Sunday saw us tackle another one of the T3 big wooden projects, The Swing Bridge of Doom, or as it turned out the Fun Wibbly Wobbly Swing Bridge.

After getting the two poles in the ground on Friday and dropping off all the pre-cut timber come Sunday it was just a matter of putting it all together like a big jigsaw puzzle.

How does it ride?

Well a little easier than we had hoped, but a lot of fun and certainly something you don’t get to do everyday on a mountain bike track.

We also planted 20 Rata trees in that area and another wee project finished, see other post.

Thanks to all those that showed up on the day, Tom, Will, Nigel, Jono, Dave, Jonathan, Rob, Edmond, Mark, and Jeff.

Also thanks to Jonty from Revolution Bikes for giving us a spot prize of a very nice WTB tyre, and for the boys at Mitre Mega, Upper Hutt for cutting all the wood to length.

See you at the next work party!!

The other project we finished on Sunday was putting armour down on a steep 18-19 degree slope.

We used green honeycomb things called grass stabilisers.

This is the first time we have used them in the park so it will be good to see how they ride.

T3 Is Now Open To All Riders!!

Thanks to Maxxis and the weather gods, myself, Jonathan, Carl, Andrew, Hugh, Brenda, Josh, Simon, Don, Rob, Graham, Lyle and Mana were able to finish the track right through to Trickle Falls.

T3 can now be ridden either up or down depending on how you are feeling, it is still a bit rough in places but the more people we get having a go at it the better it will bed down.

The plan from here is to have one more Sunday work party on the 6th of April, this will be a ride\work party where we will be trying different parts of the track then working on them to get them just right, should be lots of fun, then it will be a matter of building the structures in the appropriate places, check map below this post to see what we have in mind. JK will have his drawings for each individual structure there on the 6th so ask to have a look and add your 2cents to the plans.

Thanks to all that helped out on Sunday and a big thanks to our sponsor for the day Maxxis.

T3 Map

Jonathan and I have come up with a new game.
To be played at the end of a work party, the object is to see how many tools you can carry down the hill before,

A: your legs buckle underneath you

B: you put your neck out, or

C: a tool slips and cuts your head off

We are still working on the finer points of this challenging pass time but we think we’re on to a winner.

What the??!!

Horses in Makara Peak?

This cannot be.

But yes it was, 3 rogue horses were spotted last night on the way to the T3 work party, they have been missing and have been on the councils radar for a few days now, they just haven’t been able to find them….easy really…they are HORSES.

So after a brief whisper with the horses it was off to dig on T3, thanks to Don, Kevin, Will, Murray, Jonathan and Jon for their efforts another 50trs of track was cleared.

We have another Sunday work party planned for the 9th of March so put that in your diaries and we will see you there.

Ohh the sunset shot is from my lounge window, yep I get to gaze out at The Mighty Makara Peak all the time, and I didn’t take that many pics last night so needed to pad this post out with something other than horses and JK pulling a face.

Ground Effect Grubber Fest

We're back to it at last! T3 has been neglected for way too long, but now it's all go again. Go, go go! Motivation was supplied by Ground Effect, in the form of a stylie cycling top as a spot prize. For those living in a bubble, Ground Effect support more track building projects around New Zealand than any other organisation. Yep, they are AWESOME! Lucky Carl was the winner of the top (see photo).

But everyone was just stoked to be making such good progress. That's the thing about difficult tracks, they don't take muck digging (not like Lazy Fern, the easy highway that seemed to take an eternity to build). Yep, T3 is ripping along. Another few sessions and it should be rideable all the way to the top of Trickle Falls. If you don't believe us, get up there with your bike and have a go at packing down... oops, I mean pedalling the track. It's a goer right up to the Skink, then you can walk up to the road, which is only 20 metres away. Go with a friend (it's always fun watching people crash, and T3 has lots of 'fun' spots).

The plan is to have a few Wednesday night pizza sessions on the track, so keep an eye on the makarapeak site. Oh, and the fine folk at the last track session were, Rob, Murray, Gareth, Ian, Dave, Carl, Andy, Don, Andrew and Jonathan. Thanks.