Rinse and repeat

Saturday was an absolutely magnificent winter's day: still, sunny and reasonably warm.  What a fantastic day to muck around at home and ignore the bikes...Even better - listening to the pouring rain as I nodded off in bed that night!

Naturally it was still raining in the morning.  But as the morning progressed we started to get the odd break in the weather and I managed to walk the dog without getting wet.  Come lunchtime there was still the odd wee shower but I was starting to climb the walls and needed to get out.  By oneish I decided that the weather wasn't going to stop me so wheeled out the T7 and clambered into my Klim gear.

A few spits  of rain followed me up the road to the servo but as I headed out the valley things continued to improve and eventually I was riding under blue skies again.  Given all the rain I decided that I'd take in exactly the same ride as the previous weekend just because I really enjoyed it and wanted to sample it on a different horse.

Watershed and Midland Roads were the muddiest due to the same lack of metal on the road that I'd experienced the weekend before and I was certainly a bit more cautious on the heavier bike - it did tend to move around a bit more on the soft stuff.

For some reason I really enjoyed the drop down Finnis Road into Pohangina - perhaps it was the better engine braking and brakes on the T7, I dunno.  Anyway, this meant that the delicious bit of gravel just out of Pohangina came next.

Yeah, that was fun.  Same thing with the next bit of gravel that took me to the end of Pohangina Road and onto Makoura Road.  More gravel in great nick - have I mentioned that winter gravel is the best?

Just up the road, I decided that I should probably pause for some pics.  I'd noticed that nice looking farm house across the valley the weekend before - shame that phones aren't really cameras and I couldn't zoom in a tad. 

Sun!

The trip back along Ridge Road was another good wee blast and as I was following last weekends route so was Midland and Watershed Road,  This time around I decided to capture those two crackers on video.

I'd left my ride on the ride a fair bit later than the last one but was home by around 4 just as the skies were turning a wee bit less friendly - nice timing.

Another great ride, but perhaps I should go somewhere different next weekend...