Monday, March 19, 2007

Mangakirikiri and Amokura - 2 Rides one weekend!

On Saturday morning Kurt, the Boss and I rode the Managakirikiri stream. It's a great 45k ride. Kurt and I took a dive out of the mud pool and I did one head first dive into a gorse bush. We decided to have two rides this weekend as we are preparing for the 3 day Odyssey.


On Sunday the same three, as well as newcomers to THE LIST Rachel and Ross, left the Boss's and met up with Brian and George at Woodlands school. We learnt that Teds and Aaron were leaving later and would catch us. I think they think we are a bit slow. Still no sign of Barry - the one who grissled the most about not being on THE LIST. It's an awesome ride up Amokura Road. We had to negotiate past a rampaging bull. It's moments like that that you wish cyclists didn't wear bright clothing! At our first stop the signs of problems began to emerge. Aaron (of course) discovered that his new chain had a sticky link so we spent hours trying to fix that.


We then split into a couple of groups while the repairs continued and agreed to meet at the next ford. Only 3 of us (me, Ross and Aaron successfully rode across the ford) which is disappointing because it was an easy one. At this point we discovered that Brian appeared to have a chian which was too long but we told him just to suck it in and get on with it. He wasn't going to need his small cog at the back any way as we set off on that relentless climb to the gate.


Just after we took off we heard the gunshot that meant Aaron (of course) had blown a tube. We had already started climbing so we were stopping for no-one. I climbed in 38 minutes which is my best yet. Ross drafted behind me until the last few hundred metres and got to the top first! The others followed closely behind with Rachel claiming that she hates climbing hills, though she climbed strongly in 50 minutes. (After the nerve and body shaking descent that followed she claimed that she hated downhills - no pleasing some people.)


Jared arrived at the top and then set off back down!!! to find Aaron. Guess what? He had two further punctures and now had no tubes. As the photo shows we inspected the tyre and found it had a hole worn through it. With great group thinking we applied a tube patch inside and then taped a piece of old tube (of which Aaron now had quite a few) inside the tyre and everything was now hunky dory.


The descent was difficult as it is very steep with tight hairpins as the photo shows and the rocks were big and loose!


We finally made it back to the Boss' for coffee and toast. Another great 50k ride!


It was great to see new list entrants Rachel and Ross turn up. Where are you Barry?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

a bit more truthful this time Maurie. But do not get confused between the smaller brother of the two. My experienced got ME! across the stream, not Aaron. By the way, Rosalie and George Teddy put on the birth cert, Jarrod, not jared or jarred or jarod.
Anyway, enough of the complaints. Yea Barry is slack, very dissapointed in his actions and I would like to move that he gets a 2 week suspension from the email list.
Far out, i reached speeds of over 60kph going down that hill that you called rocky and dangerous, very dissapointed Kurt couldn't keep up with me.

Anonymous said...

Truthful - I'm not sure I said I didn't like going up hill - just down hill - slow and steady thats me, not a maniac like Jarrod - rocks in his head or on your head if you ride at 60 kph.

PS its Rachael not Rachel

Unknown said...

Hey, bloggers are like MTBers - we don't follow the rules. So we don't worry about spelling.

I note my speedo had me at 67KPH. I wonder if it was on that downhill!?

Anonymous said...

Hey I always thought it was Rachel, i think someone is telling porky's. Yea don't worry Maury i'm not fussed. yea i reached 67kph going down the tar seal of amokura. Tht where you would havedone it. I saw the caution look in your eye coming down that dangerous hill. I had my eye rad-ometer on you, 48.7kph max mate

Sam Abraham said...

This will appear under Sam's name but it is aye morehu. 48.7kph! Rubbish! I was catching tedz, but Arrin got in my way and slowed me down. Jorj and Bryanne were a bit slow on the downhill but Cert wasn't too bad. Androo took his time so he could take photos.

Anonymous said...

I don't like your attitude there morehu. Tell the truth mate, it woun't hurt!!