Sunday 24 August 2008 - Old Great North Road

We said we'd be back, and on the dawning of a beautiful almost Spring day, indeed we were!

The sun had promised to come out, but was still struggling as we arrived at the pumping station, which would have been a very beautiful sight if it wasn't so coooold. In any case, over the creek crossing, and up the hill to Ten Mile Hollow for the obligatory group shot (Doug, Donal, Stephe, Louis and Matt) - with the young gun leading his father all the way up the hill (a theme to be repeated for much of the ride, until towards the end (!) A reminder that 42kms needs at least a little pacing...).




The flowers are all now beginning to come out, and our 'flow' across the ridge line was only interrupted by the occasional appreciation session. That said, we managed to get some excellent rhythm up along the way - demonstrating that the good old single track still has a lot of life in it yet.




Despite the joy of getting a roll on, we still managed to convince Doug to let us play at some of the technical sections (the first zig zag descent, the two stage rock climb, the "Mound of Death", and on the way back, the second zig zag descent). There was even some adventurous trying out of new lines with mixed success (ie Matt: elegant success, Stephe: noisy failure).



And, we stayed there for a while (!):



And, then did some more a bit later....



And, the "Mound of Death":



And, then, when we made it to the top of Devines Hill (alas and alack, no Spiders side trip for us today), Doug repaired a tear in his sidewall, while Matt played trials games for us (short video)...



The return journey was almost as much fun, except that the young gun hit a wall (hmmm, probably something to do with the 100mph bolt out of the gates at the beginning (!)), but still managed to look good for the camera... (and Matt still had fun on the zig zag descent on the way back).



I still love the profile:



The full set of photos (and some small video snippets) are here.