My first snow ride of the year happened a little over a week ago, it was cold but the sights were amazing! It was a solo adventure that was an absolute must but also a good tester to see how low the snow line had got and what was still rideable. Turns out that its very rideable if your into super slow-mo snow drifting which is great fun and definitely different to the normal conditions I'm used to at this time of year, mud mud mud!!
I set off on keeping the snowy covered trees on Diamond head in my view wondering would it come to the point where I would have to return the way I came. On arriving at the lower turning circle I saw bike tracks coming out of the woods so it was definitely possible to ride some trails.
Now deciding on what to ride was all that I could think about as I climbed up the winding frosty service road. As I got closer to the fork in my decision it was going to be something of the intermediate variety as these would hopefully see a little more traffic. I climbed as high as terrain would allow and chose the trail Pseudo-Tsuga, it would have been possible to go higher but it would have meant all hike-a-bike from here and probably that the trail down would have been a slog, slog up slog down no thanks!! Today was about snow drifting.
Off I set down the trail, no brakes needed just push the bike into every beautifully made snow berm. It felt like what I would think Skiing would feel like no brakes just the force of you acting down on the bike, it was amazing almost majestic! Corner after corner no let up, the trail ended at the mid-way point I pulled my brakes gently and managed a full 360 on my bike. It was impressive, if only I let go of the brakes a little sooner I would have rolled out of it like it was all planned. But I didnt, instead I managed a full body varial 360 ice slide to snowy thorn bushes.
When my graceful dismount eventually stopped I grabbed my bike and headed to the next part of the descent, this started off down a cold snow melt stream that had formed on the already rocky challenging trail but luckily for me I was soon turning off it onto another trail to finish my descent back to the turning circle.
Cam and Phil's trail starts off on a nice snow covered ladder bridge creek crossing that had not been ridden yet that day and I was a bit dubious after my previous mega slide. I decided to ride it anyway surely someone else would pass this way and see my tyre tracks off the bridge and start a search down the river for me.
After riding the bridge to completion the remaining part of the trail was gonna be frozen and steep. I knew there would not be much snow on it so I let rip through all the fast and tight corners and blasted out the end of the trail. This was great riding and the last ride on Diamond for me for awhile, now the snow is melting a little so maybe I'll get back up there again. Luckily for me there is a lot of lower down trails that can still be shredded but the snow riding was superb!
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