Paul Petch

Night riding on Port Hills rigid…ouch!

Last nights ride was an interesting one in many ways. A group of seven headed up Rapaki for 5.45ish and what a mixed bunch we were! Oli was on a Ventana rigid single speed while John was on his new and shiny “pearl” Marin, with another chap (sorry forgot his name) on a full on Specialized DH rig! Climbing soon spread out the group with John and Oli competing for first place up the hill (as per usual) and I sat behind them seemingly flying upwards on the Lynskey.  The full bouncers then followed slowly but surely behind….

I was very impressed with how John has improved fitness wise- at nearly 100kg  5 weeks ago he is now close to 85kg! His secret being dropping alcohol from his diet and commuting a few KM a day to work. Nice. With a new XC style bike and 15KG less weight to carry he climbs like a goat. Let’s hope he can keep it up!

Once up the top of Rapaki we stopped for bike talk :). The views were fantastic with what seemed to be fog covering the whole of the city…. it was great. Oli headed off home as climbing this hill on a SS is part of his daily commute!! The rest of us mere mortals went upwards over Mnt Vernon. Up front I really laid down some speed spinning up…. the Lynskey just flew up and over…..and John chewing on my ankles added a little more haste through the rock gardens on that trail. Riding fully rigid through rocks at dusk fast had me on the edge of my seat and skill level! It hurt. I just cannot get over how low the bottom bracket is on this bike though…..I was hitting everything with my pedals…. everything.

Once over the other side we waited a few minutes for the other guys (and Zane who caught us up) and then off we headed across the Traverse. After not riding rigid for sometime- and never at night in the hills- it was obvious straight off that I was there to simply make it across… nothing else. Half way we all stopped as it was dark enough to get the lights out and after collecting our thoughts we headed off again. Around one of the swoopy bends I lost control of the front wheel and went into a front wheel skid across the track….when I thought it was a “man down” moment- the front dug in and I managed to save myself from some serious dirt time. To the right of the track was a sheer fall and to the left was a knee high “wall” dug from the rock…. so it would have been pretty messy at this point. I had hit the turn at the same speed and line choice that I would have running a suspension fork upfront and that’s why I came unstuck.

Just down from where I came unstuck John also lost the front end but was not as lucky as me…. and washed out going down fairly hard. Luckily his landing was onto a softer soil to the left. Looking quite stunned but “ok” I passed him as he sat collecting his bearings.

Making it to the start of VIC park the decision was to head downwards. This is where I started to panic…. riding VIC park with a 130mm AM fork is tricky… never mind rigid. Anyway, I opted for the rear of the pack and took things really slowly the whole way down. I won’t bore you with the specifics but riding (well pinging off things :)) a rigid bike with a bottom bracket height similar to walking was a total nightmare through VIC Park and I’ll never do it again :)

To end such a perfect ride….. at the bottom of the fire road near Bowenvale I nearly came unstuck again as I crossed a cattle grid near the rocky water crossing. Trying to concentrate more on where I was heading and attempting to navigate the massive ruts and sheep shit spread across the track with a fading headlight I hit a cattle grid at speed to find it totally covered in water/ sheep shit/ mud. I went down hard and “just” managed to unclip and amazingly stopped myself from hitting the ground….. holy moley I was lucky. I also knew I was stupid too:)

Before hitting the road back home, John voiced that he had a puncture. 35 minutes later and three tubes he managed to fix it…. what was that all about? I don’t know but it was alot of fun having some time to chat with the guys and laugh at Johns attempts to fix a puncture before heading home for a feed. What an interesting ride that was.

Great company. Lucky escapes. Sore everything this morning. Rigid sucks through VIC Park.

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Related posts:

1. First night ride at Port Hills
2. Night riding at Mcleans Island in Christchurch
3. Easter weekend- Bottlelake Forest
4. Port Hills on my single speed!
5. Sign of the Kiwi and the Flying Nun

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 9:36 am and is filed under Bike Rides and tagged with brent, lynskey, night riding, port hills, rigid, zane. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.