This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
MTBing to the max... (After the Easter MTB trip, of course!) Az: of WT&MCers, Higgins work mates, his mates, and mates of mates that do Iron Man things, all extracted themselves from a deep sleep (well, I did anyway) to crank the pedals and spin the wheels of their “person-size” toys on the aforementioned day, which all NZers know the date and history of, so I don’t need to ramble off on a tangent and go into great detail on this!
After we had squished more bodies into the Higgins-mobile and other assorted cars than the vehicle manufacturers recommend so that we could leave some vehicles in Petone, we drove up to the Rimutaka Incline carpark.
Those with the right gears donned their shiny lycra suits and attached appropriate extras and appendages to their toys. The team was ready, and why is it that you always forget how long and how dark the summit tunnel is until you start riding through it?
It was an incredibly fast ride down the other side - I thought I would lose all the feeling in my hands and arms with the vibrations. By the
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By Jo McKenzie time we got to the carpark on the other side, we were beginning to realise that perhaps we had a metallictype man in our midst!
A serious road bash took us down to the coast - I say serious because I am not a road cyclist and chunky offroad tyres do not go that fast on tarseal and besides, I was saving my energy for the fun stuff off-road! Well, that’s my excuse for bringing up the I ng I riding up over a hill to
Tear anyway.
The team took a rest at the changeover back to gravel road, only to be told, “if you’re not racing or training then it’s a waste of time!” Thank you Mr Metallic, Pooh Tours has other ideas about this but there was no opportunity for i debate as we eagerly set off in search of the southern coastline.
' A perfect day - no wind and
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clear skies - we cruised around the coast, past small fishing shacks and people just quietly enjoying the beach. We did eventually stop for a welcome rest and lunch on a more isolated stretch of coast. Then came some fun, gnarly stuff, Where I feel it should be pointed out that Mr Metallic got out-done on some technical stuff - a very small stretch, but nonetheless, an important one! And we all managed to out-do a 4WD that seemed to be floundering on the big rocks.
Near the Baring Head carpark the two eager beavers raced off for their cappuccino at Eastbourne - we sent them around the coast - while we took the inland route, avoiding Baring Head and casually wait for them to catch up with us!
It was a fast trip back round past the Pencarrow lighthouse for ice creams and a wellearned rest at Eastbourne. An awesome day trip! Thanks to all the punters who made it!