Today Saunders and myself went off to tackle the Black Route on the wildcat.
You can read all about it on the Wildcat Website.
This is the first time I have ridden a black route although Saunders has done it before. The first real obstacle was the Lactic Ladder.
I don't mid steep climbs and switchbacks but add in the stone slabs and it becomes really hard to get the front wheel up safely. I ended up doing a wee bit of walking.
As we climbed we looked across and could see part of the descent, lot's more stone slabs and rubble where there was some more walkies.
Anyways, we did make it to the top without any damage.
My photographer ( to whom I had given a backy all the way up ) took this photo of Saunders and me.
Now the fun began. We passed through 'Monumental' at varying speeds with an ooya, jeeza, holysh soundtrack. It was here that I found out what full suspension bikes are for. My legs had survived the climb without a twitch but they were now sore acting as my rear shock !
I think this bridge was the start of 'Run The Gauntlet' another rocky technical section with some walking.
The rest of the route was fast. We passed into the red route which we have done a couple of times before. This now seemed a lot easier and we managed a lot of the drop-offs without using the escapes. I did a big one on the lower section by accident as I couldn't see where I was going !
A brilliant day out. The FR305 says it was 12.34Km and took us 1 hr 11 mins ( not counting stopped time ).
Head for the Wildcat NOW!
