Let’s start today’s post with something fun… Finally got around to doing a little video edit from Rots, a montage from some of the coolest trails from the first stop there:
I tried to ram 5 or 6 trails into one edit, a lot more time efficient for all of us than the usual one trail vids.
And… Now a word on planning.
Its taken me a few days to work this out, but I think I have finally grasped the lesson that this leg of the summer tour has dished up. The whole DN campaign (aside from Whistler) has been based around going to new places and seeing new things… Going semi-boldly where this Nomad had not been before. This freshness has fuelled a lot of the motivation to keep rolling and check out new places.
This therefore is the first trip where its into old territory… I think at the time when I did very little planning for this trip that I had delusions of grandeur that it would be filled with awesome summer days of epic MTB carving and good times. yes, there has been some of that… but, there has also been an annoying feeling that I just can’t shake. I have effective wandered like a zombie into this trip and hoped for the best.
What makes this dumb ass approach even more painful is that its now dawned on me what I could have been doing:
- Racing the Enduro race in Cadrona last weekend
- Riding in Queenstown
- Watching the Elite Road National in ChCh
- Flying to Adelaide to ride and watch the Tour Down Under – the first Pro tour race of the year
ALL of those would have been NEW and awesome. As you can suspect, my lack of sharpness here has allowed me to indulge in copious self loathing at my summer squandering. Its a case study in complacency, the need to plan and a reminder that the stuff you have done before will be exactly the same when you go back and do it again.
Its also time to say goodbye to another friend, with decidedly mixed emotions, the Santa Cruz Heckler has been sold and will leave the stable this evening. A tough call given my almost 9 year association with Hecklers (there have been 2) and my particular love for this bike, but I figure its even more of a crime that it sits around in a barn doing nothing and its sacrifice funds another trip, so high 5’s all round:
“I knew as soon as I saw that green bastard you were going to flick me off you fucker”
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