i readily admit i am not a big fan of the monarchy. maybe it’s being austrian (the monarchy and all related titles were abolished in 1918) or it’s just my general anti-authoritarian streak, but frankly i can’t wait until australia becomes a republic. however, until then we still get to celebrate the queen’s birthday, which is convenient – who doesn’t like a three day weekend.

especially when the weather in sydney has been less than perfect the last few days. we really needed to get out, and since we love exploring new trails and ride with friends we were more than happy to catch up with adventure bee & her family in old bar. there were rumours of jump lines …

and it gave us an opportunity to take out the karavan – we really, really missed it. silly, i know, but there are so many amazing memories. plus we love being close together.

it’s always nice to try new trails, preferably with more flow than we normally get on the local sydney trails. this is exactly why we love thredbo and canberra, but this time we were going the other way, north, to old bar.

another state forest and another example of trails built by a fantastic and determined group of volunteers – one of them was kind enough to show us around the xc loops, which is not really our forte. plus we don’t actually own any lycra.

they also built a few other lines, complete with wall rides, nice and mostly non-threatening jumps, a massive rather unfriendly see-saw, a whale tail. really. it’s the thing in the next photo, i’d probably call it a ski jump, but that’s probably again just me being austrian.

nat and i really enjoyed playing with the various obstacles on the trails.

great to see nat racking up the air miles. she has a pretty hard time getting the bike in the air, even though she does a very good bunny hop. the nomad is probably a bit too heavily damped (especially the rebound), for her it’s almost a downhill bike without a dual crown fork. i am still impressed how well she pumps these kickers.

and i’m starting to get my flying mojo back, too. loving it.

well, doing that weird thing with the feet again. hmmm.