Tuesday 1st of June

The first day of winter and what would you expect...a cold night. That is what it was when Sandals and Abba arrived at my place. We set off for Broadpark where we met Tinkerbell and Bugs. That was it, just the 5 of us. It felt somewhat warmer here and we hummed and hahed about whether to take the jackets. We did which was lucky. We set off along the beach and then into the first humpty bit of track, where I was still settling my vision into the night time riding thing. The next section was good and then we climbed to the shelter. As we neared the top a bit of mud was encountered but nothing compared to what we would find later. We headed towards the Bottle lake HQ on good track until we encountered the new stretch from the Landfill Rd. This was muddy, slippery and a little bit interesting. Straight into the next section we went, I was leading and thinking we were all doing well until suddenly I was no longer on the track. It was gone. Bugs took the lead and pointed out we missed a new section. It was about now we noticed the mist had turned into steady drizzle and I removed my glasses. Abba reassured us that it would be from behind shortly and not to worry. I think he writes TUI ads. He forgot to put YEAH Right after the statement. :) From here I led again with Bugs telling me another TUIS story about a new bit of track going straight ahead, after missing the turn I found out it went to the Right. Bugs was again leading. Then into the old familiar tracks to the turn off before Spencerville. We did a slow crawl through here instead of a stop and then I led into the return journey. The drizzle was heavy and into our face (nearly rain now and drenching.) Mud was flying and we no longer tried to avoid puddles. In this section I nearly had a whoops as I caught my front tyre on an edge. Sat upright and had to listen to a couple of wise cracks about the look on my face. Carried on, with our vision now impaired by the drizzle. Puddles, mud, splatter, grit and the sound of grinding coming from the bikes. Visions of our last trip to Golden Bay. Bugs passed me and led into the last section before the HQ stop. Here we met 3 riders who were about to enter the track. 2 were visions and the other was a guy who we did not talk to. The nurse was vaguely familiar to me and laughed about how we looked. After this briefest of interludes back into the muddy track, taking it with more pace and then into the homeward stretch. By this time Abbas old style brakes no longer worked which kept the pace on for him. Got back to Broadpark by 8pm and found very light drizzle. Loaded up and headed home all feeling wet but good. Nice ride and nice company at a nice pace. Hopefully see everyone for the planting ride on Saturday.