January 9, 2012
Christmas 2011
Two weeks of action-packed adventure up at The Doug @ Castle Hill with Granny & Grandad Boyd. Highlights included a few bike trips along the Hogs Back Track, plus an overnight camp along the track with the kids, and a great walk up the Bealey Valley at Arthurs Pass. Our next door neighbour Stephen also kindly took me up for a tandem paraglide from the Mt Cheeseman Ski Area (unfortunately it would appear I’d partaken of too much Christmas food to be able to fly all the way back to the village – plus I was a bit nervous at times!)
 |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
Posted by conor at 1:11 PM
February 7, 2011
Speedsters & Sparks
Ruairi and I went for a spin round the mountain-bike track at McLeans Island Forest, and we had a blast. Great to be able to take it at his pace, and by the end he was buzzing, and a lot more confident with his bike-handling. He brought along the class mascot Patrick, who he was lucky enough to bring home for the first weekend of the new school term.
After that, I took myself off to experiment taking some firework photos at the Classical Sparks event in Hagley Park. Probably didn't experiment as much as I should have with different camera settings, but I got a couple of okay shots.
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
Posted by conor at 12:39 PM
January 18, 2011
New Hogs Back Track at Castle Hill
The Castle Hill Community Association has been busy over the past few months actively building a purpose-built mountain-bike track between Castle Hill Village and the Mt. Cheeseman road, which ultimately means that off-road mountain-bike access to Craigieburn Forest Park is now a reality, or will be when construction is completed, hopefully by the end of this summer. Having contributed a little bit of manpower, and enjoyed riding the track a couple of times since construction started, here's a GPS track I recorded which accurately shows the route of the track.
Click on the lower/southerly track marker for some stats and an elevation graph of the track.
Posted by conor at 9:52 AM
August 24, 2009
On yer bike
We all had a blast at the McLean's Island Reserve mountain-bike track. The track is in excellent condition, well graded & maintained, dry with some excellent berms on the corners.
Posted by conor at 10:29 AM
March 31, 2008
Shiny new bike
Picked up a new bike at the weekend, just in time for this year's Queen Charlotte trip. It's a beaut!
Posted by conor at 10:36 AM
April 21, 2004
Some more Cannonball Run photos
Some more photos of the Cannonball Run, courtesy of Greg.
Posted by conor at 11:36 AM
April 19, 2004
Cannonball Run II
Another stonking ride along the Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sounds with Mac, Dorje, Greg, Tim, Simon, Corey & Mike. 90kms, 2000m+ ascent, 6hrs 15mins ride time over 2 days of "undulating" (!) single track. Surprisingly, not much damage done (no stapling required this year), even when blasting down through the beech forest above Portage skittling possums out of the way, trying to get down to the hotel before it got completely pitch black...
Posted by conor at 2:13 PM
March 23, 2004
Rainbow Raging
I've just competed in the 9th Annual Rainbow Rage, aiming to beat 6 hours to complete the 106km adventure race along the Rainbow Road in some of NZ's high country. Great day, managing to keep up with Simon M on his single-speed, and I came in 577 out of about 1023 riders, in 5:58:29! Oldest competitor was 83, youngest was 11, and there were a number of tandems and paralympians. A couple of photos here.
Posted by conor at 12:48 PM