It was a mild night on the lower slopes and we made our way steadily to the top of Rapaki climbing up through a couple of patches of light fog. Here the keen ones headed up across the rock garden that is Mt Vernon, while a few pussies headed around to the start of the Huntsbury Traverse via the sealed road.

Ride height

True to form, while we waited  below the hill crest to re-group, there was a pretty cold Summit Road wind.

Together again, we enjoyed a primo blast across the Traverse Track - made extremely interesting by the way the tussock hangs over the trail, making it appear to disappear under beams of our head lights! The dip in the track near Sugarloaf was also rather interesting, as at speed, it looks deceptively like a straight and level piece of track in the headlight.

Accumulated Climb

Given the relative inexperience of our group (one had not been on the Port Hills at all and several had not been up there at night) we took the easy route down through Vic Park.

Stopping at the Skidder Site we offered the keen ones a chance to go down new Dazzers – amazingly the whole group zig-zagged down without any complaint.

Back on down the 4WD track, down K2 and out to Bowenvale and soon we were back at the cars.

The high point here for me was coming around a bend on the farm track and seeing Carl on the ground beside his bike, wallowing in a mixture of mud and cow effluent. Hee hee.

Ride Map

In Summary

Two things stand out for me from this ride:

First, how easy and how much fun it is up on the Port Hills tracks at night - even for a novice. Sure, you need a reasonable light, say a 20W halogen at a minimum, but these are cheap and easy to build.

Second, how with a bit of encouragement, riders can go well beyond their comfort zone and ride stuff they never have before!

The CMBC committee is planning at least one skills day this coming season – make sure you are there, some basic skills just make your mountain biking so much more enjoyable.

Dave M.