Paul Petch

Mountain biking at Hamner Springs

The past month has been quite messed up with moving home then the flu for a number of weeks that left me with zero energy and some time off work. Thankfully the daily commute and Xbox has kept me sane (just!) and this week has seen me clocking up some quality KM’s and time on the bikes at Bottlelake, Hamner Springs and the Port Hills.

Getting ready for Hamner on Friday night felt quite odd as it had been a few weeks since I’ve ridden outside of the city….and after a house shift with stuff spread across various parts of the home….it was a tricky task! The Wolf also needed a gear tune and I took some time to setup sag to make the morning routine a tad easier.

The plan was to head to Hamner Springs and then meet up with Ben. Spencer was traditionally late and I was un-characteristically organised :) and after a service station stop where I stocked up on a one square meal and other goodies we were on our way.

I had ridden a few tracks at Hamner back in December 2008 so was looking forward to riding more of the extensive trail network on offer. Arriving early afternoon, Spencer and I headed straight for some coffee and a lazy lunch :) which is a real positive of cycling in Hamner with so many good cafes and restaurants just minutes away from the trails! If you ignore the masses of happy tourists and somewhat tacky environment it is not a bad place at all at this time of the year. After fueling up we picked up a trail map from the local bike shop and headed off to meet Ben with full bellies.

During my last visit I rode the popular Dog Stream Track and Jolliffe Saddle Track which were a lot of fun but were nothing compared to “Bigfoot” which had a great tight, challenging and “switchbacky” climb before a sweet sweet descent with flowy and technical sections.  After a few ups and downs we then climbed onto the Detox Track which was also a fantastic fast and edgy descent which had quite a few “lauch off” sections to keep us on our toes!

More climbing found us at the Eagles Nest which provided fantastic panoramic views of Hamner Town and the surrounding mountains. A small, interesting and steep rocky section provided a challenge to this lookout that I *nearly* cleared upto the final pedal stroke where I span out and became unstuck! Ben then hammered up without any reservation (nice) and cleared it. Of course the subsequent 5? attempts that I devoted my diminishing energy towards all resulted in epic FAILS and a juicy sideward fall onto rocks (thank you knee pads!) Spence gave it some curry too and also struggled…. next time it will be ours! *muuhahahahahah*

After Mach1 and the C-Line Track which were pretty much meh.. it was time to head to the Town to meetup with Ben’s girlfriend and some food and drink. We were greeted with a local jazz band playing some tunes while we sat outside inhaling sugars and carbs at one of the many popular pubs.

Overall I think the trails in Hamner are “ok” but are quite short and disjointed compared to other Canterbury trails. They also have extensive fire road stomps and vast areas of cleared forest which I dislike. What makes the 2hr drive out there worth it though is the fun mucking about with mates, having a good explore and of course the good food and coffee on offer so close by! If I was to choose my favourite track it would be the climb up and then the super fun Bigfoot track down! Sadly, I hear that it will soon be cleared as part of the forestry operations out there…. so go ride it before it is gone forever!

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Related posts:

1. First mountain bike ride at Hamner Springs
2. Mcleans Island mountain biking
3. Mountain biking weekend. Porthills & Mcleans Island
4. A sunny afternoon of Mountain Biking in the Port Hills
5. Mountain Biking at Woodend & the You Yangs….

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 6:22 pm and is filed under Bike Rides and tagged with ben, hanmer, spencer, Trails & Rides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.