The plan – to travel from Coffee Culture PMH to Coffee Culture Sumner via all the Port Hills tracks, but only climbing to the summit once. Godley Head was mentioned as a possibility but not achieved by all, including your correspondent. Seventeen riders started the ride but two visiting Americans, Dimitri and Audrey, found the going a bit tough, and decided to revert to the sealed road. We met them again at the Kiwi, at the end of the Traverse Track, and at Castle Rock.

Worsley’s presented the usual challenges, and an unknown number of riders succeeded in staying on the pedals all the way to the top of the Body Bag, where we encountered the only marginal weather and some slight dampness on the track. Everything improved after that, with the undulating terrain, increased fine spells and good traction all the way to Godley Head. At Evans Pass a select group continued with the original plan, emerging at Sumner just as the early pikers were finishing their coffees.

Altitude Graph

The club GPS mounted to the handlebars provides the graph above. The start is part-way up the steep section of seal on Worsley’s because I forgot to turn on the tracking mode. The end is part-way down Captain Thomas because the GPS ran out of memory! Some calculation on the log file shows 740m of climbing and descending, over 28mk, of which 65% is off-road. All in all a great ride on our own back door step. Many thanks to the Port Hills Rangers for their efforts over the years, and we look forward to the eventual completion of the 100% off-road traverse.

Roddy Henderson