Headed to St Helens with Jayne for the weekend.
Rode Little Chook in Derby on Saturday morning. It's in poor condition with about a years worth of leaf litter on the trail and fallen logs and ferns blocking the trail in several spots. I loved it as I haven't gone raw in ages, but Jayne complained for 5.7 of the 5.9 kilometres then finished the trail saying how much fun she had. I will never understand women.
Did a quick shuttle of "Send Helens" at the St Helens MTB park in the arvo and had a ball. it's only short at under 4km but as usual world trail have packed so much fun in. The Torrent is such an amazing bike I literally forgot I was on a hardtail, tackling a black diamond with an XC lid and was still full of confidence and had to remind myself to take it easy as there was no assitance if i ate dirt.
Sunday we caught the first shuttle up and did Old Salty Dog. Jayne was freaked out at doing a technical blue and took a kilometre to warm up, walking anything not flat but came right in the end. She walked a few things she could have easily ridden but I was encouraging and supportive and let her take it at her own pace (I know this doesn't sound anything like me but I've taken the advice from people here and changed my approach). We both hated the 2km climb in the back half which ruins an otherwise awesome trail.
I then shuttled "Send Helens" and pedalled up to Icarus which is fast, steep and has some technical sections mainly rock rolls and is an absolute blast. Decided to drop into Shucka, not knowing what it was and OMG. It's a maniac dirt jump park with a half pipe. Now my wheels rarely get off the ground but I was in awe of what they've built in there.
The park was packed with school holidays and the opening of the Black trails but Gravity Isle shuttles were doing an excellent job with three trailers going getting around a dozen people at a time up and down without much of a wait. Looking forward to heading back in a couple of weeks and doing it all again.
check out Jayne's mad technical skills. Sitting on the saddle, heels up, body weight forward and two finger braking. I've taught her perfectly.