While down in the South Island for the
TT2000 last week I spent a few days at my sister's place and had the chance to play around on a spare mountain bike.
On Sunday it was a pretty quiet affair. We took my nieces to
Rabbit Island where we tootled around some of the great tracks at a kid friendly pace and then had an early BBQ tea near the beach. This was great fun and not too strenuous on someone who hadn't really been on a mountain bike for quite some time...
The next day was a bit more serious. My brother-in-law Dan finished up work early and took me mountain biking up to
Hackett Hutt.
This was a far more serious ride actually requiring me to ride up a few small hills! It was great fun and even though I need to improve my cycling fitness I didn't go too badly.
The track was a bit knocked around in places but there was some great scenery to look at.
On the return trip I had a bit of brain-fart in a particularly rocky section and made that age-old error of hesitating instead of confidently pushing forward. I ended up toppling over the side of the bank and landing in a pretty un-soft rock garden. The poor bike went flying even further down the bank.
I picked myself up (Dan was ahead of me so never even saw the mishap) and retrieved the bike. I had scrapes all over my arms and legs but nothing too serious - the worst bit was some dead gorse thorns poking through my shoes and into my feet. I soon clambered back up the bank and carried on and met Dan coming back to see if I was still alive.
Also on the way back, we took a diversion up towards the Whispering falls. This involved clambering up a bank onto the flood damaged track (with bikes over our shoulders) and another little pedal up a rocky track. We didn't bother going right up to the falls and just checked out the scenery from the bridge.
The rest of the ride was uneventful but once we got back to the car park Dan decided he wanted to cool off so he ended up leaping off the bridge to take his dip.
All in all (and even considering my topple over the bank) it was a great way to spend the afternoon and has got me keen on biking again...watch this space!
