12 September 2010

On The Chain Gang

Seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time behind a shovel this weekend.

You may have guessed from last week's post that it has been wet - real wet - here. Unfortunately that means that many kilometres of (formerly) pretty awesome mountain bike trails have turned into a swamp. So about 4 hours of Saturday was spent wandering the trails with a spade, mattock and rake, trying to alleviate the worst of any drainage issues. And getting more and more depressed looking at the sodden mess that some of my favourite trails had become. It was ugly work - not craftsmanship by any stretch of the imagination, but hopefully it gets the water off, and speeds up the drying process. Fingers crossed.

During the week last week, I was super duper keen for a ride on the weekend. But Sat night, as we went to plan our Sunday ride, I was less than enthusiastic. Instead of publicly looking like a wuss, I negotiated a gentlemen's start time instead (9:30 - how's that!), but still when the alarm went off this morning, the enthusiasm hadn't increased at all either. But I forced myself out (cut myself a little deal that I could wear the Belvedere cycling kit I purchased in Italy - first time out of the cupboard), and I'm glad I did.

It was odd riding a bike with gears - I've been on the singlespeed almost exclusively for the last month or so with various works getting done on various bikes (fork services, hub services, cracks welded, etc etc) - but I got over that and we had a most enjoyable loop. We cracked Timmy towards the end, he wasn't enjoying riding into the wind, even with 190kg of myself and Tim on the front riding block, but it was great.

And then a walk this afternoon up Nail Can again to check some of yesterdays works, and check a few areas I hadn't had a chance to see for water damage. Luckily - none, all the damage seems to be confined to the lower trails.

Lots of wildflowers coming out too - but that's another story.

Enjoy.

1 comment:

Dee said...

Wild flower photos! Please!