The local hill climb

Happy New Year.  And, I actually have two late 2021 rides to blog, here's the first...

With my recent move, I am now a bit closer to some great wee gravel rides - and these are ideal for the mighty WR...

So, a couple of days before New Years Eve, I went and put $5 (2.3L) of fuel in the mouse and headed on out the valley with Takapari Road firmly in my sights.  Takapari Road can be an little gnarly in places so possibly not the best ride to go on alone but after the last trip up in there I reasonably confident that someone else would find me if I managed break the WR (unlikely as that is).  I should probably get a PLB at some stage...

Anyway, the ride up to the Takapari turn-off was reasonably uneventful except for a couple of 4WD's (who probably had just come down Takapari Road) wanting a fair chunk of my side of the road on a couple of corners - twangers, what if I had been in my Kenworth (luckily for them I don't own one)?  At least it backed up my thoughts that others might be on the track.

After many revs, I finally turned off onto the gravel at the bottom of Takapari Road.  I was quickly up at the top gate (after having to go through two other gates) but even this bit of the track has taken a bit of damage from our recent heavy rain.

Clawing up the little rise you can see in that last picture pretty soon got me into some more gnarly stuff.  The bad weather and 4WD's have really damaged the track.  There was actually some decent obstacles to negotiate just to get up to the big ruts which were muddy last time.  Those ruts were actually fairly dry (even though we'd had heavy rain the night before) and I manage to scoot through riding on top of the rut without slipping in - little skinny tyres on on little bikes are great!

After that section, the road wasn't too bad, just the same rocky track as usual.  I even stopped to take in the view...

Simply stunning!

After this well worth it photo stop it was just a quick skid (avoiding the deep puddles) up to the hut for some more great scenery.

This was my turn around point.  You can go a little further in but that bit of the road is even less maintained than what I'd just scrambled up.  Maybe another day when I can drag someone else along with me...

The descent was a lot quicker as I'd remembered how to ride by now and eventually I dropped out of the mist.

A very smooth section of the track - steeper than it looks though

On the way down I finally ran into potential rescuers - a couple of hunters in their utes just parking up and unloading the dogs.  I gave them a wave and carried on down.  I really enjoyed the trickier bits on the descent - it's cool just puttering down and picking your way through the snotty bits.  Makes you feel like some sort of expert trials rider...

Soon I was back at the gate again.

On the ride home I detoured to take in that magic little stretch of gravel on Pohangina Road, the mouse slithering it's way through some great corners and going hard.  Noice!

And so, two & half hours and about 115km later the bike was parked up in the shed looking pretty pleased with itself (a liberal covering of mud) and with me happy to have finally got out on one of the bikes...