The Life of Sloth

January 2008 - Posts

• Lake Sumner Ride

  Went out on an awesome ride last weekend, along the edge of Lake Taylor and Lake Sumner, a couple of hours north-west of ChCh. The drive in was pretty mental really - once you get off the sealed road, it's very windy, very rough gravel with plenty fords to cross (although many of them were dry this time of year). Damn does this track keep going for a long long time. The other cars got way ahead of me - these locals drive so fast on them - I couldn't push Rosie any faster as the back was already sliding out! Right so anyway we got there, got the bikes unpacked, time for a couple of quick cheesy group photos and we're off.   I hadn't actually been too excited about the ride beforehand as it was 100% 4wd track, but straight away I was loving it. Plenty of stuff to jump off, rocky sections, short climbs and downhills. The scenery was just awesome as well - this got better the further we went. After various stops for photos/gates/vagueness we reached the swing bridge by Lake Sumner. With the promise of some sweet beech forest singletrack, we carried on to Hurunui Hut (used by trampers / hunters to stay the night). Stopped for a bit of lunch (well, cereal bars), then it was a case of retracing our steps. "Who's the resident semi-DH rider? Sloth it seems - send him to the front!" Loving the riding, not loving underestimating the return journey by around 10km though - Alain had nailed me by then.   Oh, I almost forgot (a good thing - need to get this FEAR out of my head!). My ride almost went very very wrong indeed right near the beginning. Sloth went to jump off some little lip, hadn't looked at the run-off though, had he. Got a bit too close to this for my liking:   40km all in, we arrived back at the cars in time for a barbie. Damn fine sausages I'd brought up with me, get that orange top off Sloth - you're attracting the bees. Just about to leave, no punctures for the day except one - on my car! D'Oh! Get the bike pump out then. Excellent day out. Just remember if you're getting a lift with someone, bring petrol money . And just in case I hadn't already mentioned it - how amazing is that scenery?    Posted Jan 29 2008, 05:14 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: MTB, New Zealand, Mountain Biking, roadtrip

• The Vulcaniser

  Sloth enters a race? Really? Well, no, not really, my mtb racing days finished around 12 years ago, but that didn't stop me going out to the Vulcaniser course for a couple of laps. This was around an hour north of ChCh, in the Waipara (where I seem to be going a lot recently), then off on some rough, windy farm tracks until you pop out in an incredible location. Looking out over Pegasus Bay, the sea was bright turquoise, stunning! Quite a few people there for the open day, where you could pay $10 to ride the course - this is all on private land.   After registration, it was up the first climb, quickly followed by sweet singletrack/sheep trails. View of the surrounding area really opens up here, but no time to take that in as there were plenty switchbacks before descending into the trees. Very, very dry round here, but the trails were generally pretty sweet, up, down, up down, in and out of the bush. Oo-er that sounds a bit rude, Mrs. OK, so it was damn hot (32c) and this Sloth was suffering a bit on some of the climbs with no shelter, but soon enough it was back in the trees. Then came a big nasty climb, some of which wasn't rideable (for me) and home to the start/finish. After suffering on that last bit, told myself no more, but nothing a free banana and special drinks couldn't sort out. Back round again for more, riding it much fasterererer this time. Back in Rosie and home again to finish my veggie patch . Wicked day out, yay! And here's the pics.   Posted Jan 25 2008, 02:06 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: MTB, New Zealand, Mountain Biking

• Bon Trentième Anniversaire Monsieur Gasole

  May the neige fall in large flakes by night and clear for bluebird by day. Anyway, here's a couple of beauties retrieved from the depths of the GnarlyBoarders archives.   Posted Jan 24 2008, 09:29 AM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, randomness

• Stories of Japan

  something from the udders, but we shall shortly have tales (tails) of ourown, said Sloth. Suddenly...http://www.snowsphere.com/japan/ Published with BlogMailr Posted Jan 24 2008, 08:49 AM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, Japan

• A bedtime story

  Nighty-night all of you!  Dan Black -  You win the prize for most random Christmas present 2007. Sloth went to the letterbox and found a package from the UK, neatly wrapped and appearing to be the size of a DVD. Hurriedly he opens it up to discover - oh yes, an A5 spiral-bound notepad. Well all thanks to you there is no longer a shortage of these valuable items in New Zealand - I shall treasure this one dearly and use it to make only the most important notes for The Life of Sloth. There shall however be no repeat of The FEAR Manual. No chance of that thing coming back. Genius. In other news, maybe you'd like to dream of this lot (although in a little over 2 weeks myself and my partner in grime, Mr Jermaine Matisse, will be there to check it out live. We have been unable to contact Sookie as yet - hopefully she's managed to get some new strings for her guitar as she'll be playing a lot). Still trying to get these stormtrooper boots worn in - it's a bit hot to wear them round the house at the moment tho. Niseko, Japan, Tuesday 15th January 2008, 8:39AM Weather conditions:     Patchy blue sky, tending to snow. New snowfall:     5cm Snow depth:     235cm (top); 140cm (base) Yesterday was the type of day that skiers snowboarders dream of. Bottomless light powder with light clouds made for perfect powder runs in over 30cm of fresh on top of an already powder base built up by lots of wind over the last three days. Those who got first tracks in the powder areas will have memories to last a life time. 5 to 10 centimeters fell in the Village last night and it is still snowing. It should be another great day in Niseko. It looks like the boundary between the high and low pressure systems has stayed right over the top of us, although the high is slightly more to the east than yesterday. It should give us some good snowfalls today and tomorrow. By Thursday the high should be dominating our weather and by friday the low looks like it will be well and truly gone to our east. So expect another day or two of snow. Posted Jan 16 2008, 10:42 AM by le_sloth with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, randomness, Japan, Winter 2008

• Stormchasers

  Hang on a minute. 4 weeks to go? 4 weeks to go?!!?!?!?!?! Holy crap, that's come around quick. Jarmarl, here's a little taster of things to come: http://whitelines.com/video/category/stormchaser/ I have now officially got the FEAR    Posted Jan 05 2008, 10:34 AM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, Video, Japan

• Happy Noo Year!!!

  2008 - here it is! It's gonna be the biggest one since 2002 (that fine vintage). Already we've got: Japow-pow-pow in Feb. Holy crap that's under 5 weeks away Another visit to the UK for Sloth and SJ in June A Royal Wedding in June A Military Wedding in August Cheese Rolling in September Apparently somebody else is getting married in November too. Hope you all have a great one anyway and hope to speak soon. Farm it out, right down to the lower field. Sloth xx  p.s. sorry to anyone and everyone who didn't get any text replies / I didn't answer any calls over Christmas - Vodafone well and truly screwed things up so I (and around 10,000 others) had no service whatsoever for Christmas Day until New Year's Day. Still, I managed to get it in the news. Amazing how much we've come to depend on phones though - I was at a complete loss for a couple of days until I realised - well bothered, who gives a shit? Posted Jan 01 2008, 07:52 AM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Site Announcements