Flipping a few stones

Having not had the chance for a decent ride in the past few weeks today I decided to remedy that by getting out for a short ride on the mighty Vee.

I decided to take a trip out around the Pohangina Valley but to take a few roads I hadn't taken in a while.  It was also going to be interesting to see what the roads were like after some nasty weather a few weeks ago.

I cruised across town and out through Kelvin Grove before finally hooking up with my first bit of gravel on Watershed Road.  It had been a few weeks since I was last on gravel so it took me a while to get comfortable on it again - some of the gravel had had a grader over it recently so this always adds to the fun.

Soon I was on the familiar Zig Zag road but rather than carrying onto Ridge Road I instead took Finnis Road down into the Pohangina township.

Gravel!

Finnis Road

Dropping down the hill into Pohangina

Next up was some fast gravel on Pohangina Road to Makoura.  I had a blast along here as I'd got the hang of the slippery stuff and had the tail hanging out a bit on a couple of the great uphill turns - oops!

Pohangina Road

Up  on top of the ridge things got a bit slower but the scenery got better so I pulled up for a quick photo stop.

At Utuwai I hung a left to make for Apiti.  After dropping down to the river and clambering back up the other side the road straightens out and is a real hoot on a big dual-purpose bike - you can guess why.

The gravel finally ran out in Apiti so I settled into a fast cruise back to Cheltenham where I stopped for some bacon & eggs wrapped in pastry before carrying on to the old's place for a coffee.

I was finally back home around 2 in plenty of time to give the mower a bit of a thrashing too.  The bike and I both enjoyed our little potter!

More pics here.