Sunday 29th Septemebr

After months of being hassled by the Mellonfarmer it was time to do the Blowhard.  I loaded my bike onto Tinkerbells Car with Silverfox, Dozer and Sandals loaded their bikes onto Bugs car and the 6 of us drove off to the meeting point at the Palms.  We hooked up with Mellonfarmer, Phatboy and Tom.  Some chatting then we headed out by all the troads to the start of the Blowhard Track where we met Nelly.  The weather was overcast a light drizzle at times as we headed off.  The track headed off through some mud and then it headed up at a rather steep angle.  Nice warm up.  We kept climbing at an angle for a while before we had a small flat and downhill into a lake and then we started to climb again.  We climbed and climbed having regular regroups.  We then got to the point where we pushed and pushed, climbed carried and generally did not ride.  Regroups and small rides before push and shove again.  Higher we got, with no respite.  Sandals tried to leave her bike behind but Nelly went and carried it up for her. We  all looked at some of the rocky sections thinking how the hell do you come down this. Eventually Sandals left her bike and just walked up. We kept repeating the push, climb and ride theme for a few hours until finally after a section of thick mud we reached the summit for a quick break in the gloom of cloud.  No veiws to speak of.

Time to come down.  It was much easier to get through the mud.  The few uphills were tough as our legs were tired.  The down though was fun, exciting, scary, brake burning, exhilarating and way too short for the effort it took to get to the top.  The challenge to clear the rocks was taken up with  most attempting the lot.  I personally only had 1 scary moment and I dabbed a couple of times but enjoyed the challenge of getting down alive.  We had two bike problems.  Mellonfarmer blew a tyre near the top and was lucky Tom had a spare tyre while Nelly blew out his deraileur  2/3rds of the way down.  Expensive day.  We all arrived back at the cars, muddy, tired, elated and ready to go.  Those who could change did so while the rest stripped off some muddy items.  I arrived home for a shower and then had to go and load up a trailer of garden waste.  Very tired later.