Audioslave – Bring Them Back Alive

Jim the Eagle just dropped me off in Newlands and I had to navigate my way through the ranges back to Petone, which meant a high probability of dealing with the Horokiwi open pit mine. He took a photo, because there was the minor risk that I’d be riding off an unmapped cliff at high speed. I was wearing some of my winter wear – my Ground Effect Baked Alaska to wick away the sweat, underneath a Kuta Lines tee. I also had my New Balance riding shorts under some boardies, my Wellgo MTB shoes and my T7 hydration backpack. Finally, my Bolle Extreme’s, helmet and 661 downhill winter gloves. The bike is a Jamis Durango 2.0 hardtail.

About a third of the way through the descent, I stopped to reflect on the difference between mine and nature. Then I realised that the only nature there was gorse, so my attitude switched to “fuck nature”, because I hate gorse. *Applies Savlon to his gorse wounds* Unfortunately I was a bit busy with the descent and not falling to my death to take plenty of photos, and the pit was cast in shade so my phone camera was struggling with the lowlight as it was, needless to say I don’t think I’ll be hurrying to re-explore the mine. I was just a little out of my comfort zone – parts were so steep I had to dismount and sidecrawl down, making it probably a Grade 4. Extreme downhillers are more than welcome to apply though.

The view was nice though. Amazing in spots. And in saying that, the route I did take was a little spastic.

I think this kind of “drop you here, navigate your own shit” type of cycling is awesome – it’s an adventure. Though basic orienteering safety does have to be taken into account – I had pretty good bearings and had studied high-resolution maps of the area, so I was ok. Plus I was in an area where if I got lost it wouldnt be such a biggy – pick a direction and stick to it and you’ll wind up in civilisation pretty quickly. It’d be cool to do this in unfamiliar territory with a GPS and a map though…

“For the rich, there’s therapy. For the rest of us, there’s mountain biking.” – anonymous