Day 9 – And on the 9th day, God created downhilling….

Jack Daniels Remaining: 0mls
Kilometers Ridden Today:71km's (mostly going downhill)

Highlight of the day – Despite 40+ Km’s of epic down-hilling, believe it or not, the highlight of the day came at around 11:45pm when a much older lady at a pub asked me “Do I swing”?

Today, Shawn and I opted in for a day of oh so epic down-hilling off the Skyline Gondola at Queenstown. It seems the track fairies had been sprinkling their magic since my last visit about 18 months previously. New tracks. Seriously well maintained old ones. It was heaven. Even if you don’t like downhill mountain biking, you have to appreciate this shit…

Cheesy photo of yours truly..

The day didn’t start too well, with the bike renters conveniently failing to tell us there was racing on that day, so half the trails were closed (until 1:30pm). Still we got out there and had a blast. My favourite run was a mix of three runs – Vertigo for the top, Thingamajig for the mid-section, and then onto the oh so sweat Thundergoat for the bottom. A flat tyre and some pedal on calf bleeding the only real downers of the day. Here is a map of the trails, likely spectacularly boring to all but you downhillers out there…

And here is the sqiggle from Strava of the day. Pretty cool how you can see the 13 distinct up (on the gondola) then down hill runs....

On 650b’s…

I chose to spend the extra $20 and give a 27.5 a try. For those of you somewhat more mountain bike challenged, it is the latest tyre sizing – a compromise between the traditional 26 inch wheel and the cross country specialist 29 inch. The jury is out... took me a while to dial in the cornering, though it did roll better on the straights.

Some others shots from the day....

The day was not completely over. Being the final night, we decided to hit the town. For a moment, there was a faint hope of twisting the iron arms of Paul, Richard and Shawn, alas; they pulled up stumps by 9ish, leaving rubber arm Saunders, Sam and Alex to fly the Aussie flag. It was a great night – a minor loss at the casino, a few rounds of pool… oh and a much more “senior” lady asking me, quite seriously “if I swing”. Nuff Said.

The boys helping me finish of my Jack Daniels on the final night....

 Final evening beers...