what is continuing to be a super season of riding, west coast exploring --> http://bit.ly/cOvbq3

Had an awesome ride at Wainui today. Mt Lowery, Rata Ridge, Crazyman climb, 491, Jungles and 4WD, Labyrinth, Snail Trail, Jungles, B Line, Wetland loop and home to Petone on the road. The tracks are riding mint

Caffeine wrote:Had an awesome ride at Wainui today. Mt Lowery, Rata Ridge, Crazyman climb, 491, Jungles and 4WD, Labyrinth, Snail Trail, Jungles, B Line, Wetland loop and home to Petone on the road. The tracks are riding mint

Nice.

Only time for a quick blat between a morning of mowing lawn / tidying the garden taming the jungle and enjoying the glorious 'nix victory.

A couple of quick laps of Wainui. Splendid.

Yesterday, Karapoti; Today, Mt Victoria.
Lots of good weather these recent months...

Popped up for 8 hrs of mountianbike goodness in whakarewarewa, over two days. The highlights being corners, Huckleberry hound, Old chevy, Billy T, G shock and the dipper. And of course Zippy's. And one witnessed bad crash.

Spent the weekend in Whirinaki with the Auckland MTB club.

Saturday we rode the road from Minginui round to the start of the new Moerangi MTB track. Although can shuttle this, we all reckoned it made for a great warm-up ride.



The track to the first hut was some of the best singletrack I've ridden in the North Island. A fair bit of climbing but it always rewarded you with a really sweet flowing - and technical in places - descent.



From there it seemed to climb forever past two more huts and up to the 920m high point, before very quickly dropping over 500m to the track end.



By the time we got back to our campsite we'd clocked over 70kms and 5.5hrs of riding time. With no running water there was nothing for it but a bracing dip in the river to clean up.



Then on Sunday we did the 16km Whirinaki MTB Track:







I'd been meaning to visit this one since it opened a few years back and wasn't disappointed. Stunning native forest, lovingly crafted trails - including the famous tree-trunk bridge - and a real fun blast back down to the carpark in the latter half of the loop.

With the addition of the Moerangi track, Whirinaki's now a must-do weekend trip in it's own right. It's worth saying that while DOC have done a fantastic job on the 35km track, it's serious back-country riding; big hills, not a hint of mobile phone reception and a long ride back to civilisation. If you were to get into trouble up there it would be serious. Thankfully our only incident was a broken chain.

A few of us have already hatched a plan to go back, and when we do we'll be staying overnight in one of the huts.

(full photo set on flickr)

Awesome stuff! Did the 16k loop late last year.

Did Takaka hill/Riwaka DH track for 1st time. Awesome.
Then off to Kaiteriteri mtb park for a play up the top of Velocity - down Rockface/Remedy/Shady Lady. Great stuff over there. Good day out!

took advantage of an opening in a otherwise busy day to do a quick dash around Makara Peak

Lovely day out there

big missions around woodhill today, powerball, big mama, big mama's tail, uplands, haggis, python, jafakids, slippery's, ed rush ravine, link, combo, cookies, raceface. good pedalling on the ss.

Mirimar tracks, a mungous pine has crashed over the track (in the storm perhaps) at the very top blocking it nicely.

not over it

Last night, rode through Karangahake gorge, through old rail tunnels, half walking track with some great pieces of techie singletrack, wish I had a light..., as my one decided to fry out on me

Back in the Akatarawas today

Showed some people little ridden track. Was lovely.

Did some track I haven't down before when we missed a left turn. Pitfall of guiding from the back, but it was nice too.

Finished with the Three Sisters. Slippy at the top, but the bottom Sister was dry as.