Any Given Saturday - Bushlove Leave Pass Rampage

After getting a mammoth leave pass to hit the trails yesterday, I'm feeling a little jaded. Today's physical activities will be no more extravagant than a trip to the new playpark and maybe a swim. When I say 'swim', I am referring to the time I will spend lying in the shallows at Porirua pool with my groin over a pleasant warm water jet, whilst my 4yr old, Ella and her friend go down the small slide 500 times.


(MC Hammer soundtrack removed as it was sometimes being blocked for copyright! Doh.)


Last weekend Ashley & Marjolein held the first round of the Revolve Womens MTB Series. It was a great success and Willy-Free Racing proved to be very popular with 51 lovely ladies competing at the inaugural event. The awesome Karapoti race got 143 ladies in its 25th anniversary year by my count, which makes the 51 in attendance look very impressive. I'm looking forward to joining some other Bushlove pro-marshals at the second round at Makara next Sunday (25 April) to see some more oestrogen fuelled trail rampage.

Yesterday morning Mr Sharpe was delivered to my doorstep by his lovely smokescreen, Keryn. We were riding over the 'Best Of Belmont' and over to meet chums for even more guffaw-packed trail riding.

On the way we took in Chopper and Big Weta. Choppers has the start of its winter grease now, as we found out when our front tires went straight across the first corner and not around it. With Mono's encouragement, I nailed the techy right hand rock drop at Baked Beans Bend. Although did wish the rock was drier and I was better at mountain cycling as I began the drop, it went well. I'd always wanted to tick that off.

We met up at the new Miramar Trails, lovingly crafted by Slacky, Ben Wilde and many others. Thanks all. Good job. We had an awesome time riding Jail Break, the dh track. It is a sensational bit of trail. I can see me promoting more family trips to the inlaws who live nearby. I enjoyed cutting Slacky's lunch by hooning a drop and caught him of guard as he whined about being on an XC race bike with slick tires.

We headed over to Aro Valley for a coffee (which I have just remembered I didn't text Ashley and Dan about. Soz guys!). After some banter with epic mountainbike legend Carl James Patton we rode new Aro/Polhil tracks. I think it was Transient and Highbury Fling. Great tracks and a credit to the trail masters who built them.

I still had to ride home to Porirua and was running on an empty tank. Monochops rode up Ngaio Gorge with me before we farewell and I moseyed off home. Up Ngaio Gorge, Mono still looked like an idling, curb-crawling Lamborghini. In that he had a huge amount of horsepower in reserve, but also looked a little sleazy. I stopped at the Tawa Jump Track to do a few lame XC rider jumps with the locals. They were entertained by my plastic bike, but not my puny airs.

Davo.