooted by the time we got back.
more to come....