Bikes
So over the past weekend Zane (the biker and brewer) was in town. After a couple of missions down south, this time he ventured north to check out the tracks round Welly and explore the craft beer bars around the capital.
A little review over my paltry number of posts revels I don’t rant much, so time for a name change.
So it is now Russel Rides as I’d like to keep a log of some of my MTBing adventures. Hopefully I can do better than a post every two months. Time will tell.
So it was a rainy day, time for some quality time in the shed. Followme on the shed telly and I finally have the ghetto tuning rig up and going. Felt good to have the smell of ski wax lingering in the shed again. Can’t wait for this latest storm to pass through. Itching to try out the JJ’s (the fat boys) on some Turoa off trail.
Wellington City Council officers deemed the consent could be granted without public consultation because the sign met district plan guidelines.
Taken from stuff.co.nz article
If you want to build a deck close to a boundary, start a business from home, or subdivide your property then you may need to get a resource consent and go through a consultation process.
According to the WCC’s own guidelines, the classification they use for sending out a notification to effected parties is
There are three potential scenarios:
1. Non-notified - if you have all written approvals required or the effects of your proposal are ‘less than minor’
2. Limited notification - if the effects are ‘more than minor’ and localised
3. Public notification - if the effects are ‘more than minor’ and not localised
So some egg in the planning department deemed the effects of the proposal as “less than minor” when they viewed it against the district plan.
I haven’t got time to read the whole thing, but it sounds to me like the WCC district plan needs reworking.
I thought the purpose of the RMA was
The RMA protects land and the environment. Just because you own a piece of land doesn’t mean you can do what you want on it or with it. The RMA recognises that our neighbours and others in our communities can be affected by our ideas for using land and other resources – just as we can be affected by the plans of others. By protecting the environment, the RMA also ensures we consider theinterests of the community and future generations of Kiwis.
Silly me.
Easter was an opportunity to catch up with Zane and some more exploring on the bike. I’d been looking forward to this trip for sometime, basically ever since my last jaunt down south. Zane loves technical single track, and whilst I find some of the riding he likes really challenging, I do love getting into the bush.
This trip we had a bit more time. 5 days over Easter to ride ourselves stupid. We always knew the weather was going to turn at some stage (and turn it did), but we still managed to ride 4 out of 5 days.
When reading the following posts about our rides, you’ll need to take into account my view point. I consider myself a pretty solid intermediate rider (Ridgeline at Makara is a challenge but fun - Grade 4 on Kennett Bros scale, Deliverance does my head in - Grade 5). I normally ride purpose built mtb trails which are pretty flowy and smooth, not too much technical riding. I don’t mind riding up, but I am not fast. I prefer the downs, but flowing and pumping rather than hucking.
So each of the rides get their own post, and here are the ones we got we to do.
It was a great weekend, and it really opened my eyes to the riding in the top of the south.
Missing from our list of rides was the Nydia Track. We had hoped to do this on the Monday. But the weather had other plans. After driving into Duncan Bay, a truly beautiful part of the sounds, we were greeted with sheets of rain and a road which already had several small slips on it. We regrettfully decided to back out and head to Havelock for a decent nights sleep.
I’ll need to get some more practice on rooty, technical downhills before I head down South again. I really love this kind of riding, partly for the challenge, partly for the beautiful country. But I my confidence on the technical terrain is lacking. Looks like I’ll be heading to Rata Ridge and Spoonhill more often.
One of the best things about riding with Zane is that he is a) a lot faster than me and b) carries a camera. So it gives him plenty of time to set up for shots like the one below. All photos in the posts link through to full res versions on our Flickr stream.
Trail map (Tracks.org.nz)
This was my favorite ride of the trip. After a bit a slow start (the beer at the Upper Moutere Pub is bloody good), Zane and I parked up in Nelson and headed along Brook Street and headed up at one of the many entrances onto the Dun Mountain walkway.
Dun Mountain trail is built on New Zealand’s first railway, so the gradient is great. We spun up the first part of the track, through some kind of Mtb park, and past a reservoir and into some pines. The trail up to this point is on a wide bench, but only a single track due to over growth. It wasn’t long till we were on the walkway it’self. This is wider with a rock (not gravel) surface and meanders through more Beech forest.
It was noon by the time we got to 3rd House shelter. I am not sure how long it took us to get there as neither of us bothered to check the time when we started. While we sat down to eat, the heaven’s opened. We could have turned back, but what was a nice easy climb on the way up, would have been boring down, so we pushed on to the saddle.
The trail after 3rd House is the same surface, but gets a little tricker. Or that could have been the weather. Riding on wet, black rock in the doom and gloom, maybe it just seemed harder.
We passed the turn off to Fringed Hill, this leads into Sunshine and Peaking Ridges which were our original plan. But in this sort of weather I think for me they would have been suicidal.
Some time after the turn off, the beech forest changed to more open scrub and mineral belt. This meant we were pretty close to the saddle. After a brief stop so that I could put on my pads, we were into the downhill.
One of the reasons I liked this down hill is that it starts off slow. After a couple of hours of climbing, it takes me a few moment to adjust to going down. The surface is trippy. Really spongy but plenty of grip. A few minutes in and the surface changes again, this time to baby head sized rock gardens. Now I thought this would once again do my head in, but for some reason I was in a much better mood, and I was able to relax and enjoy it. The rock gardens seemed to go on forever, broken up by the odd stream crossing.
Given that we passed a digger and power barrow parked up, this trail is obviously under going some kind of upgrade. Who ever is doing it has a pretty good eye, and there were some nice berms and pumpy sections.
The last hurdle was the stream crossing at the bottom. Given the amount of rain that was falling, it was up and running fast. Slow and steady, we carried our bikes across.
In a way it felt like after this stream crossing, the ride was over. But there was still some pretty sweet single track before we hit the road.
If I ever do this ride again, I’ll try to get someone to met me up the Maitai Valley Rd. The ride back to town is a good 10 k’s that to be honest, I could have done with out. And after such a fun down, it was a little anti climatic.
Still this was my favorite ride of the trip. I am not sure why, but I was in a better frame of mind. Maybe it is a little less challenging than some of the other rides we had done, or maybe I was just slowly getting into the groove. Whatever the reason, despite the weather, this is the ride that I think of the most when I recall this trip.
Once again no pics, we would have needed an underwater camera. But there are some older photos on the Nelson Mountain Bike Club site that give you an idea of the terrain. I think the trail we rode has replaced much of harder Boulder Valley trail, but you get the idea.
Trail Map (Tracks.org.nz)
This is a new trail that as trail builders, Zane and I were keen to check out. You have a pretty healthy slog up a forestry road to get to the Glider launch, not granny gear, but still steeper than the pack tracks like the Wakamarina.
We followed the instructions as per the tracks.org.nz description from the Glider take off. It appears that this is the long cut. For the record, if you get up to the toliet and the seat, then back track to the turn off you just passed and follow that. Our route along a fire break was “undulating”, read into that what you will.
The trail itself is rocky single track. Be prepared for plenty of switch backs. The bulk of this trail is built on the side of a steep hill (I guess they all are in Nelson), and there is some pretty impressive retaining in place just to get a switch back in places. Some of these are pretty tight, combined with the wet conditions and drop off the side of the track, they did my head in. It may be a different story in the dry.
Half the track is hand built and the other by digger. You can really feel the difference. The hand built section makes more use of the natural terrain. It is probably more technical, but it has more humps and rollers. Some of the digger sections were very straight and fast, which means a lot of speed coming into those switch backs.
It has no doubt been a mighty effort to get this trail in, and hats off to the trail builders for what they have done so far. With a bit of tuning on some of the switch backs, I think this will live up to it’s “must do” billing. I’d really like to have a run down in the dry and see how much of a difference that makes. Something for the next summer.
No pics this time due to the weather.
Trail map (NZ Topo Maps)
Friday morning dawned crystal clear. One of Zane’s riding buddies from Chch met up with us and we headed off to Wakamarina. As we had 2 vans, we planned to set up for the big shuttle. After dropping Mike’s spaceship off at the Wakamarina valley end, we headed back round the start.
To get to the start of ride you need to pass through a forestry road. Unfortunately this is being actively logged, so not only was the gate shut but there were big signs up saying it was all closed. If you are looking to do this ride, best to check with DoC first.
So we drove back round to the end of the track and decided to do it as a there and back.
On the way up the main trail, Zane wanted to take a turn off that he hadn’t been on before. Where the Wakamarina track would go down into a gorge, where you can cross the river on a bridge, Doom Creek walkway sidles around the valley and back again, meeting up with the main track on the other side of the gorge.
Doom Creek is another miner’s pack track. So the gradient is generally pretty good. In most parts this meant the track was basically a narrow, but gentle sidle. There are some parts where it gets into established Beech Forest. Here the track is wet, somewhat slippery, but worst of all for me, exposed. On one side you have a ditch, the other a near vertical cliff. So despite the easy grade, I found my vertigo kicking in and I was walking these parts.
I’d say half of this track had me nervous, the other half was great fun. There were plenty of sections where you weren’t exposed to the big drop, and I enjoyed rolling through the beech forest sections.
Once back on the main trail, it seemed like a highway in comparison. Given all our mucking around with the van, and our Doom Creek diversion, we decided to turn around at Devil’s Hut.
The downhill was great. There were some pretty interesting, loose switch backs into the bridge, and a healthy climb out. As always it seemed like it was over all too quickly.
Once again, I am left wanting more. I’d really like to do the full ride sometime soon.
Trail Map (NZ Topo Maps)
White’s Bay is pretty much the first bay as you go north from Rarangi into Port Underwood. This is a really pretty spot. The campground is nice and quiet, and all the facilities are provided for by the Surf Club (flush loos!!). You can rent the entire club house out for $50 per night, which is a deal as it sleeps ten and has a million dollar view.
The loop itself is a good challenge. The uphill is basically a pylon track with a number of pinch climbs. At the end of the road, it goes into single track, but the pinch climbs continue.
Even though most of the ride is in primo beech forest, there are very few sports with a view over the bay and to the ocean. The top of the ride itself is a 3 way junction in the middle of the forest.
The downhill is less steep and more undulating than the uphill, but is more technical. This means lots of roots, little steps and a few off cambers. As this was my first ride on this kind of terrain for a while, I have to admit it did my head in in parts. It is certainly a ride that I want to do again, and would have been interesting to have done at the end of the holiday to see if I handled it any better.
There are some walking tracks around White’s Bay below the road that are off limits to bikes. This is a real pity because these would be great Grade 2/3 riding. Hopefully sometime soon!
