Interesting Ride Saturday Aug 5!

We (Bill, Leon and Simon) pushed off from TAS at 6:00 (turns out Bill and Leon were still on US time, thus the early start); met Dave at National Palace Museum, then headed up Helens to meet Lucas. Beautiful day, quite clear, but already getting hot. Lucas took us down his hill, then a tiny right turn on a steep one lane road down - remind me to be nice to Lucas so he doesn't abandon us in his Dutch Territories! Then we climbed back up - great views of valleys and mountains. We stopped to regroup where this met the road from Helens to Neihu, and couldn't resist a picture of the dog sign! Dave headed home, we went down to the bottom of Lucas Hill, then up. Very hot and tough climb - I always forget this has about six turns that look like the end!





I headed down Helen's before the rest of the team to get home. So I was just making a relaxed descent, thinking what a great day of biking, and as I came around a bend near the bottom, the back wheel started sliding out. I tried to save it, but no go - fell on my right side and slid for a while. There were a number of mountain bikers around who thought it was interesting! Good News #1 - the bike is fine. Good News #2 - I have nothing broken, but some road rash along my right side. After I realized I was OK, I checked the road - there was the leftovers of what looked like apples that had been crushed by cars, left fermenting in the heat/humidity and had created a great location for a slip and slide! The kids would love it, but not as good for road bike tires.

So I rode home, cleaned up and explained to the family that "no, biking is really not dangerous"! Hope no one else found this particular patch of fun.

See you on the roads soon, I'll be out this week.

Thanks,

Simon Moore