Melbourne listees went on a little twilight jaunt last night, as a farewell to non-listee Matt who is off to Queensland to watch men dig big holes. Those in attendance were (in order of appearance) Matt (because we started at his house ;-), Mel and Pauly, Me, Duncan (non-listee), Fruitbat, and Dave who only showed up for the pizza. Rumours of a real live sighting of Pastor Jag proved to be somewhat exaggerated. Maybe Pauly's right, and he doesn't exist. Maybe he ceased to exist some time after we last rode together.

A couple of backstreets from Matt's place in Bundoora, and we found ourselves in open grassland that hasn't (yet) been turned into an AV Jennings display village. Complete with extremely realistic electronic kangaroos, which were apparently left over after the olympics. It had been raining on and off, so the grass was a bit slippery and the dirt was sticky yet slippery. The bush closed in around us as we descended toward the Plenty River on a tight and droppy singletrack. Knobbies became slicks very quickly, and I hit the deck after a front washout, although nobody saw it ;-)

At the river, we debated for a couple of hours or so, whether we should hop the stones across the river and continue to the fabled Blue Lake (and risk coming back in the dark, with 2 lights among us, rain looming, and the real possibility of the river rising), or whether we should just go back to Matt's and drink beer. Duncan stood patiently in the middle of the river while this happened.

The executive finally decided (with a vote of 1-0, 5 abstentions) that we should continue. We splashed across the river and scrambled up the blackberry invested mud-luge track on the other side. The climb up the next hill was longish, but technical enough to keep it interesting. I'm not sure how it happened, but I seemed to be panting less than everyone else at the top. Wierd.

After a bit of firetrail, we found ourselves on what is becoming a rather familiar kind of track, reminiscent of Lerderderg, Studley Park, and a ridiculous track Paul Bo and I tried to ride a few years back in the 'Nongs. A goat track cut in to the side of a very steep hill, with technical bits trying to send you over the edge. Studly and Lerdy have had such success with me, and last night's track claimed Matt. I was negotiating a steep slippery downslope at the time so I didn't really see much, but according to The Bat, he bodged a wheel lift up a rock step, got knocked off line, and found himself running down the fall line astride the FSR before tumbling and sliding to a halt. Scary stuff, but survived with only a slightly cut knee leaking a bit of claret.

The goat track opened up to a bit of firetrail leading to a lookout over Blue Lake. It was more greeny turquoise than blue, to my untrained eye, but stated destinations and lookouts are both good places to stop, talk some shit, and eat snakes which we did. But, it was starting to get dark, and starting to rain, and we had to get back to Matt's. The longer but easier road option was dismissed, and we set off back up the firetrail.

I had a noisy chainsuck, which was followed about 3 pedalstrokes later by a chain breakage. This is the first time I've had the breaker link of a sachs chain fail on me. The pin separated from the plate to which it is rigidly attached, and the whole link fell apart. So, I just broke another half link off, threaded it up, and spent 10 minutes in the increasing rain fumbling with my (rather tired) chain tool to join it back up again. All finished, I flipped the bike back onto it's rubber, and noticed that I'd threaded the chain through the wrong hole in the front derailer.

Bugger.

Rather than spending another 10 minutes buggerising around breaking chains, I just unscrewed and bent the derailer until I could get the chain to where it was supposed to be. I think I've irrepairably rooted the derailer, but I've had 5 years trouble-free service out of it, and I think the replacement cost was worth not having to walk out or get rained on for longer.

Mel, Paul and Matt had gone ahead, so Duncan, Fruitbat and I blasted through the goat track in the rain and failing light, and met up with them at the river crossing. A bit of singletrack, back through the paddocks of robotic 'roos, and in near pitch darkness back into the backstreets to Matt's place, the hose, Dave, some cold beverages, and lots of pizza. Great ride, especially for a weeknight, and an impressive farewell stack to Matt, on local turf.

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