To do K2 or not?

The Bach

Our big weekend away in the Coromandal, the misson: to ride the largest of the K2 hills (Kopu) and confirm whether the thought of riding K2 is possible.  The operatives:  include Liza (of course) and two mates from the support team, Carron (aka Camp Mother) and Christine (aka Jason).  Camp Mother has co-ordinated the perfect kiwi bach and provided a minimum of 3 bike routes for Saturday.  We travelled down on Friday night with plans to awake Saturday morning fresh and ready to ride.  Unfortunately the weather was not favourable with low cloud and misty/medium rain.  A quick look around the room Im sure we were all ready to bail, it was lucky we had made such an effort to be there, it just had to be done.

Carron and Christine at the Top

Time taken to eat a good breaky and check over the bikes, finally we headed away around 9ish.  Riding from Wangamata heading towards Kopu.  The first set of undulations to the turn off was fun, some mild hills for warm up and a nice we down hill.  Whilst we contemplated the Kopu hill, parked on the elbow of the road. Actually we were trying to convince one of us (not me) that the down hill would not be too bad despite the slippery conditions.  Perhaps it was not a great time for a milk tanker to go screaming by, especially since it took all the road (no room for a bike and rider) and highlighting the wet roads with its water spray.

Carron (red) and myself at the Top

We all headed for the Kopu hill, from memory only a 10k slog to the top.  Approx 500 metres from the top (actually I thought we had reached the top) hence why I likely lost concentration and had a wee mishap which saw me fall off the bike into the path of Camp Mother who had no choice but to land on me and the bike.  Lucky for us we were heading up hill so NOT a high speed crash but we did manage to score a couple of war wounds.  Unfortunately for us Mrs Jason kept riding to enjoy the glory of the top all to herself! How selfish :).  Anyways we dusted oursleves off and continued our ride to the top, where Mrs Jason came from behind and stole our glory once again!!.

Momento from the ride

Opting not to head down the other side of the hill we headed back the way we had come and decided to call in reinforcements (Liza) to meet us in Tairua for a spot of lunch, oh and a car which could take us home for a few beers and a competitive game of UNO.

We did knock off a tidy 70k and some of us even went for a run off the bike (ok I might have been kicking and screaming!) :) we followed up the weekend with a little 30k on Sunday with a ride out to Onemana and back.

Many thanks to Camp Mother, Mrs Jason and my wife, Liza for a great weekend and all your inspiration. Now whether to take on K2? Lets see what happens once I talk with coach tomorrow ....