Sunday 3 December 2006 - Redhill (new bits!)

Any ride with Paul Jenzen is going to be a good one, and Rees and Stephe found that this time around was no exception! Unfortunately, a couple of wuss burgers (you know who you are) figured that rain the night before meant that they would get their mountain bikes dirty - so couldn't join us... (as it happened, there was no rain on the day, but the track *was* very, very wet!).

Paul showed us a new track starting out from Lady Penryhn drive - dropping down into the valley below the playground. A truly excellent single track drop with great (challenging) technical sections (and with alternate routes where necesary!), a bit of a climb and then a great little meander to finish underneath a huuuge block of units.

After a short road transition stage, we dropped back into the bush - to emerge at the fire trail cross roads early on the standard Lady Penryhn / Redhill ride (just at the bottom of the second hill down from the playground). The obvious thing to do from there was to climb up and across the top of Redhill, and check out the Rim Ride, which was excellent fun. Then - given that we were riding so well (!) - Paul led us off to Itchy and Scratchy (above Sport and Rec) - which also turns out to be a really good technical drop, with a very satisfying finish...

Of course, now that we were back down at the gate above Sport & Rec, we got to ride up the old creek bed track to the top again - filled with technical challenges, and challenging but do-able sections (which, once we'd gone up, Paul insisted on going back down again - it was at this point that Rees first started to wonder if we planned to finish before nightfall).

Once we'd made it to the top again, we sauntered over to the famous Redhill rocks technical section - again, with some stylish work from Paul and Rees, and some dodgy and scary looking moments from Stephe.

At the bottom of that section (once we'd made it to the 'intersection' above the pumping station on Wakehurst Parkway), we decided we needed to head back to Lady Penryhn, so followed the old fire trail track (now a challenging, water gouged single track) back up the hill and across the top to the firetrail, up the big old hills to the playground, and to the safety of the cars.

Although we took longer than anticipated, it was - yet again - another fantastic day to be a mountain bike rider in the Sydney region.

Unfortunately, no photos or GPS - we need to take Doug and Rob back along the route as soon as possible to get it marked out properly!