weather or not

Becs and I were luck enough to pick up a couple of spots in an MTB ride weekend at Mt Buller. The weekend was hosted by Jess and Norm Douglas at The Avenue lodge. We were 2 of 30 that were taken on board by Jess, Norm and their fellow guides Liz and Adam.

Any free hours of the lead up week were easily consumed by bike prep. I had two main objectives, one was to get independent trigger shifters fitted to Becs bike. I'm sure many would be familiar with the technique of "his hand-me-downs become her upgrades" and so has been the foundation of Becs MTB equipment. Until this point there had been Shimano integrated brake/shifter pods on her bars but these weren't always as convenient as originally intended, and so I introduced a pair of SRAM X7 pods to the cockpit. This also necessitated a SRAM rear derailleur. These were new upgrades, not hand-me-downs!! The second of the objectives was to get Becs onto a tubeless setup to give maximum advantage of ascents and descents over rocky terrain. A cunning hand-me-down/upgrade move there would have been for me to justify new wheels and hand mine on... however, a Stans No Tubes kit was a more accessible option. I coupled this with a new set of Geax Saguaro TNT's. Eventually all the spanner work was complete and eventually we were on the road - we got to Buller on Friday night... eventually.

The weekend forecast was for a lot of rain and this proved to be true. Saturday's original plan for an epic ride to Mt Stirling and onward to Craig's Hut was sensibly abandoned, and so we tackled some local Buller trails that took us down to Howqua Gap. As expected the going was rocky and steep, with a lot of water thrown into the mix. This in turn made for some challenging climbs with some very greasy switchbacks. The day called for a full-on wet weather approach of rain jackets, toe covers, and I opted for ski gloves to combat the 70km winds that had also been promised. The riding was excellent, making the weather conditions insignificant. So how was Becs going with the new setup?? a picture tells it all: