A local couple, Steve and Meg, have a social media account called Hardtail Life (instagram and youtube) and organize the occasional hardtail group ride. They’ve had pretty good showings in the past but I hadn’t made it to one yet. Seemed like a great opportunity to get the Stooge out and meet some folks as well.
As I was pedalling over to the meet spot from my car I saw a familiar purple Stooge Dirtbomb – Jeff Kendall-Weed’s! I have watched all his videos with the Stooge and if you haven’t, I would highly recommend it. He has single handedly raised the bar of what can be done on a rigid MTB. He ended up being the only other rigid bike, but still probably the fastest rider of the group.
Below is Tay rolling over the “jelly roll” feature, which is tricky because the “up” side is pretty steep also, making just getting on the rock rather challenging. The roll out is quite steep.
The crew as we worked our way down Neds. Neds, which is short for Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, is a pretty old school trail on Seymour with a lot of rock work but also some modern touches such as the berm below, right.
Meg got some photos of the group as well, which I’ve shared below. One of me failing to make it up a techy climb bit and am in mid-hop off the rock (I did roll away without a dab!) and descending the chunder.
And here are two photos from the big rock roll on Neds: Jeff on the left just airing it, and me on the right rolling it. I was on the fence about riding it but after watching the others, I was willing to give it a go – particularly because I knew Meg had the camera pointed at it!
The group headed directly out from Neds to make their way to the café, but Tay and I looped over through Greenland to ride Bottletop, a short but fun trail. It was nice to have a sort of ‘cool down’ period after the socializing before heading home. Tay and I are much more aligned in how we want to experience the forest – stopping to appreciate beauty at every opportunity. Such as the light here:
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