Saturday the 6th. was ride day, so we met for a Wailuna ride. Jeff, Sara, and Root were early. Root had the bonnet up on his car, apparently messing with something mechanical. Ckucke showed up as we were getting prepped to ride. The park was full with soccer families. A couple of kids got abandoned in the upper field to play baseball by their parental authority figures who drove off to parts unknown. All geared up, Ckucke pulled his bike off the rack to discover a front flat. Sara had already taken off to get a head start up the road climb, so Jeff took off to catch up to her. Ckucke found a Schrader valve tube in his pack instead of a Presta one, so he borrowed my spare.
The meeting time was 13:30, so we were climbing at the hottest part of the day. It was warm, but there was a mild breeze to keep it bearable. We caught up to Jeff at the water tank road. Sara had again gone ahead. Jeff had passed a magazine on the side of the road on the climb up. He had ridden quite a ways past it before the little turning gears processed the fact that there was nudity on the cover, so out of curiosity, he turned back down the hill to recover it. The title turned out to be “Buttman” – not too vague what the genre was with a title like that. We continued up the water tank road in the heat and turned onto the dirt. The ground was dry like last week. We met up with Sara at the swamp gum rest, then continued upward after a food break. There were no fresh tire or foot tracks along the moonscape – everyone must have been home watching football.
I felt a little better than last week on the climbs, but I wasn’t “on it” again this week. All the steeps hurt, but it didn’t feel like looming death this time around. Going up the push-up to the third powerline pole, Jeff’s shoe went “pop” as the last bit of the outsole at the heel that was still bonded to the upper came loose. On inspection, the other shoe was moments away from suffering a similar fate. There was probably enough zip-ties and duct tape between all of us to rebuild his shoes if the need arose. The area before the summit was still soft and muddy. We were careful not to rip up the trail on the way up. After a brief rest at the top, we headed down the dry trail to Royal Summit. The conditions along the descent were very good.
On the way out, I cleaned the steep red dirt climb that Chris and others have been trying to do for ages. My last attempt ended in a high-side into the ferns and the saddle nose getting too familiar with my backside. This time, the ground was grippy and I was in the right gear and positioned just right to motor smoothly up. I took the left line instead of the normal right line. The right line looks better, but the left is a more consistent pitch and surface. I was the only one with a camera, so there is no picture. Boo! At least there were witnesses.
At the end of the dirt road, we turned down the finger ridge and descended to the end of the powerline road. The descent was less dry than usual, so the grip was good, even through all the off-camber turns. The climb out was littered with guavas. I was surprised that considering the fallen fruit and moist conditions, there wasn’t more pig sign. We climbed out at rusty nuts, then dropped the singletrack to the fenceline trail and the bermed turns to the gully run. The descent seemed to be over with all too quickly, and we found ourselves on the road headed back. Along the road, I saw something weird and brown loping down the road. It was a small football, rolling along its points. I didn’t see it’s owner until I turned in front of it and stopped it with my front tire. The kid thanked me and went back up the hill. I guess Royal Summit is a completely ball-incompatible neighborhood – including footballs.
There were no cars parked at the curb cut at the park, so Jeff, Ckucke, and Root flew the step-down into the park. Air! I was lining up, but Sara was in front of me and braked down to nearly zero to go over the crown and down the slope. I should have held a bit further back in anticipation of this then gone off-brake and flew the drop, but I was a little late in thinking this as I ground to a crawl and rolled down. There was more vehicle traffic than normal. After reaching the bottom and turning down Komo Mai, Ckucke and Jeff got cut off by some dumbass making a left, oncoming, into Newtown. He was the second in a queue, but clearly didn’t have enough space or time to complete the turn. He even hesitated to make his stupid move, further compounding the issue.
When we got back to the park, the abandoned kids were still going at it, but their pace at running the imaginary bases and heading into the outfield to recover the ball had slowed to a depleted walk.
D = 15.71 km (9.76-miles), Vavr = 10.1 km/h (6.3 mph), Vmax = 60.2 km/h(37.4 mph), T = 1-hour, 32-minutes (actual trail time approximately 2.5-hours)
More pictures here
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