Sunday 27 January 2008 - Old Great North Road (short)

Ah, it's been a long time between drinks! But, as always, the Old Great North Road made up for any lost time - it was a great run (which is very unfortunate for both Whisperer and Johnbo, who had to pull out the night before and the morning of, respectively; but was great for Stephe to get the brand new Giant Reign frame out for a run), and a fantastic reminder of why we need to lock in a weekly ride... .

Check this simple and enjoyable profile - good long slow warm up, great technical / open mix through the middle section, and a great final drop. No wonder we love it, even without the bells and whistles of Spiders, or Finches Line, or...



Doug went mad earlier in the week, and proposed a 6.30am start at Mangrove Mountain, so we were all up and on the road at 5.20am or thereabouts - hard to tell from this happy snap of the crew at Ten Mile Hollow (Doug, Rees, Stephe, Richard, Brian and Donal):



{In an interesting aside, not a single person in this picture from the last ride that we had written up managed to make it to this ride - scary? C'mon dudes, where are ya? (!) (at least Matt has a real excuse...)}

It turned out that starting early was actually a very good idea (as all Doug's ideas are), given that the heat kicked in at the end of the ride, and slowed even the fit seeming dudes down... That said, when we started it was cold and wet, with the weir over topping - but good for an early challenge nonetheless:



Our ride was actually slower than normal, with quite a few 'technical' stops to play with Doug's new head mounted camera, sort out bike issues and the like. This early stop was just as we arrived at Ten Mile Hollow, only half way up the hill...



When we were actually riding, the various technical challenges were as fun as ever (although, with the slow pace and impending heat, Doug was keen to keep us moving so we didn't do quite as many runs at things as we might once have). In any case, we grabbed some snaps of Donal and Stephe demonstrating the right way to do it, and Brian showing that he knows how to get the start bit right, but perhaps needs some work on the exit:



Apart from the general mucking about, there was also some good old fashioned riding - and we snaffled some rare footage of Doug (as well as a passing goanna):



All the photos (including these samples), profile etc are up here.