What a week! Adventures in Fartopolis

"Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride." John F. Kennedy

Simple but true. Would John have had a fully, he'd have ridden the sweetest trails in Rotovegas, as we did last week. Taking a couple of days off and heading up to Taupo and Vegas with Jan and Marjolein was a very good decision, especially taking into concern that Karapoti is not to far away anymore.

Here the little training itenary: Saturday in Taupo, diggin our fat tyres into the Craters of the Moon trails, as a warm-up for the next day. Sweet stuff up there, I loved the structures built in the forest and the fast flowing single trails allover the place. Second day riding here was nice as well, more trails, more fun, and I hadn't come off the Stumpy in two days, hooray. Then we camped out next to the mud pools in Waiotapu, thanks to the friendly security guard named John who allowed us to pitch a tent in a public carpark in exchange for my Cateye. Together with Tanja, a lovely German girl who hitched with us down to the spot, we enjoyed an lovely evening. Anyway, she was more hardcore and wiser than us, slept outside under a net. We decided to squeeze ourselves in a tent, to experience that the combination of sulphur in the air and pretty warm temperatures doesn't neccesarly make a good sleep. But eating pasta fro the ground was cool, after Jan managed to drop them there and give them a bit more spice. Back to nature.

We were almost there, welcome to Fartopolis aka Roturua. Leaving our gear at the Funky Green Voyager the other day, and then off we went, to the magic Whakarewarewa Forest. And as expected, Roturua definetly deserves being called Vegas. Heeps of Trails, for each and every abilityand here are my favs: Grinder, Tickler, A-Trail, Dipper, Exit, B Rude Not 2, Pondy Downhill and Split Endz, just to name the best ones. Cranking through Dipper is so much fun, even more than last time on a hardtail. And this time, Jan an me took the evil drop on Tickler with style, one more, one less (o:
After riding for almost the whole day chillin in the backpackers was great, waiting for another days riding . And more cool stuff to ride the next day, as Hot X Bun and Billy T. Another whole day on the bike, and still managed to crank through Dipper on high speed. Sometimes stopping riding is so hard, especially on such sweet stuff. A quick dip in the hot pools after two long days was a .....pleasure. But paying 20 bucks for that is a wee bit too much, next time I'll soak myself in Hamner again, for less than the half. And more pools. And without security cameras allover the place. Getting up at 6 the next morning and riding more stuff was inevitable, before we headed back to Wellywood. Back there I couldn't stop myself: Thursday Makara, Friday off, Saturday Karapoti, but that's the next post.