RR: Brown's Acre

Had the day off yesterday.

Foolishly decided on a whim that I'd climb the high peak behind the seaside
town of Motueka, near Nelson.
Got going about lunchtime and climbed, and climbed and climbed. Easy roads,
nice wide gravel forestry roads to begin with. About half way, 8 km in the
forest finished and the road became increasingly steeper, gritty and rutted.
The temperature got cooler as I climbed. Maybe the sea breeze (what little
of it there was) was cooling things down. Whatever it was, I was glad that
it was cooler. I was sweating profusely and 85F or 30C was too hot for
climbing like this.

By mid afternoon I was 2/3rd's of the way up. The coastline spread out
below me and the Moutere hills below looked tiny. I was beginning to
realise that it was a lot further and steeper than I realised. The road was
no more than a gritty feldspar and quartz sand track. Boulders and ruts
covered the surface. The gutter to one side was in places was 6 foot wide
and 5 foot deep run-off channel. The pine forest was replaced by scrub and
stunted beech trees.

By 4.30pm I had finished my chocolate bars, was rationing my water and
wondering what I was doing. I hadn't been doing much riding over Christmas
and my fitness wasn't the greatest. Stupid, stupid, stupid was what I was
beginning to think. It was too steep to ride now. The bike got pushed the
last few kilometres. My left thighs began to cramp the last mile. I was
resting frequently and stretching to stop the cramps.
Push, rest, ride, push, rest, ride.....

Finally I reached the top. I've never been so glad to see the end of a
climb and never felt such a sense of anticlimax. I finally reached the
radio tower perched on top of the mountain and well, that was it. It was a
grassy flat and nothing very interesting after all that. The view was
spectacular but no different than the view from the track 50m lower, or much
different from the view 200m lower, or... sigh
Still the feeling of accomplishment was worth it. I rested for a 1/2 hour
taking in the views, finished the last of my water then lowered the
seatpost, wound up the front suspension and then let 'er rip. Forty minutes
of downhill back to the car, 5 minutes to load up then a quick stop at the
nearest Dairy to get more water and the carbohydrate loaded delicious pastry
wonder that is the hot meat pie...

All in all, it was a great climb and I'm feeling it today - not as badly as
I thought that I would though.

Best part of six hours, a 29km (18 mile) round trip, and a climb of 1330
metres (that's 4300 feet). I'm stuffed.

--
Westie

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 13:35:19 +1300, Westie wrote:

Finally I reached the top. I've never been so glad to see the end of a
climb and never felt such a sense of anticlimax.

That tends to be my feeling after a long climb; not so much ecstatic that
I did it, but mostly glad that its over. And I've never attempted anything
like a 4000+ foot climb. Just something a bit masochistic sounding about
that!

But hey, good job!

--
-BB-
To reply to me, drop the attitude (from my e-mail address, at least)

On 2004-01-13, Westie penned:

All in all, it was a great climb and I'm feeling it today - not as
badly as I thought that I would though.

Best part of six hours, a 29km (18 mile) round trip, and a climb of
1330 metres (that's 4300 feet). I'm stuffed.


Pretty damn impressive. You're an inspiration.

(And no, unlike most alt.m-b chatter, I'm being sincere.)

--
monique

Westie wrote:
Had the day off yesterday.

snip big slog

Best part of six hours, a 29km (18 mile) round trip, and a climb of
1330 metres (that's 4300 feet). I'm stuffed.

I guess you're ok for a kiwi ;-).
Sounds like a good climb, nice job for sticking it out!

Matt (my kinda clinb!)

"MattB" wrote in message
...
Westie wrote:
Had the day off yesterday.

snip big slog

Best part of six hours, a 29km (18 mile) round trip, and a climb of
1330 metres (that's 4300 feet). I'm stuffed.

I guess you're ok for a kiwi ;-).
Sounds like a good climb, nice job for sticking it out!

Matt (my kinda clinb!)



Why, thank you, everyone.
Did you know that 1300m doesn't look nearly like 4000ft when printed on a
map?
LOL!
--
Westie

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 13:35:19 +1300, Westie wrote:

Best part of six hours, a 29km (18 mile) round trip, and a climb of 1330
metres (that's 4300 feet). I'm stuffed.

Nice.

--
a.m-b FAQ: http://www.j-harris.net/bike/ambfaq.htm

a.bmx FAQ: http://www.t-online.de/~jharris/bmx_faq.htm

"Westie" wrote in message ...
Had the day off yesterday.

Foolishly decided on a whim that I'd climb the high peak behind the seaside
town of Motueka, near Nelson.
Got going about lunchtime and climbed, and climbed and climbed. Easy roads,
nice wide gravel forestry roads to begin with. About half way, 8 km in the
forest finished and the road became increasingly steeper, gritty and rutted.
The temperature got cooler as I climbed. Maybe the sea breeze (what little
of it there was) was cooling things down. Whatever it was, I was glad that
it was cooler. I was sweating profusely and 85F or 30C was too hot for
climbing like this.
All in all, it was a great climb and I'm feeling it today - not as badly as
I thought that I would though.

Best part of six hours, a 29km (18 mile) round trip, and a climb of 1330
metres (that's 4300 feet). I'm stuffed.

Good job. That was a major grind (4300 feet! youch0) Did you get a
pic of the view that can be posted??

paladin

Paladin wrote:
snip
Good job. That was a major grind (4300 feet! youch0) Did you get a
pic of the view that can be posted??

Got onto the home computer today.
This first view was taken from about 400ft below the summit on a small
plateau area. I took a panorama at the top but with the wide zoom and haze
all the fine details have come out as a blue blur. I'm quite disappointed
about that.

Anyway, this view using the 3x zoom on the little digital has come out quite
nicely.
Motueka is in view, Nelson city is on the coastline in the distance but you
can't really see it at all.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...12websmall.jpg

This was one of the steeper bits about 2/3rd's of the way up - as usual for
a photo it doesn't show how steep it was really.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...10websmall.jpg

Another view, showing the typical track and scenery that I was riding
amongst.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...32websmall.jpg

--
Westie
(Replace 'invalid' with 'yahoo' when replying.)

"Westie" had this to say


Paladin wrote:

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...-012websmall.j
pg

This was one of the steeper bits about 2/3rd's of the way up - as
usual for a photo it doesn't show how steep it was really.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...-010websmall.j
pg

Another view, showing the typical track and scenery that I was riding
amongst.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...-032websmall.j
pg


Sorry dude. You've already reached your limit; Access Denied!

Westie scribbled on a scrap of paper:
Anyway, this view using the 3x zoom on the little digital has come
out quite nicely.
Motueka is in view, Nelson city is on the coastline in the distance
but you can't really see it at all.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...12websmall.jpg

usage exceeded. ;-(

we almost got a job in Christchurch once.



This was one of the steeper bits about 2/3rd's of the way up - as
usual for a photo it doesn't show how steep it was really.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...10websmall.jpg

Another view, showing the typical track and scenery that I was riding
amongst.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...32websmall.jpg