the unknown rider

Link to  part 1:

Link to  part 2:

Link to part 3:

Eventually I awoke to sunlight and found a couple of hot coals in the fire place that I used to re-start the fire. I sat around for a while warming up and said gday to the riders who were blasting down the trail next to where we were camped and then proceeded to pump up my front tyre!

The tent formally known as. Time for a bivvy bag!

Brads tube tent

Morning coffee production

Campsite 4 meters from the single track

Coffee for breakfast, a change of clothes and then we were off to the build day. Four hours of swinging tools and I was starting to feel a bit buggered. Thankfully, club el presidente Tim had brought the BBQ and some water. After stocking up on water and steak sandwiches, we were joined by Scott and AK who couldn’t make the whole trip but were keen to do Day 2.

This time we were determined to find all the missing bits of trail that had eluded us in the dark on the first pie eater expedition.

Along Jenkins trail I attempted to bunny hop a large puddle and it got ugly – resulting in a massive pinch flat. So 5 minutes into the days riding I was again playing around with tubes and pumps – it was starting to loose some of its humour value. Thankfully the camera was now out of batteries and Brad couldn’t record it for posterity.

We linked up a few trail but still couldn’t find the missing link and so had a short road stint to freemans water hole. While AK went off to find some water, I decided I would put yet more air in my front tyre. This is where things went horribly wrong. I was using a lezyne pump with a screw on fitting. Unfortunately, mavic removeable valve cores often unscrew when you try to take the pump back off. After some swearing and cursing, I managed to rotate the entire valve inside the rim so that I unseated the valve and breached the seal. I pumped it up again but watched as sealant bubbled out around the valve and knew things were going bad.

We rode off and my front tyre was holding air and we followed some single track next to palmers road until we reached the paint ball venue. Now my front tyre was completely flat again and I was at the point of throwing the whole set up in the bush and calling wifey to come and get me.

So I abandoned the ill fated tubeless setup on the front and went back to tubes. Now we were all out of tubes so Brad had to patch one while I got set up to get it installed. Since this was our last tube, I inflated the tyres to about 50 PSI each as I couldn’t afford another flat. This was when it became really apparent that I was riding a full rigid bike. I was taking a beating, but at least I didn’t have to worry about tyres any more.

There was a section of sneaky motorbike trail that ran around the ridge and joined some fire trail that would get us to killingworth. This motorbike trail would have been brilliant in the other direction, but was all but impossible to ride since it was ridiculously steep. Brad, Scott and myself were off and pushing while AK made a truly stunning attempt to get up them and was virtually defying gravity as he climbed bits that I was having trouble walking up.

I think trudging up this section was my lowest ebb. I was pissed about my tyre woes (self inflicted as they were) and now I was pushing my bike up god aweful hills. I was ready for it to be over.

to be continued….

To Part 5