Sunday 1 April 2007 - Redhill / Oxford Falls loop

A great day for a great ride - indeed, it was getting a little like Pitt Street out there at one stage, with everyone taking advantage of the perfect weather.

We (Doug, T-Bone, Brian, Matt and Stephe), were honoured to be joined by Shawn (out for his first Real Ride) and Steve (really a downhiller, but slumming it with the XC boys while his bones heal!).

Lots of photos and videos, as well as the track map and profile, up on the albums page (again, although we'd need him just for his excellent company, it's also great to have Doug back for the camera work). Of course, that means there were no photos of Doug, and Shawn also seems to have managed to avoid the camera's eye...

As we kicked off at Sport and Rec at around 7am, to head up the hill into Redhill, we spied a group of maybe 15 or so riders led by Graham M. going the same way - it looked like there was going to be serious traffic for the journey. However, as is inevitably the case, the size of the larger group gave us a chance to have a quick play on Red Rock and still get away...

Stephe and T-Bone



Matt and Steve



Brian and the NobMob crew...



We headed up along the trail back past the big sand bowl, then turned right to scoot down Whisperer's single track, to emerge back on the main trail (heading past the turnoff to the Rim Track) and on to the superb Redhill technical section (where both Steve and T-Bone decided to do the section in the air, rather than riding down with the rest of us)...




Stephe and Steve



Matt and Brian



Ah, T-Bone, and Stephe



Matt



And these of Steve (the photo here of Steve giving up part way down the rocks is to remind us that he was actually human after all, although he did (of course) then immediately do the rocks run with no hiccups)



From the technical section, we had a great blast around the track to the drop to the pumping station, down and up the hill to Wakehurst Parkway, and across the road into Oxford Falls. The single track climb back up to the fire trail was a blast as always, but the pressure of being the man least used to the track was beginning to tell on Shawn (who kept pushing the whole time in any case, making it hard to blow him up!).

Brian tried to join T-Bone, Matt and Stephe in getting up the mid stage rock on the single track, tragically to no avail (but this attempt looked good!):



There are a stack of videos of the various attempts (almost all embarrassing! see pages 3 and 5 of the photos), and - sorry to be so juvenile as to pick on Steve, but this one was among the more amusing...

One we'd had a quick break at Breakfast Rock, it was back on to the firetrail, and on to the XC track - what a blast!



Unfortunately, the pressure (and complete lack of any reasonable support from the rest of us), got to Shawn who managed a high speed 'off' along the XC track. He yet again got back on the bike to press on, but he *did* look very sore! That just left the creek crossing below the model aeroplane field, along the firetrail to Deep Creek and into the Deep Creek drop (with Steve again showing how it should be done):



After that, there was nothing more to do than blast back to the cars in plenty of time to still get home before we were missed.

This loop just cries out for many more regular visits...