Ah, Easter riding road trip. The crisp mornings, the mud and the snow on the tops of the hills!

We went to the West Coast and first of all rode the Croesus track.


The full story is over here http://www.mountainbikingnewzealand.co. ... 09-part-1/

Beer and food at the pub "Formerly the Blackball Hilton", stayed the night and then it was over to Reefton to ride Kirwans


with the full story here http://www.mountainbikingnewzealand.co. ... ard-track/

Then we were off to Westport for a couple of evenings. Tim showed us around some of the historic trails around Denniston on Sunday and then we popped over to Hanmer on Monday and I had a quick blat around the forest before heading home again.

Mmmm 4 days of biking goodness

J for very very very jealous. I need another riding holiday.

West Coast pack tracks

Nice reports Zane Now I can see why Tim was a bit on the cruisy side on Monday! Good to see the pics of Kirwans. I was planning on doing that on Monday but seeing as Tim had just done it with you we went elsewhere. After running up half of it (to 820m) a few weeks back I am really looking forward to riding it. I'm thinking I could head over one weekend and ride Kirwans one day and spend some time on the end of a grubber on Tim's project track the other day.

Tim had it easy on the Sunday... he should have been nicely recovered for you on Monday He must be getting slow what with living on the West Coast and all

I actually took some helmet cam of Kirwans on the way down, but it looks pretty nasty when i compress it enough to load to youtube or anything.

Might have to try just loading a short bit up to Vorb...

Now with added video

kirwans-reward-t94990.html

ohhhh! I likey the looky of this.

Scotty wrote:ohhhh! I likey the looky of this.

Just be warned. 3 hours for fit people to get to the top (actually 2.18 for some I believe) but it is more like 4 or 5 hours of technical granny gear climbing if people are not very fit. It is about 1000m vertical to get to the hut, and there can be a fair amount of climbing over trees/slips etc.

Damn good fun once you get to the top and turn around tho

inzane wrote:

Scotty wrote:ohhhh! I likey the looky of this.

Just be warned. 3 hours for fit people to get to the top (actually 2.18 for some I believe) but it is more like 4 or 5 hours of technical granny gear climbing if people are not very fit. It is about 1000m vertical to get to the hut, and there can be a fair amount of climbing over trees/slips etc.

Damn good fun once you get to the top and turn around tho

Or you can get Al to take you to the top in his helicopter: http://www.finda.co.nz/business/listing ... pters-ltd/

Here's a video I did a while back from further down Kirwans: mellow-west-coast-trail-clip-t27508.html

inzane wrote:

Scotty wrote:ohhhh! I likey the looky of this.

Just be warned. 3 hours for fit people to get to the top (actually 2.18 for some I believe) but it is more like 4 or 5 hours of technical granny gear climbing if people are not very fit. It is about 1000m vertical to get to the hut, and there can be a fair amount of climbing over trees/slips etc.

Damn good fun once you get to the top and turn around tho

Hmmmm, so an overnighter in my current pie-endowed form then.

I'm up for it... probably in Spring though.

I would do Croesus twice before I would ride Kirwins.

inzane wrote:Tim had it easy on the Sunday... he should have been nicely recovered for you on Monday He must be getting slow what with living on the West Coast and all

He said he had a hard 3 hour ride on Sunday (at Denniston?), then an easier one in the afternoon i think.

Perhaps he was just riding in cruise mode because he thought that's all I could handle, being a soft townie and all

phunk wrote:I would do Croesus twice before I would ride Kirwins.

I would do them both back to back again any time. Both have different attributes and terrain. The entry/exit of Kirwans is not great, but the top section is well worth the climb! I find the top section of Kirwans has more flow and leafy drift than Croesus.

However if I only had time to do one I am likely to just go to Croesus.

I think we stopped for photos too many times on Kirwins, whereas it was raining when we did Croesus so we just bombed down, but i still rate Croesus higher than Kirwins. Must get back to reasses!

phunk wrote:I think we stopped for photos too many times on Kirwins, whereas it was raining when we did Croesus so we just bombed down, but i still rate Croesus higher than Kirwins. Must get back to reasses!

I think that as a climb the croesus was easier than kirwans. Definitely not as steep, and less "singletracky" if that makes sense. I think I prefer the surroundings of kirwans, but in terms of the fun I had on the ride, croesus was better. Especially standing around in the rain with you waiting for everyone to turn up

Yep, Croesus I was climbing 2 or 3 gears harder on my cassette than Kirwans. Croesus there is less getting off to climb over trees/slips than Kirwans too.