Singlespeed Worlds day 6 - Shuttles

After the excitement of raceday we decided to take advantage of the shuttles that were available to explore some more of the higher-up trails. Shuttles use the same idea as a ski-lift - you get a lift up the mountain so you can enjoy coming down it. The only difference is that instead of a ski-lift or gondola you use a tightly packed minibus with a trailer

After 20 minutes or so of climbing the shuttle pulls into a clearing
There is an explosion of cyclists grabbing bikes, looking at maps, planning their next moves and nipping into the bushes before they start
and then they all disperse down the named, marked & graded trails leaving the clearing as peaceful as before Well, until the next one arrives

On our first run I found out that I was as unfit for riding down hills as I was for riding up them. It didn't take long before my calves were burning as I stood on the pedals and my forearms were pumping as I death-gripped the bars and attempted to manouvre myself around every obstacle on the trail. That's not how it works - like all sports you need to relax & stay loose, focus further ahead, let the bike do the work and look to where you want to go not where you're trying to avoid. I'm still not very good at this but found myself chanting almost a mantra to myself to relax and enjoy it.

This worked well until our third run. I think I might have been getting tired & careless, or maybe I was just having too much flow. I bounced smooth-ishly down a rutted descent and totally failed to make the corner below, my mantra disturbed by an internal cry of 'tree!'. The bars hit the tree and over I went, sprawled out on the trail still clipped in and sliding. It was then that I realised another great point about riding in Rotorua - the pine needles form a soft springy rock-free surface that doesn't hurt too much when you land on it. I've had much smaller crashes in Queenland that have lead to stones being tweezered out of my elbows by casualty staff.

We carried on riding and found a fine trail called 'Split Enz'. This is a fine flowing trail that is reputedly swept by the original trailmaker every day. It runs along the top of a ridge with some beautiful vistas over the forests

Unfortunately forest plantations mean forestation, and when the trees are harvested it doesn't look so pretty
Looking at that it makes you wonder about the thought processes behind the anti-mountain bike brigade that declare that a single mountain bike trail can ruin a forest.
The sad news is that some of the classic trails that we rode earlier in the week are due for the same treatment. But I guess that's part of the deal, and better this than the Australian model of logging thousand year old native forest for paper pulp.
By the time we got back to the motel we were all pretty exhausted so we quickly headed out to one of Rotoruas best cafes, the Fat Dog
The only problem was that the burgers weren't big enoughso that night we had to have a barbecue - for protein-rich recovery purposes only of course...

Thank you to everyone who went to Rotorua with me - it was an awesome holiday.