There Will Be Dirt

Woods Point

2011-12-13T13:39:00.000+11:00

Visiting : Toolangi, Marysville, Woods Point
Distance : 350-400km
When : Wednesday 30th November, 7:00am
Where : Click here for route map

This is the last TWBD ride of the year so I thought I’d give myself an early xmas present and do something I haven’t done in a long time - a long solo ride. I love riding with small groups but I also love getting lost in the bush by myself and I’ve been long overdue for some lonely time.

The rough plan was “Woods Point return. No Sleep.”

As always, some things went very right and some things went very wrong.

The full story

I’ve wanted to ride to Woods Point for years now. For that I blame the ARST crew - Andy, Dan, Dave, Adele, Scooter. Andy’s write-ups of their 3-day rides had me salivating. Big hills, big dirt, big distance. But it was always out of reach - I couldn’t get there and back in a day so it remained on the todo list. Years passed...

Then a few weeks ago Blakey mentioned that Scooter said something about doing Woods Point with no stop-overs - just pushing on through the night with no stops at hotels or pubs along the way. My ears pricked up and I started doing the maths. Y’know what, that could actually work. Maybe I’d found a way!

So, stealing the idea wholesale, I planned out a rough route that’d be about 350-400km - depending on how I felt on the day - and set about convincing my wife that riding through the night by myself in the bush was a good idea. It all came together and I rolled out at 7am on a Wednesday morning with the promise that I’d be back for breakfast the next day.

Just me, my bike and 24 hours. Yessssssss.

A bagged Brooks. What a dork.

Wet start

It was bucketing down rain when I set out. Thunder, lightning, the lot. I really didn’t mind though. I had full fenders, rain jacket and pants and I was happy that it wasn’t going to be too hot. I rolled on through the rain to my first stop at St Andrews for a quick natural break before starting the climb up to Kinglake. The climb went quickly and pretty soon I hit the bakery at Kinglake for a coffee. Everything seemed to be working ok - rain gear was fine, bike was fine, all good.

No love for logging trucks

The mostly downhill run across to Toolangi was fast as usual and soon enough I was entering the Toolangi State Forest for the first dirt of the day. Excellent. Familiar roads through here and all empty. I was expecting to see more logging trucks but the area was deserted. Just me and the animals. It was a Wednesday morning after all - I guess the ubiquitous 4WD and trail bike crew were still toiling away at their day jobs dreaming of the weekend.

Toolangi State Forest

I enjoyed the solitude and the fast downhills before stopping to fill up water as I crossed Murrindindi River. I’d decided to do the ride on two bidons and refill regularly at creeks and rivers. I figured that they’d be clean enough and I had a bunch of Aquatabs with me if the water looked dodgy. I’d checked my maps beforehand and it looked like there’d be enough creek and river crossings to keep my bidons filled all day and night.

It was while filling up at Murrindindi River that I found a fat black leech attached to my leg. Bastardo! Haven’t had to deal with leeches before but I was pretty sure that you shouldn’t just yank them off so I left it there and figured I’d deal with it in Marysville, my first major stop, which was only an hour or so away. I looked down at him regularly and noticed that he was slowly getting bigger.

Plantation Road. All downhill. All fun.

Marysville

I bombed down Plantation Road out of the Toolangi State Forest and popped out onto Maroondah Hwy just after Narbethong. The heavens opened again and I climbed up Marysville Road in the rain, sweating into my clammy rain gear. Ugh. Fortunately the climb went easier than last time (when I was running 54” singlespeed) and I flew down the other side into Marysville and headed straight to the newly-rebuilt shopping centre for supplies. There’s still a lot of rebuilding going on - Marysville was devastated by the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009. I like visiting and spending money there.

I ordered a couple of meals from the pizza place and then hit the supermarket for more supplies. I picked up a small cigarette lighter here, went straight to the foyer of the shopping centre, knelt down and held the flame to the greedy leech. It jumped off and immediately went inching around on the ground looking for something else to latch onto. I wasn’t hurrying but I was trying to be business-like about refuelling and getting out of there so I didn’t even think to get the leech away from the front door of the shopping centre. I hope it didn’t find one of the locals.

Gowngeddoudofit!

I picked up my food from the pizza place and started eating half of it and packing half of it for later. My route had a big loop in it which would see me retracing my steps a little bit at about midnight around Cambarville. My plan was to stock up on food and water at Marysville and make a drop bag that I could leave off the side of the road somewhere. There are no towns around those parts - Cambarville is just a “locality” not an actual town - and, if there was, they wouldn’t be open at midnight anyway so using a drop bag meant that I could refuel in the middle of the night and wouldn’t have to carry all that heavy food with me all the way out to Woods Point and back. Brilliant! A nice neat solution which I was very proud of.

So, I packed all the food into Opsaks - which are fancy waterproof and odourproof ziploc bags - chucked them all in a shopping bag, lashed it all onto my handlebar bag and started the climb out of Marysville and up Lake Mountain.

Good times.

Big climb ahead

It was still raining steadily and the weather got a bit more moody as I cranked up Lake Mountain and put some elevation below me. So sweaty! I tied my rain jacket around my neck like a cape so it could cover my back while letting my arms and body breath. This probably looked stupid but stupid doesn’t matter when you’re on a solo ride in the mountains. In fact “looked stupid” implies an observer - someone that’s doing the looking and judging that what they see is stupid. If there’s no observer then how can something “look stupid”? It didn’t look stupid. It just was.

A man road a bicycle up a hill. He wore his rain jacket like a cape.

Up Lake Mountain

I cranked out the miles up Lake Mountain. The last time I rode up here I was running 54” singlespeed and was deep in oxygen debt just trying to keep the pedals turning. It averages about 8% for a few kilometres. My buddy on that ride, Scott, just shifted down and pedalled away from me into the distance. It was that climb that convinced me to build up a geared bike after riding exclusively one geared bikes for a few years. And now, here I was, returned to the scene, on a geared and be-fendered bike. I'd made the right choice.

Climbing Lake Mountain

Pushing on past the turn-off to Lake Mountain ski resort, I put more vertical below me until finally the road started going down towards Cambarville. I started recognising features around me from my Google Maps research and soon enough, I found the little place I’d chosen to drop my food bag. It was as suitable in real life as it was on my computer screen - easy to find, away from the road, no chance of anyone accidentally finding it. The weather was cool and rainy so my food would stay fresh. I was banking on the Opsaks living up to their “odourproof” promise and keeping my precious foods off the radar of any animals. Opsaks are designed/used in bear country in Canada/USA so I figured if they work on bears they’d work on possums and wombats.

All animals stay away!

I didn’t see any benefit in burying or hanging the bag so I just left it on the ground and hoped for the best. It was just as I was leaving my drop site that I heard a couple of fat motorbikes cruising up the hill on the main road. Big Harleys or something, all loaded up for a long trip. They thundered past and echoed up the hill back towards Marysville.

It was about 5pm. I didn’t see another person until 4am the next day.

My turn-off

Big River

A couple of k's out of Cambarville I hit Eildon-Warburton Road. The start of my loop. I could have stayed on the main road here and gone all the way to Woods Point but I just couldn't bring myself to do a "boring out'n'back". I knew the main road (it was still dirt) was the safer, more reliable option but where's the fun in that? My loop would take me down to Big River Road and straight east towards Woods Point. Then, when Big River Road turns sharp north, I'd keep going east on some small logging roads and pop out onto the main road again at Frenchmans Gap, just a couple of k's from Woods Point. Easy. And a fair bit shorter than taking the main road.

So I was happy bombing down Big River Road, singing "Ça plane pour moi" as loud as I liked and passing by all the empty camping grounds. Mostly downhill, all beautiful dirt road through the bush. Wunderbar. It doesn't get better than this. The rain had passed by now too so it was nice and sunny, cruising through the tall trees while Big River splashed and rushed down in the valley below.

Good times.

Big River Road

Except for when I found another leech on my leg. Quick stop - cigarette lighter - gone. Think I'll carry that lighter with me on all long rides from now on.

Lucifer Sam

I was getting pretty far east on Big River Road when, coming round a corner I surprised an animal on the side of the road and it ran across to the other side and disappeared into the bush. What the hell?! I got a good, albeit brief look at it but I literally couldn't believe me eyes. My internal dialog went something like this :

"Did I just see that?"

"Yes, yes you did."

"Could it have been anything else?"

"No, it couldn't."

"Really? Out here? For real?"

"Uh-huh!"

...and so it was a second or two before I convinced myself that I actually saw what I thought I saw and yelled out loud :

"BLACK CAT!"

I kid you not. It was a large black cat. At least twice as large as any domestic cat I've seen with a beautiful short jet black coat with no markings. It didn't look like a panther but it didn't look like a domestic cat. It was big and it looked and moved like something wild or exotic.

Black cat sighted here

So what the hell was it?

I don't know but I'm sure there's a prosaic explanation for it. Just a feral probably. Maybe crossbred with something exotic, maybe just a big wild domestic overgrown and thriving after it suddenly found itself well and truly at the top of a food chain with no predators even coming close to it in size. Whatever it is, it's out there right now feasting on native wildlife and not giving a damn what people think it is.

Incidentally I googled it when I got home and found one other report of a sighting of a large black cat in the same area. I took this as confirmation that I didn't hallucinate the whole episode. Though the report said that the cat was five feet long which the one I saw clearly wasn't.

Unless the one I saw was only a baby...

Big Bend

After I'd finished marvelling at what I'd just seen, I rolled on. The road was still great, the sun was still shining and pretty soon I came to the bend where Big River Road - and Big River itself - turn north and head up to Eildon. I stopped at the next place I could actually access said river which happened to be the confluence of Big River and Big Bend Creek. I filled up water, ate a banana and looked at the time. 7:00pm. Where did the day go? Oh well, better get the Ayups mounted before it gets dark.

Big Bend Creek

I got my Ayups mounted on my helmet and rolled out. It was only a few hundred metres before I found my turn-off onto Cambarville Logging Road and the start of the 16km section of smaller roads that would deliver me to Frenchmans Gap, and from there it was a short downhill bomb to Woods Point.

Ayups ready

From studying the elevation profile of this section I knew that I'd be walking some of it. There were some parts in the 15-20% range and the surface would be gnarly and only see the occasional 4wd and maintenance vehicle. I was cool with that, I don't mind the odd hike-a-bike. When you push your bike up into unridable terrain where other people don't go you inevitably see things that other people don't see so it's often well worth it, in my experience. So almost immediately after turning onto Cambarville Logging Road I found it unridably steep and loose and I started hiking.

Big Bend Creek meets Big River

Hiking

I figured it would only be a couple of k's before it leveled out and I could ride again. And hey, I had all night, right? I'll get to Woods Point later than I expected but the pub will probably still be open and I'll get to sit down, drink a beer and just enjoy the serenity of being in Woods Point, the place I'd dreamed about riding to for so long.

So I kept hiking and sweating into my jacket. Took off my jacket. Took off my gloves. Swigged water. Saw the surrounding hills slowly getting lower as I climbed higher and higher.

Cambarville Logging Road

I kept thinking that it would level out soon and I'd be able to start riding but whenever i found a ridable, or even sometimes downhill, section it would always end quickly with a steep steep ramp that had me off the bike and hiking again. I was ok with it because I had all night and I don't mind the odd hike-a-bike.

Cambarville Logging Road

The sun started getting lower and the light started to fade so I flicked on my dyno lights - not that I was moving fast enough for them to work - and then also my Ayups. There were some beautiful views from up there in the bush, on the side of a mountain as the sun set between unknown hills. I could see for miles and miles and vainly tried to work out what mountain that was in the distance, what bird that was over in trees, whether I should stop for a photo or not bother because the light was too bad.

Cambarville Logging Road

Darkness falls

Pitch black

Pretty soon the sun had gone down and it had become pitch black night. My world was reduced to the cone of light that my Ayups threw out. No more mountain views, no more picturesque sunset, just the steep, rocky, leaf-and-bark covered road directly in front of me. My perspective had contracted. I was no longer just a small dot on a huge scenic vista stretching away for kilometres in all directions. I was now the only thing in the world, perched on the edge of a ten foot cone of light, surrounded by darkness on an unridably steep track as I pushed my bike up the so-called road ahead of me and scrabbled my cleats clumsily over the increasingly rocky terrain. Not far now until it's ridable. Not far now.

My world

So I kept hiking and swigged my water and sweated from the exertion even though the temperature was dropping as the night took hold and I climbed ever higher up the mountain. I knew my path would take me to the top of Corn Hill before ducking down to Frenchmans Gap. Corn Hill is about 1300 metres high - a little bit higher than Mt Donna Buang - which is high enough to get pretty cold, even on a clear summer night. I started to think of my situation. I was alone, on a road that sees no traffic, it was pitch black night, my water was starting to run low, there was no mobile phone reception and no-one but my wife and a couple of friends knew I was out here. I was getting mightily sick of pushing my bike up that steep rocky road and the idea of stopping for a rest started to flick around the edge of my consciousness. I didn't allow myself to entertain the idea because it just wasn't an option. Man, I just wanted to stop hiking up that goddam hill and get to Woods Point already and get off that stupid excuse for a road.

Tunnel vision

So I kept hiking and I remember thinking, "Yeah, this is going to leave a scar."

Walking

I finally got off Cambarville Logging Road and onto Ryans Spur Track at about 9:00pm. It was much the same - long steep rocky climbs punctuated by short flat or downhill sections. I kept trudging up the hill, one foot after the other, pushing the bike ahead of me, cleats scrabbling over loose rocks, nothing to see on either side except trees fading almost immediately into darkness. Occasionally I'd hear animal noises, leaves rustling, sometimes a pair of glowing eyes reflecting my lights back at me from the blackness though the animal they belonged to was never visible. Kangaroo, possum, drop bear, black cat.

Finally, a signpost

The close darkness had made me go into myself. I was really getting sick of the hiking. I'd been hiking for hours now. Step after step climbing god knows how many vertical metres. Was I going to have to climb all the way to the top of Corn Hill on foot? The ridiculousness of the situation began to weigh on me. And god knows what all this clumsy uphill hiking was doing to my legs - I wasn't even half way through my ride yet - I didn't want to burn all my matches walking up a stupid hill.

So when I started coming across unmarked side tracks and began to have trouble finding myself on my maps, my frustration levels spiked and I swore loudly into the night. I wasn't lost, of course. I just didn't know exactly where i was at that point in time. I had a detailed and current topo map of the area (carefully sectioned and placed into individual ziploc bags for protection) so when I started taking wrong turns it usually wouldn't be too long before I'd realize my error and backtrack to a known point. Except the wrong turns always seemed to be down hills so I'd have to ride or hike back up after realising my mistake. And it seemed like I was taking every possible wrong turn that I could make. I'd be flying down a steep rocky descent thinking "Yes! Finally moving!" before the track dwindled to nothing and I'd skid to a stop, check my map, pore over the topo lines, flash my headlight around to see if I could make out any geographical features and then call out "Faaaaaaaaark!", turn around and start pushing my bike up the hill back the way I just came.

More hiking

The wrong turns were killing me but I was slowly but surely making progress on my proper path, even if it did seem like I was taking every wrong turn in the process. I knew that if I kept my head, kept thinking and trusting my maps that I'd get there in the end. And eventually I reached the top of Corn Hill at about 10:30pm and found a large open clearing and a huge starry sky dwarfing the hilly landscape. A small victory. It felt good. I was standing at the highest point for miles around, loving the cold wind blowing the grass sideways and cooling the sweat on my body. So many stars. Such a big clear sky. I smiled and laughed and called out into the night, in joy this time. This was what I wanted. This was what I'd come out here for. Standing alone on top of a mountain in the middle of the night, just me and the stars and no one around for miles and miles and miles. The world felt big again and I felt big too.

Finally getting somewhere

Down

It was a morale highpoint as well as a physical one. I felt somewhat recharged and ready for the descent down to Frenchmans Gap and then on to Woods Point. I was at the top of the highest mountain around, it had to be all downhill from here, right? Well, there was some nice downhill, then some more steep unridable uphill, then some more navigational screw-ups but at least the altitude had brought my iPhone back to life and I had enough reception to bring up google maps which made it easier to make sure I didn't get too far off track. And then the last section, Frenchmans Gap Track, was all downhill. But, in a cruel yet not entirely unfitting twist, it was so steep and rocky and loose and rutted that I found it, the longed-for downhill - completely unridable. I had to scramble down it on foot, holding back my bike so it didn't take off down the hill away from me, feet slipping and scraping over loose, ankle breaking rocks.

Jesus, people actually drive on these roads?!

Surrounded by ghostly shapes

I swore, but not angrily. I was moving, I was on track, I'd be out of the woods soon.

And so I was. I rolled onto the main road at Frenchmans Gap, took a photo, noted the time and then got on my bike for the most welcome, most longed-for, fast downhill run that I'd had in a long time.

It was 11:30pm. That 16km "shortcut" had taken me four hours.

At last

My legs were smashed, both bidons were long empty and I was thirsty and mentally battered. I'd set out that morning honestly thinking I'd make it to Woods Point for dinner, in full daylight. And here I was rolling towards the town at near midnight, a shattered man. Thirsty, tired, hungry and sore.

Look what the cat dragged in

Flying down the hill, I heard rushing water to the side of the road. I immediately hit the anchors and pulled off the road. Maori Creek. At last. I drank and drank and filled both bidons before eating some food and continuing the nice roll down the hill.

Thank you Maori Creek

I startled a couple of deer on the road not far out of town. I thought they were big dogs at first. Great, just what i need, a pack of wild beast dogs in the night. You bastards.

I rolled into Woods Point at midnight and it was an anticlimax. Everything was closed of course. There were some streetlights, some lights were on in the pub but there was no movement inside. There were lots of 4wds parked around the street. All sleeping. Everything closed up for the night. I took a picture, noted the time, and just kept riding.

Woods Point is asleep

I was really looking forward to that beer at the pub. That was going to be my prize for riding all that way.

Oh well.

Time to go home

Woods Point is at the bottom of a big dip - whichever way you come from you go down to get in and you go up to get out. So I started the climb up out of it and knew that I had a bit of a grind ahead of me. The climb is no big deal but I wasn't at my best so it was slow going. I stopped once or twice on the way up to have a breather. Mostly it was just a long slow seated climb. Just gettin' 'er done. I was tired now. Physically and mentally. I didn't mind that I was going so slow, I just turned the pedals over and knew that I'd get to the top when I got there. None of the grasping frustration of the hiking section to Frenchmans Gap. Now it was just turning over the pedals, just keep moving, just keep going. No anger, no excitement, no frustration, no longing, just keep moving. The goal had come and gone in a spectacularly unspectacular anticlimax. I was on the return leg now. The goal, the big excitement, the victory had come and gone.

Now I was just some idiot riding home in the dark...

It was about 1:30am when I finally reached the top of the climb and arrived at Matlock. Matlock is not a town but I think it used to be back in the gold mining days. Now it's just a tourist waypoint on the side of the road. A big open gazebo shelter thing with a few picnic tables and some toilets and some rough walls to help keep the wind out. It’s at about 1000 metres and on top of a ridgeline so it's cold and windy and bears the the markings of a long history of travelers stopped for the proverbial dunny break. The place is covered in graffiti. Scrawled messages of the "so-and-so woz ere" variety. I rolled into the shelter, parked up my bike and shone my ayups around trying to find some familiar names.

Ah, there they are...

Messages at Matlock

Dan, Andy, Dave and Adele. The ARST crew. They'd left their mark on one of their 3-day epics. It was good to see their names. It was their fault I was out there all alone and long past my bedtime. I thought about leaving my own mark on the wood there but it felt a bit vain and I didn't have a texta anyway. I was content with the fact that the place was leaving more of a mark on me than I was on it.

Matlock

I faffed around for a while eating, drinking, reading the crap on the walls. I even cleaned and relubed my chain which was starting to get a bit squeaky. A sushi fish of Prolink and a couple of baby wipes made it brand new again.

Prolink and baby wipes

Good as new!

I wished someone would make me feel brand new again - I was drained. It was 2am and I’d been moving all day. I needed to put my head down for a couple of minutes and reset my system. I put on all my clothes - arm warmers, jacket, rain pants - zipped everything all the way up and stretched out on one of the picnic tables. With my lights out it was pitch black. I closed my eyes and lay flat on my back with my arms folded across my chest like a corpse on a slab. In fact, the table was as hard as a slab and I was as cold as a corpse. I tried to relax my mind and shut down for a while but I never really slept.

Not a comfortable bed

Still, my little power nap did refresh me a little. At the very least it served to bracket the frustration of the long hike and the disappointment of my not so grand entrance into an empty Woods Point. Now I could put that behind me and look forward to the road ahead, the next section, the next goal. So I rolled out about 2:20am and started down the main road back towards Marysville and, more importantly, my drop bag at Cambarville. 55km of easy riding, mostly downhill, all dirt road but wide and well-trafficked and complete with reflector posts and even warning arrows on the corners.

Luxury.

Constant forward motion

So I ground out the miles and enjoyed the fact that I was moving with speed again. The road tends downhill the whole way back to Cambarville - some beautiful long fast descents with a few short mellow uphills to keep it interesting. I’d love to come back and ride this section again in daylight and with less miles in my legs. The views are probably spectacular but I couldn’t see a thing. I was moving at a reasonable pace now and even though the road was in excellent condition I still had to focus and watch out for potholes, corrugations and gravel drifts.

Kilometre after kilometre of watching the reflector posts snake away around corners.

Red on the left, white on the right.

Pushing on through the night

Off into the distance, around the corner. And then another corner. On and on. It started trying to snow. Most of this section is around 1000 metres so the light rain came floating down thicker and slower than normal raindrops but not as light as real snow. I guess you’d call it sleet though even that seems too strong a word for it. Whatever it was, it didn’t bother me - I was warm from the exertion and it wasn’t heavy enough to soak the ground. In fact, it probably did a good job of keeping the dust down. I must have been riding right through the clouds along here - on some of the fast downhills my headlights just threw a blinding white glare and I could barely see ten metres ahead.

There wasn’t much else to see or to focus my mind a great deal so I just pedalled along and kept moving through the night. My reaction time was way down and I didn’t even flinch when something charged out of the bushes at my front wheel on one nice fast descent. It stopped just short of my wheel and I flew past it at about 30km/h. A bloody wombat. I may have been half asleep at the wheel but I had the presence of mind to realise that if I’d hit it I would have been over the bars before I even knew what happened. Those things are fast and solid - like little brick shithouses. I realised how close I was to a major stack but, testament to my state of mind and tiredness at the time, I couldn’t bring myself to care very much.

Almost hit a wombat and came off. My ride could have ended right there. Oh well...

Red on the left, white on the right.

Following signs into the distance

There was one nice little treat to break things up. From reading the maps I knew it was coming up soon. Still, it was a surprise and a joy when I finally rolled onto it - an isolated 7km section of beautiful paved road. I don’t know why it’s there in the middle of nowhere but it is. Mostly all downhill too. Both hands in the air, pumping my fists. "Ça plane pour moi" came back on my internal radio and I sung out loud, got down in the drops, stuck my arse in the air and caned it in the big ring!

Yesssssss!

Realistically I was probably only doing 40km/h or something but it felt like I was flying. I was just stoked to be putting so many easy miles behind me. My water was starting to run low again and I was looking forward to getting to my drop bag. My handlebar bag was low on food and I’d resorted to smashing gels. Not my favourite nutrition but a necessary evil at this point. It was 3am and my body clock was at low ebb - I should have been asleep but I was pushing on, forcing my body to keep working and eating when it really needed rest. I took a few small breaks along here. Just stopped pedalling for a while, coasted to a stop, put my elbows on the tops of my bars and hung my head down on my handlebar bag.

Exhaustion.

Not long now. Keep going. You can’t just stop here. You can't just close your eyes and magically wake up in Cambarville. No-one’s going to pedal the bike for you. There's no-one else here. There's only you. And the quickest way to get to Cambarville is to pedal. So just pedal.

Just pedal.

And so it became a death march. A slow, zombie-like, grind. Mind as spent as body. Half asleep in the cold and sleet. Red on the left, white on the right.

Until I saw something up ahead. What's that? Headlights. A logging truck coming the other way. He dipped his lights and slowed right down. I was still blinded by his low beams but I squinted up at him and gave a little wave as we passed. It was about 4am. I was coming back to civilisation.

Early bird

That encounter perked me up a little and pretty soon I started noticing outlines of trees appearing in the darkness. They slowly became more definite and the sky started lightening to grey. It was a very gradual transition but the sun which had disappeared off to the west the previous night had now finished its lap of the world and popped up behind me.

Don’t let the sun burn a hole in your ass William Blake.

I was heartened by the increasing daylight and had a feeling of return, of release, of making it through. I was still absolutely knackered but at least it was daylight now and I could see where I was riding and could see beautiful things down in Big River valley, a sea of low cloud sitting on top of the trees down below, birds waking up, making noise, distant hills in sunrise colours. It was beautiful.

Good morning Big River State Forest

And when I finally closed the loop and hit the paved road again and came to the same Eildon-Warburton Road turn-off I’d taken yesterday instead of the “boring” main road, it was fists in the air and a tired but emphatic “Yessssss.”

Short cuts mean long delays.

Cambarville

I rolled on up the blacktop, easy going now. Not far to the drop site. Cambarville looked fantastic in the morning light. Beautiful mountain scenery all around. And when I rolled off the road to my secret spot... it was all intact, exactly as I’d left it.

Good morning Cambarville

I’d originally planned to refuel here at around midnight. Ha! It was now 6am and broad daylight. My midnight dinner was now breakfast. I scarfed a chocolate bar, drank fresh bottled water and then sat down to eat my scone with jam and cream. Devonshire tea sitting in the dirt off the side of the road at 6am in the middle of nowhere. You idiot. It probably looked stupid but, then again, there was no one there to see me.

A man road a bicycle up a hill and went off into the bushes. He kneeled down over a plastic bag and ate food from it.

Food cache looks intact

Oh yeah!

Devonshire tea in the dirt

(Note: Phone was perilously low on battery now. No more photos!)

I packed up the rest of my food cache - chicken parma sandwich, M+M’s, a bottle of beer - made sure I didn’t drop anything - always pack out what you pack in - lashed it all onto my handlebar bag and rolled on up the road to Marysville.

It was clear that I wasn’t going to be home for breakfast. That was the original plan I’d made with my wife. Home for breakfast. It’d be more like home for late lunch if I kept riding all the way home. I’d taken two days off work for this ride - one to ride, one to recover and relax with my wife and son. I didn’t want to cheat her by taking two days for the ride and leaving her with nothing but a shell of a man falling asleep all over the place. I’d put her through enough by disappearing all night as it was.

So, I grudgingly made the call and asked how she felt about a nice drive to Marysville. She said she'd load up Max and start driving out to meet me. So it was decided, I’d pull the plug at Marysville and we’d enjoy our family day together. I would have liked to finish the ride as planned, but honestly I was pretty rooted so it didn’t take much to convince myself to bail out.

I rolled on up past the turn off to Lake Mountain ski resort and then bombed the fast paved empty descent all the way down to Marysville. The same road I'd sweated up the day before, wearing my jacket like a cape. I got back to Marysville about 7:30am. The shops were still opening up, people were walking their dogs, picking up milk and the paper, calling out good morning to each other from across the road, just starting their day. I found a nice warm park bench in front of the post office, kicked off my shoes, stretched out my legs, put my hands behind my head and let the morning sun burn my face.

At last I could rest.

Party Hearty

Once again I’d bitten off more than I could chew but, as always, I’d had a hell of a time chewing what I could. And that’s fine by me.

In the end I covered about 250km - probably a bit more due to wrong turns - in about 24 hours. Where did the day go? I’ve ridden longer in almost half the time. But not over this terrain and not with a four hour uphill hike in the middle of it. If I’d gone the main road to Woods Point - out’n’back - I think I’d have made it all the way back home. Without the stupid hike up Corn Hill I think the 350km version would have been doable.

Woods Point return. No sleep.

Unfinished business.

And a reason to keep riding and planning and poring over maps and reading about other people’s epic rides. And looking forward to next time.

There’s always a next time.

Thanks

It's the last TWBD of the year so it's time to give thanks. Thanks to the ARST crew for inspiration and ideas. Thanks MGG, Dirty Deeds and all FOA crew for keeping me honest. Thanks Sean for the bike. Thanks Sheldon, Jacquie and Kent for giving me something to aim for. Thanks all the people who came out with me on rides this past year and embraced the spirit of adventure by letting me lead you out onto unknown roads and sometimes stupidly unridable trails. And most of all thanks Rae and Max for always being there when I get home. And bailing me out way too many times!

See ya next year!

>> Click here for ACTUAL route ridden <<

>> Click here for more photos <<

Bike

Rawland rSogn (MD)
Front wheel Schmidt SON20 to Velocity Synergy 650B
Rear wheel Hope Pro 3 to Velocity Synergy 650B
Grand Bois Hetre tires 650B
SRAM Apex mechs, cranks, BB, cassette
SRAM TT bar end shifters
On-One Midge handlebars
Ozriders handlebar tape
Cane Creek brake levers
Pro stem 80mm
Avid Shorty 4 brakes w/Shorty Ultimate cartridges + Koolstop pads
Velo-Orange seatpost
Brooks B-17 saddle (shopping bag from Coles)
Shimano MTB pedals
Vavert fenders
B+M IQ Cyo headlight
B+M Toplight Plus taillight
Nitto M-12 rack
Velo-Orange Campagne handlebar bag (heavily modified!)

Mt Despair

2011-09-29T09:06:00.000+10:00

Visiting : Hurstbridge, Kinglake, Mt Despair
Distance : 125km

When : Sunday 23rd October, 9:30am @ Hurstbridge train station

Where : Click here for route map

Here's a train-friendly ride a bit closer to home. We'll start at Hurstbridge train station and head up to Kinglake via Bowden Spur Rd which is steep and all dirt. Then we'll fly down the other side, dive into the Toolangi State Forest and make our way to the summit of Mt Despair. We'll follow the power lines back towards Kinglake and climb up and over via Captains Creek Rd before rolling back down to Hurstbridge for tea and scones.

This one's relatively short and close to home but there's a significant amount of climbing, largely on dirt. An accessible yet challenging ride.

The full story

That was a long hard day of navigational uncertainty and steep rocky climbs. In short, a typical There Will Be Dirt ride.

Bowden Spur Road switchbacks in the distance

Seven of us rolled out of Hurstbridge train station at 9:45am but it wasn’t long before Emma and John decided they’d rather have a cruisy day than a punishing day so they peeled off at the end of Mine Rd and headed off on their own ride.

We got as far as Eagles Nest Road before Martin’s crank arm came loose for the second time so he and Bruce decided to play it safe and turn back to Hurstbridge. Just as well too - Martin has since reported that his crank fell off and he ended up riding one-legged into Hurstbridge. It would have been a long walk home if that had happened deep in the bush.

So, after only 15km the seven starters were reduced to three. When we hit the first climb of the day at 20km it was John on his 29er, me on my 650B rSogn and Matt B, who obviously didn’t get the memo, on his roadie with 23mm slicks.

Bowden Spur Road

It was hot and sunny and pretty soon we were sweating our way up the gravel of Bowden Spur Road towards Kinglake on what I thought was going to be the hardest climb of the day. Bowden Spur Road follows the powerlines straight up the side of the Kinglake Ranges - the steepest parts hover around 12% and it, mercifully, switchbacks a couple of times before levelling out at the top. We strung out along it and each found our own pace before regrouping at the top.

I kept joking that this was just the warm-up. Turns out I was right.

Finally at the top!

A quick fuel stop in Kinglake and then we rolled down the other side of the range on Glenburn Rd. What a beautiful road. All downhill, fast, winding corners, hardly any traffic, smooth paved surface. Wunderbar.

It wasn’t long before we popped out the other end at Melba Highway and ducked across it into the Toolangi State Forest. The start of the good bit. This is what we’d come here for. The plan was to follow my carefully researched notes and take dirt roads of varying quality all the way up to the top of Mt Despair. This plan was derailed almost immediately when we followed my notes to the start of “Rocky Track” which looks like this.

It was long, steep and completely unridable. Big, loose rocks made this serious 4WD terrain, not pushbike terrain. It looked like an ankle breaking hike - especially for Matt B in his road cleats - so we backtracked to the trailhead and found a signboard with a map and started working out an alternate route.

Toolangi State Forest

Seasonal road closures were marked on the map and we also noted that Mt Despair Road was clearly and emphatically marked “Management Vehicles Only”. Despite lengthy internet research I hadn’t been able to work out definitively if the road up to Mt Despair was actually passable or not. There’s a working fire tower up there and I kinda suspected that it might be behind a locked gate.

Hm...

We decided to get on Marginal Road and head over to Mt Despair anyway.

Just before we left the carpark we saw a couple of trail bikers preparing to hit the trails. Helmets on, goggles adjusted, stupidly loud two stroke engines ripping through the silence. And then one of the bikers whips out an angle grinder and proceeds to cut the end off his brake lever. Wtf?! He saw the disbelieving looks on our faces, gave us a thumbs-up and a grin, slammed the door of his van and then tore off into the bush.

Weird.

So, Marginal Road turned out to be a good choice. It’s a major dirt road that snakes its way through the Toolangi State Forest, climbing up and down hills and crossing various creeks and rivers. Beautiful bushland, awesome views, nice gentle climbs and fast fast descents.


Water refill in the creek

John had taken a photo of the map/signboard in the carpark and he pulled out his camera at dubious intersections so we could get our bearings on the tiny camera screen. Meantime, I’d be trying to get google maps up on my iPhone and John was also trying to correlate the blurry map on his camera with the not-very-detailed map on his Garmin. I think we wasted a lot of time doing this.

We slowly made our way closer to Mt Despair. We could see it in the distance - a flat ridge topped with spindly trees and a small fire tower poking up from the middle of them. We enjoyed the descents and the climbs alike as the sun beat down and we rolled deeper and deeper into the bush. Matt B was descending like a rocket on his roadie but the surface was becoming more and more rocky and eventually he pinch-flatted. 23mm tires at 100psi down rocky descents at speed - I was surprised he made it that far before something gave out. After a quick fix, we took off again and got a little closer to Mt Despair.

Pinch flat

After much fooling around at intersections and staring at the map on John’s grimy little camera screen that was getting all slick with sunscreen, we found ourselves coming down a very steep and gnarly descent that had John taking it slow on his 29er, Matt B carefully picking his way down through the rocks under full brakes and me... well, I got off and walked it. I’m a wuss when it comes to gnarly descents like that. To be fair, it must have been pushing 20% and was a mess of big wheel-swallowing ruts and rocks. It was hard enough to walk down it without twisting an ankle.

When we got to the bottom of that gnarly mess we did a map check and realised we’d taken a wrong turn and skirted along the side of Mt Despair rather than hitting it head on. None of us wanted to head back up that gnarly descent - it would have been hike-a-bike for sure - so we looked at the time, cut our losses and decided to start heading back home. Mt Despair will still be there next time. And let’s not forget there’s probably a locked gate at the bottom of it anyway.

And so we began the journey home on the unimaginatively named “SEC Track”.

For all you kids playing at home, “SEC” stands for “State Electricity Commission”. That’s what we used to have before the electrickery was privatised. Anyway, “SEC Track” could mean only one thing - we were going to hit the powerlines again. And hit them we did...


Mt Despair in the distance

Roads are wonderful things and it’s easy to be ignorant of the amount of planning and thought that goes into their creation. Cartographers, surveyors, geologists, botanists, town planners - a whole wealth of professional knowledge goes into making roads that are not too steep, not too windy, roads that take a somewhat direct route but also respect the laws of private property and maybe even take slight diversions in favour of passing close by a natural spot of beauty or to take in a beautiful view of the countryside.

Powerlines, on the other hand, are brutally simple beasts. They go directly from point A to point B and to hell with whatever’s in the way. Mountains, rivers, private property, virgin bushland, so what! They always have access trails underneath them for maintenance and the access trails are, more often than not, gnarly, gnarly pieces of work.

This “SEC Track” we found ourselves on was no exception.

Powerlines don't care

It obviously sees pretty much no traffic, it was steep (well over 10%), rocky and loose. John - on his 29er MTB - clicked right down and span away smoothly up the hill. I found my lowest gear and tried to follow suit. 42mm slicks weren’t ideal for this terrain but they did an admirable job. No matter what, I kept my butt planted on the saddle to keep weight over the rear tire. I could feel the tire slipping underneath me if I unweighted it even a tiny bit. The surface was very mixed - large rocky sections, washed out eroded ridges, patches of deep gravel - you really had to pick your line carefully if you wanted to maintain traction and keep the power going smoothly through the tires.

John and I reached the top of one particularly gnarly section and waited for Matt B. 23mm slicks at 100psi remember. And with road gearing as well. I don’t know how he did it. He got to the top and said “I just passed the two biggest brown snakes I’ve ever seen.” John and I didn’t see any snakes. “What about that herd of deer?” Nope. Hallucinations? Bloody powerlines...

Our road snaking away into the distance

It was h.o.t.t. hot and we all needed a good sit down and refuel. We spied a road down in the valley below and saw that our powerlines track snaked down to it. After walking down the steepest section (i’m a wuss, the others rode it) we flew down the rest of the hill, jumped a couple of gates and finally got back onto a proper (dirt) road.

We’d returned to civilisation.

Back to civilisation

We rolled on to Glenburn, inhaled some salty snackage and filled up on water. Then it was straight up the busy Melba Highway before turning off onto Glenburn Road for the climb back up to Kinglake. This was the same road we flew down earlier in the day and I’ve gotta say it was great going back up it too. A nice steady climb, almost no traffic, good road surface. Fantastic.

We saw two echidnas along here. One was ambling across the road, taking his own sweet time. A WRX came flying down the hill and we waved for it to slow down to give the spiky little fella time to get across. The other echidna was half way up the embankment on the side of the road. He snuggled into the dirt as we rolled by, clearly enjoying the heat of the sun on his spiky back.

I tallied up the bad lucks and good lucks as we rolled up the hill. One dead wombat. Two live echidnas. Good luck ride!

Fast rolling to Glenburn

Quick water stop at Kinglake and then we hit the main road down to Hurstbridge. Matt B was now on the most appropriate bike for the terrain for a change and he towed John and I home through the lengthening shadows and swarming bugs. There was a train waiting at Hurstbridge as we pulled in so we said quick goodbyes to John (who’d driven to the station) and jumped on the train. It was about 6:30pm.

Job done.

John’s garmin reported 2600m of climbing over 125km. A good solid day.

>> Click here for more photos <<

Wombat

2011-09-06T12:57:00.001+10:00

Visiting : Gisborne, Blackwood, Wombat State Forest
Distance : 105km
When : Sunday 25th September, ~7:00am @ Gisborne
Where : Click here for route map

This ride will start in Gisborne and dive straight into the Wombat State Forest where we’ll spend all day on dirt roads and maybe some singletrack. We’ll travel the length of the forest, from east to west and then back again via a different route. Not a great deal of climbing but a lot of dirt and a lot of trees. Should be awesome.

I’ll be riding to/from the start/finish and I encourage others to do the same. Meet at the roundabout at the corner of Robertson Rd and Aitken St. Contact me if you want me to wait.

The full story

It was a beautiful day for it, that's for sure.

I left my shack at about 4:15am and rolled out west on the ring road bike path with my new dyno lights blazing. It was still almost full dark when I got to Gellibrand Hill Park just behind the airport. I could hear possums and bandicoots chasing each other in the bushes and I rode right through the middle of the huge mob of roos that live there. Nice.

Early morning at the airport

Reuben was running a couple minutes late so I hung out at the plane viewing area on Sunbury Road and took some photos of the planes coming in to land. So low! Also watched in equal parts amusement and horror as a number of roos attempted to cross Sunbury Road with absolutely no regard for the bleary-eyed early morning traffic. Almost jumped on my bike and went to shepherd them across but, somehow, they worked it out.

Cresting the hill out of Sunbury

Reuben turned up and we caned it up to Gisborne where we met John and Karl. We had a quick coffee and John told us how he hung out with Tinker in Timor which led on to chatting about ultra-endurance riding, Shermers Neck and deadly jellyfish attacks. Then we rolled up to Carrolls Lane and the entrance to Wombat State Forest and pretty soon we were deep in the bush flying down fast rocky dirt roads.

Fast fast descents followed by correspondingly slow climbs. It was rewarding terrain - every climb had an awesome descent - some of which seemed to go on for ages - and we just rolled as fast as we liked. The road went up and down all the way to our first stop at Blackwood at about 40km. We parked up at a cafe for coffee and a stretch. Friendly locals in Blackwood - it was an old gold mining town back in the day - now it's a little tourist town with quaint little shops, cafes, and a pub servicing day trippers, 4wd'ers, trail bikers and campers alike. A place to stock up on supplies before heading back out into the surrounding bush. As we rolled out one of the locals said "Hills! Doesn't matter which way you go. Hills!" Hehe, he was not wrong.

Coffee break

The next leg of the ride took us on a loop out to Blakeville and then back to Blackwood. After a little navigational uncertainty at The Garden of St Erth, we hit the long climb up to Blackwood Range Rd. The rocky road kept going up and up and we strung out along it, usually with Karl leading the way on his pink Surly 1x1. The rest of us had gears and were happy to use them. The long climb was made more than worth it by the awesome descent down to Blakeville. We did come across a few convoys of 4wd'ers though. One group came flying up behind us like a chase scene out of Mad Max. Five or six big 4wd's roaring past, churning up the dust with four or so trail bikes flanking them on the cleared area beside the road, hammering along the verge at full tilt, taking up the whole road and then some. Big boys, big toys. Give me a bicycle any day - I'd rather ride through the bush than all over it.

Blakeville

We hit Blakeville and turned back along the aptly named Paradise Road. Another awesome descent. We had a good mix of bikes between us and they all seemed to be handling the terrain well. My Grand Bois Hetres (650B, 42mm slicks) were coping just fine with the rough rocky, loose surface. Reuben was running a stiff 35mm CX tire, John was rolling large on a 29er hardtail and Karl was keeping us all humble on his 26" singlespeed. None of us had any mechanicals all day. This was the first decent ride on my Rawland rSogn and it couldn't have gone better. Felt comfortable all day, Brooks B17 must be broken in by now because it felt great, my homebrew light mounts didn't rattle loose and my homebrew handlebar bag attachment was rock solid.

Stretching before the next leg

Side note on the bag. I used a Velo Orange Campagne handlebar bag on a Nitto M-12 rack. I'd tried to get that bag to work on my old Crosscheck but it disappointed me in so many ways that I was ready to throw it in the bin. Fortunately the longer head tube on my new Rawland rSogn fixed a few of the problems and inspired me to mod the Campagne until it worked. I threw away the flimsy plastic stiffeners that it came with and made a proper stiff internal coroplast shell - this transformed it from a floppy sack into a good solid box. Then I threw away all the external leather straps and the decaleur I was trying to use with it and hacked out some metal strips from some scrap I had lying around. Two strips sit crossways inside the base of the bag - one at the front, one at the back - then a couple of bolts go through the metal strip, through the coroplast shell, through the fabric of the bag, and then into two corresponding metal strips that sit outside of the bag and underneath the M-12 rack. So, basically, the coroplast shell (and the bag that wraps it) is clamped solidly to the rack with metal and bolts. It's not going anywhere. There's no quick-release mechanism but I don't care - I've got a rock solid attachment, no decaleur to foul up my cable routing, and a stiff, waterproof box to put my stuff in. The Campagne itself is just cosmetic now, apart from the lid and external pouches. But then, I could make a lid for the internal coroplast shell in like, ten minutes. In fact, I may end up doing that - I could make it much more waterproof that way.

We got back to Blackwood again and went to the pub this time for some lunch and a beer. There was a huge crew of trail bikers getting ready to roll out. So much noise and exhaust! Must have been about fifty of them and a couple of support vehicles. When they finally rolled out we heard banjo music coming from the porch across the road. It was nice sitting outside in front of the pub - I could have stayed there all day. But, we had more riding to do.

Lunch at the pub

The last leg took us from Blackwood back to Gisborne via a different route - Obrien's Road this time. Another long fast descent took us down to Obrien's Crossing, a popular camping spot, and then we started the long slow climb back up to the forest entrance. This was the longest climb of the day and we all just sat down and got it done. Except Karl who was out of the saddle for a lot of it. John's garmin reported 18% on one section - I don't know how accurate that was but I do know it was a long grind. Halfway up the climb we passed a white Commodore that had obviously come flying down the hill too fast and lost control. It was hanging off the edge of the road, front wheels hanging down the steep embankment, teetering precariously. Lucky we weren't around when it happened.

Eventually we emerged from the forest and hit the main road down to Gisborne. After so much long slow climbing on rough rocky roads it was good to shift into the big ring and hammer it all the way down to Gisborne on the blacktop.

A mixed bag

We regrouped in the car park, ate some recovery food like good boys, and reflected on what an awesome ride it'd been. John’s garmin said 2349m climbing instead of the 1214m that mapmyride reported - only out by a kilometre! Reuben was under time constraints so he opted for a lift back to Melbourne with John. I was lazy so I opted for a lift back with Karl. And that was that.

A good solid ride through some beautiful and rewarding terrain. Good crew, great weather, couldn't ask for much more.

Thanks John, Karl and Reuben for the company!

Next time I think we'll make it a train-friendly ride out of Hurstbridge probably starting around 9:30am. Currently investigating routes out to Mt Despair in the Toolangi State Forest.

See ya there!

>> Click here for more photos <<

Cathedral

2011-06-24T16:20:00.000+10:00

Visiting : Toolangi State Forest, Cathedral Ranges, Mt Margaret Gap
Distance : 155km
When : Sunday 24th July, ~7:00am @ Toolangi
Where : Click here for route map

Another long one with lots of dirt and lots of climbing. This will also be the first TWBD that I’ll ride on a geared bike.

We’ll start from Toolangi and dive straight into the awesome Toolangi/Black Range State Forest and head north to Taggerty before ducking around behind the stunning Cathedral Ranges for a good solid climb up to Mt Margaret Gap (1100-ish metres). Then it’s down to Buxton for a refuel before heading back into the State Forest to go up and over the Black Range again back to Toolangi where we started.

There’ll be about 2750m of climbing (nearly all on dirt) and there’s a very good chance we’ll encounter snow on Mt Margaret so gear up accordingly. There are no easy bailout points once we get on the other side of Black Range and there are only two places to get water and food (Taggerty at 68km and Buxton at 111km. There are NO shops at Toolangi) so be self-sufficient or be prepared to hitchhike home. Make sure you’re equipped to carry enough water and food to get to the next town - there are no other servos or shops or anything to pull into halfway. Mobile phone coverage might be very patchy. A space blanket and emergency rations might not be a bad idea.

I’ll ride to/from the start at Toolangi and treat it as a “transport stage”. Feel free to join me for all or part of that if you like. Because I’m riding to the start, I ask that you contact me so we can swap phone numbers so we can coordinate on the day. I won’t wait around at Toolangi unless you’ve contacted me beforehand to confirm that you’ll be there.

This is going to be an amazing ride. So much dirt... so much climbing...

The full story
Cold and wet. That was a real winter ride.

Toolangi

I rolled out from my place in Macleod about 4am and headed straight up to Kinglake via Eltham/Smiths Gully. First time I’ve done Kinglake from the Hurstbridge side on the main road. It was raining and pitch black but the views back to the lights of the city were nice. Quick water refill in Kinglake and then I cut across to Toolangi to the official start of the ride.

Campbell was in the tennis court carpark getting geared up when I rolled in. A couple of text messages later and we realised that no-one else was coming. I blame Cadel! So, Campbell and I rolled out about 7:30 and headed into the Toolangi State Forest.

It was raining on and off and, the deeper we got into the forest, the more insistent the rain seemed to get. The first climb around Mt Tanglefoot seemed a lot shorter than the last time I’d ridden it - maybe it was the company - we were talking non-stop until the first descent. Awesome, awesome forest. Huge trees, big ferns and muddy slick roads. The descents were fast and fun but the rain was pretty solid now and we were both covered in gritty mud.

Black Range

We started heading north on Black Range Rd which is a relatively major logging road that runs along the top of Black Range. Lots of short sharp ups and downs. It averages about 800m so we were well up in the clouds and visibility was poor. We didn’t really get any nice views of the surrounding area - the whole place was thick with cloud and rain and we stopped chatting and went within ourselves for a while. Everything feels close up there. You get tunnel vision - just the muddy, rocky road, thick trees on either side and grey cloud smothering everything. Every now and then we’d come to a section that was being logged and there’d be a big empty clearing of smashed stumps and roots and torn up earth with heavy metal logging machines sitting there like armour plated sentinels, dripping cold water in the mist.

It was a lonely place.

I think we were both happy when we finally saw the turnoff that would take us down the other side of Black Range to our first stop at Taggerty. I really wanted to get somewhere warm. Campbell said he was so cold he’d stopped shivering, which didn’t sound good. I was shivering pretty badly and hadn’t been able to feel my feet for ages.

Breaks

I was eager to bomb down there fast so we could get warm but my brakes seemed to be working really badly so I was taking it easy, not knowing what was around the next slippery corner. We regrouped about halfway down and Campbell said, “I’ve got no brakes whatsoever!” Our brake pads were absolutely smashed! The rain and grit had just torn them up on the descents and left us with nothing.

Our levers were pretty much hitting our handlebars and having no effect. Campbell adjusted his cable tension to get some more life out of the wasted pads. I went to do the same but I was running Shorty Ultimates - great brakes, work well, easy to setup, look awesome, but they need about 17 different allen keys of slightly different sizes in order to adjust them. So, I had to leave them as is, levers almost touching the bars, and hope that there was enough pad left to make it home.

We rolled on to Taggerty General Store and got warm and dripped muddy water everywhere. The guy in the shop looked like a Harry Potter wizard with a long grey beard and hair and curled-up eyebrows. We chatted with him about where we’d been and where we were going and and he got out some maps and showed us a few (dirt road) shortcuts back over Black Range. It became pretty obvious we weren’t going to continue with the rest of the ride as planned. If we did continue then we’d end up coming down even more steep, muddy descents from Mt Margaret Gap which is even higher up than Black Range. Neither of us had the brakes for it - we’d fly off the side of the road for sure.

Taggerty Reroute

One option was to ride back to Toolangi on the main roads via Healesville. That meant riding the Black Spur which is a beautiful piece of road that is always full of tourists, is narrow and has literally no shoulder, just a steep steep drop off down into nothing. I’ve seen enough dangerous interactions on that road between cars and busses and wide caravans and trailers and whatnot that I really was not interested in riding it at all. Especially not in the rain with no brakes!

Another option was to go north on the main roads and skirt round the top of Black Range where it peters out around Molesworth. Then we could stop in at Yea and take Whittlesea Road back up to Kinglake and then shoot across to Toolangi, That was a safer option but also much longer.

As luck would have it, Campbell knew a guy who lived nearby so he gave him a quick call just to see if it was a possibility to get a lift somewhere if we did decide to bail out. We were still weighing our options and talking to the wizard dude. What if we went north up to Yea? Should we just ride the Spur? Maybe if we could just get to here...? Why don’t we just...? And then Campbell’s mate barged into the shop, “Right, let’s go! Who’s coming?”

Split up

Campbell had had enough of the cold and rain so he accepted the lift back over Black Spur by car. I really wanted to keep riding so I headed north to Yea. So we both took off out of Taggerty without even seeing Cathedral Range which was meant to be the centrepiece of the whole ride.

Disappointing.

But hey, the mountain’s not going anywhere. There’s always next time.

There Will Be Main Roads

So, I rolled north on the main road towards Alexandra and then cut across to Yea on nice flat paved roads, skirting right round the top of Black Range. Quick water refill in Yea and then onto Whittlesea Road which is familiar territory and made for an uneventful ride homeways. One highlight was that I finally rode the steep side of Junction Hill between Yea and Flowerdale - I’ve walked up it once or twice when riding singlespeed but this time I had gears so there was no reason not to sit and spin.

It was getting dark as I passed Hazeldene so, once again, I called in for a pickup at Kinglake West so I could get home in time for dinner and put Max to bed. Also, I didn’t fancy the descent down Humevale Road in the dark and rain with next to no brakes.

Even though this ride was cut short I still learned a lot.

Good gear

Clearly, gears make a big difference to the work your body has to do. This was the first one of these rides I’ve done on a geared bike and I was able to spin up hills that would have previously had me out of the saddle, mashing it with my heart rate through the roof. Redlining it like that not only takes its toll on your body but also your mind - the sight of a steep rocky hill in the distance can be soul-crushing when you’re 200km in with only one gear. I found that, for me, gears really took the bite out of hills. Even after 200km I was still ready to climb anything - no big deal, just sit and spin. Of course it helped that my smallest gear was 34:32. If I couldn’t get up a hill with that...

Waterproof?

This was a pretty wet and muddy ride. The only thing that did a decent job of being waterproof was my Showers Pass jacket. Everything else got pretty soaked. Radbot tail light - started malfunctioning (works now that it’s dry). Revelate Designs “Tangle” frame bag - had a big pool of water in the bottom of it. Topeak saddlebag - everything inside was wet. Deuter Speed Light backpack - all wet inside but it’s an old bag that’s seen a lot of use. Sealskinz gloves and socks - thoroughly soaked inside and out, though they were still windproof and hey, socks are really hard to keep water out of unless you ziptie them to your ankles or wear long pants. I dunno, the only thing that really bothers me about that list is the tail light - the rest is just an inconvenience but I need my tail light to work 100% reliably. Even more so when it’s pissing down rain.

Peace of mind

Last gear thing that deserves a mention is my new Spot Satellite Tracker. I turned it on in the morning and then didn’t touch it all day. It sat on my shoulder sending position updates all day and allowed my wife to track exactly where I was even when there was no mobile phone reception. I got a message from her before I even got to Toolangi saying “I love this tracking device!” For peace of mind, it is awesome. About 300 clams to get you up and running but worth every cent if you tend to disappear into the bush by yourself, leaving behind a worried wife and child who know you’re going into remote places that have no mobile reception.

Unifinished business

So, that’s that. Another one for the “unfinished business” list. Thanks Campbell for the great company and for soldiering on in the face of hypothermia. It would have been such a different ride if it wasn’t so cold and wet! We'll have to do it again in the warmer months.

Lake Mountain

2011-04-27T13:52:00.000+10:00

Visiting : Warburton, Marysville, Lake Mountain, Mt Donna Buang
Distance : 160km + transport
When : Sunday 22nd May, ~7:30am @ Warburton
Where : Click here for route map

Some proper climbing this time. Starting from Warburton we'll head straight up Mt Donna Buang. Halfway up we'll detour along the Acheron Way to Marysville and have a look up Lake Mountain before retracing our steps and completing the Mt Donna Buang climb. Then it's down the back way to Don Road where we join the Warby Trail at Launching Place.

This ride is a little different to previous TWBD rides in that it starts away from the city far from the train lines and, in fact, before the first train even arrives at the closest station (Lilydale). This means you can either sleep in and drive to Warburton or, alternatively, get up early and ride to Warburton and treat it as a "transport stage". I'll be doing the latter.

Because of this transport stage before the start, I'll have to ask everyone who decides to come on this ride to email me (andrew at fmod dot org) so we can swap phone numbers and coordinate on the day. I can't guarantee I'll be at Warburton at exactly 7:30am (my transport stage will be about 80km) and I certainly won't wait around for people who may or may not be coming if I get to Warburton early.

Big climbs, big miles, this is going to be a big day.

The full story
Wow, that was a hell of a ride.

Early bird

I rolled out at about 4:15am from my place in Macleod and hit the dark suburban streets. Hardly any traffic around and Saturday night’s drunks were either too slow to react as I flew by or their aim was so bad they couldn’t hit me. I was halfway along the Warby Trail before the sun came up behind Mt Donna Buang. Beautiful pink sunrise as I rolled along in the morning air, chasing rabbits back into their holes.

Got to the official start location at Warburton and met Scott who’d opted to drive there. Quick break while he kitted up and then we were off up Mt Donna Buang Rd. I’d only ever descended that road before so it was a good to finally climb it. We chatted and span our way up to Cement Creek where we turned off onto Acheron Way which has jumped immediately into my top five roads to ride. Big old growth forest, dirt road for the first 10km or so, a nice enjoyable grade, wunderbar.

Acheron Way

It wasn’t raining but the road was wet and the mud was really sucky in places (as in sucking on our tires) and I took it easy on my 30mm slicks, squirming around all over the place. Good DDCX practice! The paved part of Acheron Way was great too. A nice gentle downhill all the way to Marysville Rd. Almost no traffic, just rolling no-hands for kilometre after kilometre. Awesome.

After that chilled, mellow no-hands descent we emerged onto Marysville Road which kicks up into a 7.6% climb that saw me mashing and sweating while Scott shifted down and span away from me. Ouch! I was running SS 54” and was having to alternate sitting and climbing out of the saddle. Turns out it was a good warmup for what was to come.

Marysville

We rolled into Marysville and hit the newly rebuilt information centre where the nice lady inside filled our bidons and told us about the construction up at Lake Mountain. They’ve built a whole new building up there and are in the process of transferring the bistro from the old building to the new building so there were no shops or anything open up there. So, we figured we wouldn’t be hanging around at the top to drink coffee and pat each other on the back.

We rolled out pretty quick and by now it was pissing down pretty heavily. Ugh. I had a gillet but I decided to pack it away and just get wet. I figured I’d rather be wet and cool on the 20km climb than sweaty and hot inside my gilet. Not sure that was the best choice but the rain was drenching us anyway.

MASH

The hardest part of the climb to Lake Mountain is the first 4km which averages about 8%. I was mashing like an animal, climbing out of the saddle, trying to keep the pedals turning around and not fall over sideways while Scott shifted down and kept a steady cadence as he disappeared up the hill away from me. I had to stop for a breather halfway up the 8% part and catch my breath and wait for my heart rate to settle. Bastard hill on a single speed! Oh well, I bought the ticket, I had to take the ride.

The grade levelled out after a while and became much more enjoyable after the turn-off onto Lake Mountain Road. I took another little breather at the Lake Mountain Ski Resort entrance building just to get out of the rain and wind for a bit. It was then that I spotted two lyrebirds over in the bushes. Awesome! Lyrebirds are ace and I’d only ever seen a handful of them before in the wild.

On, on, I rolled and got stuck into the long climb up to the resort. It was still raining very heavily and was quite windy, especially towards the top where the tall gum trees gave way to smaller gnarly alpine scrub and you were much more exposed to the wind. Patches of icy snow started to appear in the bushes the higher we climbed - fortunately it wasn’t cold enough for any of that on the road. I hadn’t seen Scott for ages - we both just took it at our own pace. I knew that’s the only way I was going to get up it.

You is crazy

There was a bit of traffic on the road, mostly workers from the construction I thought, and the occasional posse of mudders in their 4wd get-stuck-mobiles. I got a couple of encouraging toots and thumbs-ups. They must have thought we were crazy riding up that mountain in the rain like that.

It was pretty tough going after 18km of solid climbing in the driving rain, looking ahead to see around the next bend - surely the top is just around the next bend! - only to see the road snaking around again and again, up and up and then a huge gust of wind hits you fair in the chest and stops you dead and you almost fall over sideways onto the road in a shivering wet heap.

I was hit by huge emotion as I came around the final bend and saw the resort building. Awesome.

Scott had just arrived a minute or two previous - he said the cold had got to him and slowed him right down as the climb wore on. Probably a bit of a food flat as well. As the information lady said, nothing was open up there so we took some quick photos and then headed straight back down to Marysville.

Express elevator to hell

Scott was much more confident going down than I was. He had fatter tires and V-brakes (while I had skinny tires and cantis) but I think he’s just a good confident descender. Me? I was shitscared and freezing cold, riding the brakes all the way down and constantly looking behind me to make sure I wasn’t about to be run over. It was still raining heavily and there was so much water on the road and coming off my front wheel into my face. I thought I was getting speed wobbles for a while, “Speed wobbles on this crazy wet descent? I’m not going fast enough surely?! Come on!” And then I realised it was just my arms shaking uncontrollably in the cold. Which led me to remember quite vividly the moment earlier that morning when I was at home pulling my arm warmers out of my bag and thinking, “Nah, it’s heaps warm, won’t need those.”

Scott was already warmed up in the bakery and had finished his vegie pastie by the time I rolled into Marysville, shivering uncontrollably. A bowl of hot chips and another quick chat to the information lady while she filled our bidons and we took off. The rain wasn’t going to stop and there were no alternative routes, shortcuts or bailout points. The only way to get back to Warburton was to ride our bike cycles back the way we came.

Get 'r done

The rain was still coming down. I was happy for the climb up out of Marysville just so I could get some blood flowing and try to generate some heat. The final descent down to Acheron Way was insane - there was so much water on the road, in the air and coming off the front tire into my face that it felt like my face was underwater. I gave up trying to blink away the water as it streamed down into my eyes, I just kept them open and pretended I was at the pool.

The climb back up Acheron Way was awesome. Still raining heavily for most of it but there were patches where it eased off a bit. A little bit of mudder traffic again. We just kept rolling and, even though we were soaked to the skin, at least the gentle climb was keeping us warm. Pretty soon we’d finished the paved section and were onto the sucky mud section again - going up this time.

I hit a real good patch around here - mentally and physically - and was really enjoying the steady climb up through the mud and rain. Scott was having knee troubles and his fatter tires weren’t cutting through the mud so cleanly as my skinny ones so he was feeling it as we wound our way up the hill. And that’s when we started seeing the lyrebirds.

Liar liar

I don’t know what it was about that particular stretch of road. Maybe it was the rain, the fact that there was no traffic, maybe it’s mating season, maybe there was a secret convention of all the lyrebirds in Victoria? I don’t know what it was but we just kept seeing more and more lyrebirds. It was insane. They were like rabbits - you’d come round the corner and they’d be chilling on the side of the road, scratching around in the mud and then they’d see us and take off into the bushes. More often than not there’d be two of them together. Mating couples I guess? It was ridiculous - I counted over 20 of them. Sometimes they’d run along the side of the road a bit before ducking into the bushes. Sometimes they’d be on one side of the road, safe in the bushes, and then they’d see us and panic and run right in front of us to get to the bushes on the other side of the road. Like rabbits they were! It was awesome!

We pushed on up through the mud and rain and eventually popped out at Cement Creek again - halfway up Mt Donna Buang. The original plan was to climb up to the summit of Donna Buang but we both agreed we’d had enough rainy climbing for the day and decided to head straight back down to Warburton. I think the rain had stopped by now and it was a much nicer descent - about 8km straight down to Warburton where Scott had parked his car.

Home trail

Scott loaded up the car and we chatted for a few minutes, took a couple of photos. The amount of mud on my bike and all the way up my back was ridiculous. Scott was Mr Clean by comparison - full fenders kept a lot of the mud off his body and bike. Very impressive.

We said our goodbyes and I rolled out on the Warby Trail. In a nice moment of symmetry that book-ended the day neatly for me, the sun began to set as I rolled along the trail and I fired up the Ay-ups again. Nice. I’d seen the sun rise in the morning and now I was seeing the sun set in the evening, all while rolling along the Warby Trail.

The phone started ringing about now and ETA’s were discussed with home base. I felt like I could keep riding all the way home but that’d mean missing dinner and putting Max to bed so I decided to opt for a pickup at Montrose and then home for fish’n’chips, beer and play times with the little man. About 245km for the day.

What did we learn from all this?

I learned so much from this ride but the main thing I learned was about food. While I was planning this ride I’d looked at the distance I wanted to cover, the hills, the gear I was going to use and the number of hours in a day and I realised “I’m not going to have time to stop at shops and buy stuff and sit down and eat lunch and drink coffee like I usually do.” So, I decided to use a handlebar bag and fill it with all the food I’d need for the whole day. So, the only reason I’d have to stop would be fill up my bidons and empty my bladder. Turns out this plan worked amazingly well.

I can’t eat muesli bars and gu all day - I’ve learned from experience that I need variety in my food - sweet, salty, fatty, spicy, bland - if I’m going to feel like eating it. You can buy the most perfectly balanced, scientifically designed, pro-cyclist endorsed energy bars that you can find but if you get sick of eating them halfway through your ride then they’re just dead weight that’ll only make you bonk faster. The best food for a long ride is the food that you can still eat and enjoy after 12 hours in the saddle.

So, here’s what was in my food bag :

6 x slice margherita pizza (ordered the night before from local pizza shop)
1 x spaghetti bolognese wrap (yes, just spagbol shoved into a flatbread wrap)
1 x ham and mustard sandwich (all sandwiches on white bread)
1 x nutella sandwich
1 x honey sandwich
1 x choc-chip bagel (bagel from glicks)
1 x sesame seed bagel w/tuna paste (bagel from glicks)

2 x apple
2 x banana
2 x box sultanas

2 x uncle toby’s chewy apricot muesli bars
1 x packet of chocolate-covered sesame snaps
1 x lolly bag w/party mix and added licorice (which i didn’t actually touch on the ride!)
1 x snickers

4 x gu gels (espresso love flavour for double caffeine)

I ate from this bag steadily for about 14 hours, still had heaps of energy to keep riding and, what’s more, I was still enjoying the food I pulled out of it. In fact, I wanted to keep riding so I could keep eating because there was still some pizza and lollies left at the end of the day.

Job done

And that’s that. Another fun ride - loved the early start, loved the distance, loved the climbing, loved how much I learned, it was all good.

Thanks Scott for coming and for just getting it done despite the weather, hills and mud.

>> Click here for more photos <<

Toolangi Hills

2011-02-16T14:14:00.000+11:00

Visiting : Buttermans Tk, Yarra Glen, Toolangi State Forest, Kinglake
Distance : ~140km
When : Sunday 6th March, 9:30am @ Hurstbridge Train Station
Where : Click here for route map

This is a hilly one. We'll see 2000+ metres of climbing as we hit a couple of spots that have been on my todo list for ages.

We'll start out of Hurstbridge (NOT Fed Square, woohoo!) and head straight to Buttermans Track which will take us up and over to Yarra Glen. From there we'll hit Long Gully Road on up to the town of Toolangi for a refuel. Then it's time to get amongst the big boys - straight into the Toolangi State Forest for a long climb around Mt Tanglefoot before dropping down to follow the Murrundindi River up to Glenburn. We'll fuel up at Glenburn and then take Kinglake from behind before coasting back down to Hurstbridge with a salt-crusted grimace and a thousand yard stare.

Bring your climbing legs, this one's going to hurt.

(Note: If you're catching the train to the start, get on the 8:12 from Flinders St. I'll get that train but I'll jump on at Macleod.)

The full story
Well that was an interesting ride for all the wrong reasons.

Traino

Met Tom on the train out to Hurstbridge. Hung around until 9:30 at the station and it looked like there were no other takers so we rolled out. It was a nice sunny day as we rolled through Panton Hill and on past Smiths Gully. Just past Smiths Gully we hit the first dirt of the day... literally.

...and sometimes the hill bombs you

We flew down Spanish Gully Road - which I've ridden before only a couple of weeks ago - and I took way too much speed into the final corner and, as I was clamping down hard on both brakes and feeling the rear squirming all over the shop and skipping over big ruts and rocks I had plenty of time to think, "Oh well, looks like I'm going down."

The road turned but I kept going straight until my front wheel dived down into the big ditch on the side and I beefed it hard. I took a solid hit to the side and back and took a bit of bark off my forearms but - due to cat-like reflexes I'm sure - neither my head nor hands touched the ground. Yay. I caught my breath for a bit, washed the gravel out of my arms and started tending to my bike. Twisted the bars back in line and after a bit of adrenaline-addled problem-solving, twisted one brake pad back into shape and it was good to go. Gotta love a solid singlespeed build.

Buttermans

We rolled on and hit Buttermans Track, which is awesome. I noticed Tom was dropping behind a little and suspected something may be not right. We were both out of the saddle and cranking our bikes from side to side on the last climb(s) up to Skyline Road and Tom called out a reading from his Garmin, "22 percent!". Bastards. Mercifully, a car came along and we had to get out of the middle of the road onto the side where it was too loose to maintain traction and we both got off and started walking. Lucky us.

The climb was steep but short and pretty soon we got to Skyline Road and the awesome view over the Yarra Valley. Tom revealed that his guts were playing up and he was feeling vomit-sick so we decided to roll down to Yarra Glen, have a break and see if he came good.

Refuel and reroute

Coffee, food, lots of motorbikes and Sunday tourists. We refuelled and looked at our options. Tom decided to roll on towards Healesville and then, at the turn-off where we headed north and started the big climb of the day, he'd see if he was feeling any better and make the call whether or not to continue.

It was nice rolling hills out to the turn-off at Long Gully Road. Beautiful sunny day; a little too much traffic for my liking but that was a small complaint really. But, no matter how nice the weather, no matter how nice the countryside, no matter how good the riding, you're not going to enjoy it if you guts are ruined and you feel like spewing. Tom wasn't feeling any better so he grudgingly decided to keep going to Healesville and then take Maroondah Hwy back to the train at Lilydale. Bummer.

Signs lie

I jokingly pointed out the "No through road" sign on Long Gully Road just before we parted ways. "Don't believe everything you read", I was thinking, and with faith in Mr Google And His Amazing Map Of The World, I pushed on into the unknown. The road pitched up, the trees closed in on either side and the road surface got looser and more unkempt. Nice. This is what I like.

And then the road went through a gate and ended at someone's house.

Bastards! I'd been googled again. Fortunately I didn't have to backtrack very far to get to the main road up to Toolangi. Unfortunately, I was now forced to ride on the main road up to Toolangi. I spend hours on Google Maps and street-directory.com.au and looking at wiki pages of tiny country towns and scouring "street view" to double-check that roads actually do exist where the maps say they do precisely so I can avoid riding on main roads. This is "There Will Be Dirt" not "There Will Be Main Roads".

In the thick of it

Anyway, the main road up to Toolangi was actually a really nice gentle climb through some beautiful tall ferny forest. Fantastic. About a brazillion dudes on motorbikes and in four wheel drives thought exactly the same thing and they were all out there "sharing" the road with me as I climbed up to Toolangi. One passenger in a four wheel drive yelled out as they went flying past my elbow "I hope you f**king don't get hit!" Well, I thought I heard the "don't". As I crested the hill into Toolangi I saw a couple of kids stopped on the side of the road with their big road (motor) bikes - one of them upright, the other laying down on it's side on the shoulder. Another vehicle had already stopped and a cop car pulled up just as I was passing. Dickheads racing up and down the hill, 4wders with big "Remington" stickers chasing their mates into the bush to get bogged together and winch each other out, sketchy tourists crawling along behind me holding up traffic in their family cars too scared to pass by even when I'm waving them through and have moved so far off the road that I'm getting slapped in the face by fern trees and almost falling down the hill. Gah!

I filled up water at Toolangi and rolled on to the entrance to the Toolangi State Forest. Finally. This was the good bit. This was what we'd set off that morning to ride. And I'm happy to report that it did not disappoint. Big trees. Big hills. Even the gravel on the road was big! And, apart from the odd 4wd flying by in a cloud of dust and noise, it was empty of people.

Yessssss.

Bush at last

Big, big, old, old forest. Unidentified birds and animals making noises in the trees. Things moving in the undergrowth. Bugs screeching. Birds cawing. Lizards scurrying. Clear, eucalyptus air. Take a deep breath... ahhhh, that's the nature.

It was a nice steady climb on a wide, well-kept gravelly road winding up and up Mt Tanglefoot. The road didn't go to the top of the mountain, it climbed to about 900 metres before diving back down the other side to Murrindindi River. From the highest point on the road, a small overgrown walking track snaked up another 100 metres or so to the summit of the mountain. I'd marked that highest point on the road on my trail notes and took a breather when I reached it.

I looked at the time and decided not to push on down the other side to Murrindindi River. Time was running out and if I back-tracked my steps to Toolangi I'd bypass about 20km of unknown terrain. I didn't want to be too late home and my back was starting to bother me too. Previously it hadn't hurt to ride but now, as I got more miles under my belt - and climbing miles at that - the big hit I took on my back from when I tried to attack Spanish Gully Road with my torso was making its presence felt. Getting on and off the bike was painful and riding was becoming painful too.

So, I back-tracked down to Toolangi - an awesome fast descent after that long climb - and kept rolling westwards on the main road to Kinglake. Damn it. On the main roads again.

Grumpy homer

More traffic. More tourists. More 4wds and motorbikes. I cranked out the k's and finally rolled into Kinglake from behind, but not the behind that I'd planned. Still, beggars can't be choosers and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad that it was pretty much all downhill from here to Hurstbridge. And so, downhill I went, on the main road from Kinglake to Hurstbridge.

I've never actually ridden that road before - I've done Humevale Road plenty of times but never done the main Kinglake climb up from St Andrews. It's so freaking narrow! Having seen it now on the way down, I'd love to climb it one day but, jeez, no wonder I hear tales of aggro between cars/motorbikes and cyclists on that road. Not so squeazy!

I took it very easy on the way down and rolled it gently all the way to Hurstbridge to wait for the train.

Always fun

What a day. Too many main roads, too much gravel rash and sick guts, too many google maps mistakes! In the end it was about 120km and 1900m of climbing with not nearly enough dirt. Was it worth it? My oath it was. If only for that 20km of awesome riding through Toolangi State Forest.

It was definitely worth it.

>> Click here for more photos <<

The Wombats That Ate Lancefield

2010-12-22T13:17:00.002+11:00

Visiting : Wildwood, Lancefield, Cherokee, Riddells Creek
Distance : ~180km
When : Sunday 9th January, 7am @ Fed Square
Where : Click here for route map

A long, cruisy (mostly) flat ride to start the new year. This one heads out north for a tour of some beautiful country roads and lanes in the shadow of Mt Macedon. Big views, big skies and big wombats will be the order of the day as we hit up Lancefield in search of long-extinct megafauna before paying a brief visit to the lower parts of Mt Macedon to check out some of the back roads and big trees in its foothills.

Not too much climbing and no singletrack on this one so it should be a pretty cruisy ride through some of my favourite country places.

The full story
That was a good solid ride - no wombats but plenty of other wildlife. Here's how it looked from my point of view :

Beach road of the west

Three of us rolled out roughly on time and chatted all the way to the airport. Good mix of bikes again - carbon roadie, steel singlespeed cx, 50's-era 650b "le mad max" psychotouriste. Sime hadn't seen kangaroos for ages so he was stoked by the huge mob in Gellibrand Hill NP just next to the airport - big ones, little ones, even joeys in the pouch. We rolled on to Wildwood Road and met heaps of cyclists coming the other way. Wildwood Road = Beach Road of the west.

Tweaker freaker

The wind was behind us and the weather was overcast - great riding weather. I was digging the few small tweaks I'd made just prior to this ride - 10mm longer stem and 10" higher gear. It felt like either the bike had grown or I'd shrunk. The longer stem stretched me out a bit and made all bar positions feel just right. I'd noticed recently that I'd been trying to reach forward past the bars so this small adjustment made the bike fit even better with what my body wanted to do. Incidentally, I saw Dr Dom for a fit last year and he said my fit was almost spot on as it was except for my stem was too short. Thanks Dom! I should have listened to you a year ago.

I was also really digging the slightly higher gear. I went up to 63" from 54" and I found it much less spinny on the flat. I was happy cruising along with two geared bikes and I don't think I slowed them down too much. I've been feeling like I'm constantly spinning out lately, pushing 54" on the street - never used to feel that way. I think it coincides with a change I've made to my form recently - I've started pedalling properly!

"Pedal in circles"

Riding exclusively fixed for so long I think my pedal stroke was square as hell and I was totally laming out on the dead spot. So, it's taken a few months of riding exclusively singlespeed for me to realise that if you apply pressure to the pedals throughout the whole stroke then you get more and smoother power to the wheel. Yay! I've finally learned how to pedal! So, despite the higher gearing, I felt great on the flats and also on the hills - just focussing on keeping it smooth and working the whole stroke and the bike feels so much more alive. That's the sort of performance improvement I like - upgrading the meat machine is not as easy as choosing a product from an online catalog but, in this case all it needed was a tiny, invisible change somewhere inside my skull and now I'm instantly faster, more efficient and better in bed. And all it cost was hours on (and off) the road, having fun riding. The words of the Cannibal still ring true :

"Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades", Eddy Merckx

Deep Creek runs deeeeep

And, getting back on topic, there were plenty of grades to get up on this ride. The country we were riding through was pretty much flat basalt plains. Flat, except for the deep, narrow valley carved out over thousands of years by the meandering Deep Creek. I knew we'd be crossing Deep Creek a couple of times (once on foot) but it turns out we crossed it no less than six times! And each time was a fast descent down into the valley followed by a short sharp climb to get up out of it again. The descent/climb up to Bulla? That's Deep Creek. The descent/climb near the start of Wildwood Road? Deep Creek. We basically rode upstream of it in a straight line and it kept meandering back and forth across our path so that we were going down and up, down and up. It was rad!

Except it wasn't so rad for Sime's roadie. He was running 28s and tweaked the pressure down for comfort on the rocky roads but, there's always a trade off, and he pinch-flatted on one of the fast descents. Tristram and I were on fatter bags so we were able to fly down in relative comfort - I expected Sime to be close behind us but as minutes ticked by I started to fear the worst. If you get caught in a wide section of corrugations sometimes it's impossible to get out and you just have to hang on and hope for the best. Sime flatted halfway through one of those sections and had to ride it out on the rim - yow! I bottomed out a couple of times throughout the day, nothing too bad, and Tristram was running 42mm Hetres so he probably didn't even notice the bumps.

Lancefield lunch

We pushed on north and the Deep Creek valley was threatening to bring the bonk upon us. A bit of food sharing and map checking and we kept it ticking over until we reached Lancefield, the halfway point, and sat down for a feed. Good food, reasonable coffee and questionable art in a cafe/gallery did the trick and we turned around and headed back south, on the way home, straight into the wind.

It was slow going but we were fueled up and in good spirits. Still plenty of chatter and laughs among the group. We rolled past an alpaca farm at one point and saw a tiny alpaca that was still so wobbly on its young legs that it was almost being blown over by the wind. A bit further up the road we saw a fox that was just doing it all wrong. We startled him as we rolled by and he started running up the side of the road in the bushes in front of us. He kept pace with us for about 30 metres before running directly across the road about two metres in front of my wheel and then finally took off sideways into the bushes for cover. Dude! You're totally going to get hit by a car if you keep acting like that!

Go with the flow

Pretty soon we reached the foothills of Mt Macedon. A bit of climbing on paved roads and we stopped at Kerrie for a breather and a choice. We could either follow the planned route up a gnarly dirt road that I knew from experience led to a very steep and very rocky descent, or we could turn down the hill now onto what looked like a fast flowing paved descent. Time was running out, I wanted to get home in time to put Max to bed, and I didn't want to put Sime's roadie through more hell than it already had been so we all agreed to save that dirt road gnarliness for next time. Good decision - the paved descent was a ripper - it just kept going down, flat, down, flat, down and we were flying along in full tuck position as fast as we dared. Felt awesome after grinding along dirt roads into the wind for so long.

Take it home

A quick stop at Riddells Creek and we decided to keep it paved for the remainder of the ride so we hit Riddell Road to Sunbury. We were still pushing into the wind but we were making good time, pulling turns and making a tight little group. Sunbury came and went and then the last crossing of Deep Creek was upon us - the climb up to Bulla. Damn that climb to hell! I'd been up it twice before and had to walk both times. Sime told stories of how he'd flown down the descent brakeless, at night, after riding all the way from Echuca. Tristram hadn't ridden it before but was fading towards the end of the day and because we'd been building up this killer climb so much, said straight out he was just going to walk it. Well, it turns out that, due to radness, we all got up it without walking. Ha! In your face Deep Creek Valley!

From Bulla it's a short ride to the airport and, from there, it's suburban streets all the way to the city. Tristram peeled off home at Moonee Ponds and Sime and I rolled on to Fed Square to close the loop. Despite the course corrections we still finished with 180km under our belts.

>> Click here for more photos <<

Come And Try

2010-11-19T16:33:00.002+11:00

Visiting : Mt Dandenong, Silvan Dam
Distance : ~70km
When : Sunday 19th December, 10am @ Fed Square
Where : Click here for route map

A nice cruisy one to finish off the year. If you've been wanting to check out these rides but were turned off by the distance and/or early start time, this one's for you. It's relatively short, it starts at a reasonable hour and it still hits some awesome terrain.

We'll head out east on Canterbury Road and then hit Basin-Olinda Road for the first (dirt) climb of the day. Then it's past the amazing Woolrich Lookout before bombing down through the national park to Silvan Dam. We'll take Olinda Creek Road back up to Kalorama and then cut across the front face of the mountain before closing the loop at the Basin roundabout.

Depending on who turns up and how everyone's feeling we can bail out on the train at Boronia or keep riding back to the city. Cruisy fun to farewell another year of TWBD.

A strange sight

Great turnout for this one - 12 of us rolled out of Fed Square at 10:15am and hit the boring part out to the suburbs. Weather was fine and the pace was a little higher than usual as we rolled two abreast and chatted our way out east.

A good spread of bikes this time - roadie, MTB, CX (both geared and SS), tourer, street fixed, 50's era fat-tired 650b "le mad max" cyclotouriste - we must have looked like a pretty weird peleton but, to paraphrase the great uni-balled one, it really isn't about the bike - we were out to ride, not make sense.

We got to the Basin roundabout in reasonable time and hit the shops for fuel. The old dunny block has been bulldozed but there's a fancy new one just up the road - "Oo-la-la, don't forget to wash your hands Shakespeare!"

First dirt climb of the day

Fuelled up, we hit the Basin-Olinda Road climb. Nice hard-packed dirt road - enough moisture in it to keep it tacky but not enough to make it slick and sucky. Excellent. We strung out on the climb and each went our own pace, forming little groups and chatting on the way up. Such a beautiful part of the world.

We regrouped at the top and hung out in the park waiting for the back-markers. A young couple were at the other picnic table while their dogs were running around all over the place chasing a ball. The little staffy was playing keepings-off the kelpie and then I grabbed the ball and threw it for them and the kelpie kept bringing it right back to me. Hehe, good pups.

When everyone had had a good rest we pushed on up the hill to Olinda proper, got through the tourist trap main street and pretty soon we were fanging down a dirt road to Woolrich Lookout.

Look out!

Woolrich Lookout is awesome. It looks out across the back of Mt Dandenong towards Mt Donna Buang etc. to the north and east. There's a big car park, benches and a rotunda that looks down and out across the RJ Hamer Arboretum (tree garden) and down across the national park towards Silvan Dam, though you can't actually see the dam from there. We stopped and took in the view, which wasn't much because it was pretty cloudy. We hadn't been rained on yet but it had been overcast all morning. A few of us took photos and I think one or two put on rain jackets at this point because there was a chill in the air and we were at the top of Silvan Road ready for the fast descent down to the dam.

Looking north across the back of Mt Dandenong there was plenty of low cloud in the trees and also the unmistakable dark vertical streaks of a big slab of rain coming down not far away. I noted that it was moving on a collision course with us and saw a faint rainbow in its depths - awww pretty. And so we rolled out, bone dry and in good spirits, looking forward to the long dirt road descent we'd worked so hard for.

Express elevator to hell

First it was fast and pretty dry, I let the bike go faster and faster, just a few nervous touches of the brakes when approaching the corners. I was happy to let it roll as fast as it wanted to as long as I could see a clear, car-less runout on the corners. My only real concern was pinch-flatting on the corrugations - I was running 35mm knobbies at 35/40psi which is great for smoothing out gravel-sized stuff but when you hit a long section of deep, hard corrugations at high speed you just have to hang on and hope that you don't bash the rims too hard. Yow!

So, flying down the hill, scanning for loose patches, trying to pick lines through corrugated corners and then... spot, spot, spot, there's that rain! Everything started getting darker the further down into the national park we went and pretty soon we were flying headlong into the storm that we'd seen up from the lookout.

Going down!

Bam! One minute it was relatively dry, the next we were soaked to the skin, dodging puddles and watching out for slick clay on the corners. There was lightning in the trees. And then we hit the hail. And then the hail hit us! Yow! I was in shorts and short sleeves and it was stinging like a bastard. There was nothing to do but laugh out loud and keep bombing down, down to the bottom. We rolled on until the descent petered out and stopped to regroup. The hail gave way to heavy rain and, one by one, the rest of the group came sloshing down the hill, absolutely soaked.

Finally we were all accounted for and we took off to find shelter at Silvan Dam and work out what to do next.

Dunny rats

That one descent had turned us into a miserable looking bunch. All huddled together in the doorway of the public toilets shivering and dripping water everywhere, half of us in short sleeves, shaking with the cold but still joking. Spirits were still high but I'm sure people were thinking, "This is not what I signed up for!" One minute we were on top of the world, the next we were in damage control mode and when the option of a bailout to Lilydale station was floated, there wasn't much in the way of resistance.

Bail out

So, the plan was to take the aqueduct trail, join up with Warby trail and take that straight to Lilydale station. Allegedly, the aqueduct trail was "all flat" but, as we discovered, it's not. It was still pissing down heavily and we were bashing through the sodden trails, slipping around all over the place, a few hill walk-downs and and walk-ups and some navigational discussions and we pushed on and on through the bush, completely soaked, thoroughly covered in mud and loving every minute of it.

Well, I was anyway.

Though it was bloody cold.

We strung out a bit here and lost touch with each other. Some of us were hanging at the back of the group to make sure everyone was accounted for and confusion occurred and we (the back-markers) ended up overtaking everyone and getting to Lilydale first. A few phone calls and we discovered the rest of the group had stopped at Cog Cafe in Mt Evelyn and was sitting around drinking coffee - bastardos!

Outta east

Anyway, eventually we all regrouped at Lilydale station and packed our filthy bikes and selves onto the train. The whole back half of the rear carriage was just mud and bikes and wet dog smell and laughs all the way back to the city.

And, in a nice outer-eastern suburbs moment that topped off the day nicely for me, a drunk old coot gets on at one of the stations, squeezes past our heap of muddy, filthy bikes and says in a bleary-eyed ocker drawl, "Where have you lot been? There's shit all over your bikes and now there's f**kin' shit all over me!"

Thanks everyone who turned up, I hope you all had fun despite the weather. I guess for a "Come and try" ride it really was a good introduction to TWBD - I always put a lot of planning into these rides but somehow they never quite go exactly to plan and that's what makes them fun, I think.

Oh well, beats Beach Road any day.

Volcanoes of Prehistory

2010-10-24T15:52:00.003+11:00

Visiting : Werribee Gorge, Brisbane Ranges NP, You Yangs
Distance : ~224km
When : Sunday 7th November, 7am @ Fed Square
Where : Click here for route map

Time to head out west into the Werribee Plain and beyond where it's not about lush, muddy old-growth forest, it's all ancient geology, gorges, volcanoes and granite outcrops clawing up to the burning sky from beneath antediluvian lava seas.

It's a straight shot out west to Bacchus Marsh and then we'll hit Werribee Gorge and continue on up by the train line before visiting the infamous Mt Wallace (going down!). Then we'll double back and do a top-to-bottom tour of the Brisbane Ranges National Park for more volcanic landscape under the food-hungry eyes of wedge-tailed eagles and peregrine falcons.

Turning back east for home we'll cane it across the plains with the wind at our back and go straight up and over the You Yangs for some tasty singletrack action before rolling on to Werribee and hooking onto the Federation Trail for a flat and fetid return to the Big Smoke.

This is a long ride but mostly dead flat with only a couple of significant climbs around the gorges. Lots of dirt road and lots of sandy, gravelly loose rocky terrain. I'm considering gearing a little higher for this one due to the looong flat sections.

Boundary Road

Tom and I rolled out at 7:15 and headed straight out west to Boundary Road which was about 20km of dead flat, dead straight road. It started off as a major truck route - two lanes going each way - servicing all the factories, distribution centres and warehouses in Laverton North. We were shielded from the wind by the huge warehouses on either side but at each cross street we were blasted sideways when our cover temporarily disappeared.

And then suddenly the big buildings stopped, Boundary road turned to a single lane of gravel and we got the full force of the cross-wind belting us sideways as we zig-zagged across the loose gravel trying to find a nice line through the potholes and trying not to get blown over into a patch of sandy soft stuff.

Low pressure system

I stopped to let some air out of my tires around here - front down to 25psi, rear down to 30psi. Blakey turned me on to the likes of Jan Heine recently and I was eager to test Jan's "supple, wide tires at low pressure" theory. Ok, so 40c Schwalbe Marathons are hardly supple or light but they were the best I could do at short notice. Of course, they're way too fat for my Steamroller so I did a quick frame-swap and built up my Crosscheck around the Marathons.

40c Marathons weigh 720gm. Each. That's without tubes. They're freakin heavy. So, I got my head into "bus" mode and prepared to enjoy the heavy yet comfortable ride that these fat bags would offer. And, I've gotta say they worked out pretty good. At 25/30psi I was floating over the gravel road like it was smooth. The tires were soaking up all that high frequency chatter and jarring that my body would otherwise have absorbed - and over 200km that's a lot of energy that didn't enter my body.

No resistance

Rolling resistance? Previously I'd always thought the higher the pressure the less rolling resistance. Some say yes but contend that the sweet spot where the benefits of higher pressure meet the drawbacks of too high a pressure is actually quite a lot lower than we're led to believe. Too high a pressure and the tire is so rigid that it transmits all the surface irregularities directly through the bike and into your body - and absorbing that energy in your body means you get tired quicker, yeah?

And anyway, we were riding on very mixed terrain, from smooth paved road to rocky trails, and on singlespeed bikes, so it's not like we were missing out on a bunch of high-end speed. Comfort is king on these rides so I took the weight penalty, enjoyed the comfortable ride and let the engine work as hard as it needed to. Did it work harder because of the extra weight and (possibly) increased rolling resistance? Or did it work easier because of the smoother ride and less energy being wasted absorbing surface noise? Who knows for sure but I can say, subjectively, that I didn't feel penalised by the weight and I did feel super smooth on the rough stuff so I'll give these solid snakes the thumbs up for now.

Of course, the real enemy of the day was the wind.

Blow it out your ass

The forecast was for a gusty 50km/h norwesterly and we ended up copping it big time. We had crosswinds of varying degrees all the way to Mt Cottrell - a big old volcano and popular stolen car dumping point it turns out - and then just after we crossed the Werribee River we took the wind right in the face for the long slog up to Bacchus Marsh.

Boring, boring road miles. Dead flat roads. No cover from the wind. Mentally draining.

We fuelled up at Bacchus Marsh and rolled on for the first climb of the day - a short sharp wheezer up the side of the Werribee Gorge where we met the train line which we'd follow all the way to Ballan. Sweet dirt roads up there and plenty of visibility for miles around - wunderbar - but we were still pushing northwest straight into that wind. All the energy of the morning had melted away in the wind and sun and we were into the mid-stage miles already - only 70km out and still heading directly away from home into that relentless gale.

Into my hypercube

Lots of time to think up there - not much talking between Tom and I - the wind made it hard to hear each other anyway. I felt loneliness.

Faaark, this ride is too long. We're knackered already and still heading away from home. We'll never make it. I'm going to be too late to put Max into bed. So far away from home and still pushing further and further away. Even the wind is trying to push me back home but I'm fighting against it to get away. Why can't I just go home? Just keep going. Always keep going. There's Ballan, stop talking to yourself. Ok.

Ballin'

We got to Ballan and sat down outside a takeaway place for a good feed and a rest. The local rascal kids hassled us about our bikes and kept asking Tom where we'd come from and where we were going and how fast could we go and how much are the potato cakes etc. etc. We fueled up and rolled out and suddenly it was a completely different ride. We turned south and found ourselves freewheeling downhill with the wind at our backs. Man did that feel good.

From grimacing into the wind all morning, hunched down trying to make ourselves small as we grovelled out into the unknown, to sitting up tall with the wind pushing hard on our backs, averaging 35km/h while barely turning the pedals and, for me, mentally at least, very much on our way home.

Lost in a forest

We rolled an easy 20km to our turnoff (decided to skip the Mt Wallace downhill and get straight to the dirt) and pretty soon we were in the Brisbane Ranges National Park and deep in the scrubby dry bush on wide well-made dirt roads. Nice. This was what we'd come out here for - dirt roads deep in the bush - Tom pointed out it was not unlike Disappointment State Forest which we'd visited a few months ago. Rolling hills, awesome views glimpsed between the trees, strange birds, dragonflies everywhere and so much scrubby, wildflowery, rocky bush.

We fanged it on a nice downhill towards the Little River Picnic Area and it got quite rocky and technical in places. I was loving the speed and lofting big bunny hops over the worst of it but one section was too big and my low psi strategy almost bit me in the arse as I bottomed out big time on the rocks - both rims took a beating and god knows how I didn't pinch flat. Grins all round as we chilled at the picnic area for a while and watched the dragonflies and the drudgery of the windy morning was far behind us. Yeah, it was worth it to come all this way - of course it was!

You dirty switch

We pushed on and found the road going up and down now. Steep pinches and switchbacks (ah, that's why it's called Switch Road) to test the legs, tire traction and Tom's new Garmin machine. I don't know if I trusted the elevation readings it was giving but I do know we were both close to the redline and covered in sweat and dust.

Tom smashed a gu around this point and I kept digging in the food pockets for sustenance and we did some maths to see if Tom could make it to the You Yangs on his remaining water or if we should take a small detour to Anakie to refuel. We decided to push on and suddenly the national park ended, just like that. And there we were on a major road with a nice wide shoulder and fast, fast descent down off the ranges. Nice.

So, on on to the You Yangs. Down on the flat again and heading in a mostly easterly direction. The wind was still angry but I think it was starting to swing around east. It was a mostly downhill run too so it felt fast and good. The unmistakable silhouette of the You Yangs drew closer and closer while dark clouds threatened overhead.

Big sky

We stopped for a breather on the side of Granite Road, surrounded by wheat fields, just two small dots in the middle of the vast plains. And we looked around and realised that, due to the flatness, we could see pretty much the route we'd taken since that morning - the big loop from Bacchus Marsh, up next to the gorge and on over the hill to Ballan, then right down the long line of the ranges and then off them to where we stood now.

We were eager to get to water so we rolled on and the road down to the You Yangs main entrance seemed to go on forever. Finally we arrived and sat down for a rest and refuel at the water tap. We both scrounged for food in our pockets and drank our fill and, annoyingly, sneezed and snorted and scratched our histamental eyes. Gah! The hayfever had hit us hard on that last leg - I don't know what it was that triggered us off but it was wreaking havoc. It was pretty much as bad as the hayfever gets for me, which is pretty mellow actually, it's annoying but not debilitating. Tom, on the other hand, was having major trouble with his eyes and I can only imagine how it must have felt.

Track!

We rolled on and, though we were both hanging to get to the singletrack earlier in the morning - it was as if the You Yangs was our final destination or something, we just had to make it to the You Yangs - well, now we were both too knackered to care so we stayed on Great Circle Drive and took it all the way up to the top and only then did we get onto the number 1 n00b trail and roll it easily down to the Drysdale Road carpark. We waved and called out to all the mountain bikers we saw but, with 150km in the legs already, we were too far gone to hang around for extreme offroad action.

Another quick refuel at the carpark and Tom asked how far it was to Little River v-line train station. I don't think I fully grasped how bad his eyes were. He'd been suffering in silence for hours and now his eyes were swollen blood red and his vision was failing. We rolled on down the country roads and pretty soon we arrived at Little River. We decided to check the train timetable and, if there was a train coming soon, we'd wait for it, otherwise we'd keep pushing on to Werribee and catch the suburban train back to town. Turns out there was a train coming soon so we decided to wait for it. We turned off our motors, rested our bones on the platform and I started nodding off at one point while we waited for the train to take us back to civilisation.

V-Line riding

We chatted idly on the way back and the surly conductor sold us tickets. Tom's eyes were still very scary to look at but nothing permanent I'm assured. He reckons it could have been "thunderstorm asthma" that hit us both - it did get stormy on that leg to the You Yangs and the wind had been kicking all day so there would have been a buttload of allergens up there in the sky. So maybe it was the storms that dumped a hell-bucket of itchy powder on us as we rode along unsuspectingly through the fields.

Who knows.

All I know is that we each did close to 200km for the day, my hastily-built Crosscheck performed like a champ on its maiden voyage despite no chain lube, slightly rubbing brakes (bloody cantis!) and mangled bar tape (i ran out of time, sue me!) and now we both have strong, strong memories of our time out in the windy west.

>> Click here for more photos <<

Yea Spur

2010-09-23T13:10:00.003+10:00

Visiting : Humevale, Kinglake NP, Break O Day, Yea Spur
Distance : ~195km
When : Sunday 17th October, 7am @ Fed Square
Where : Click here for route map

This is a nice tour of the hills between Kinglake and Yea. We'll start off with the Humevale climb and then bomb down through Kinglake National Park before hitting Break O Day Road. Then it's up Junction Hill and out onto Yea Spur - should be great views from up there. On the way back we'll go back roads down to Kinglake NP again and climb up a different way than we came down. Then it's up to how we feel - Hildebrand/Mine down to Hurstbridge? Keep going to the city or bail out on the train?

Lots of km's in this one and we should see some beautiful country hidden away off the main roads.

The full story
Well that one had a lot more cow poo than usual.

Up to Pheasant Creek

Weather was great for riding when we set out - cool and cloudy. It stayed like that all day with the occasional sunny break and the odd misty rain shower. I carried my gillet around all day for nothing - bah!

The four of us chatted our way up Plenty Road and ogled Jeremy's new ride. This was its first proper outing - hell of a way to christen it.

Ridge Road was the first dirt of the day and rad as usual. Humevale Road was the first climb of the day and we chatted and spun our way up and on to Pheasant Creek Bakery for a feed. We were about 70km in already but, in my mind, the ride was just beginning. We fueled up, filled our bidons and camelbaks and headed off down through some awesome foresty roads before hitting Kinglake National Park proper.

Captains Creek Road

We took Captains Creek Road down through the national park and it was wicked. Pretty much all downhill on gnarly 4wd terrain. Road was nice and wide but badly rutted and eroded in places. There were plenty of clay sections that were slick and slippery and off camber. Definitely had to keep your wits about you if you didn't want to slip off and end up on your back. This would be a great road to include in a ride from/to Hurstbridge Station if you wanted to see some quality terrain without taking all day.

So, we came out the other side and found our way to Melba Highway for a few kays before ducking onto Break O Day Road. No water or food for the next 50-60kms. (i really need to make sure I post more warning about long sections without water)

Gimme a break

Break O Day Road was pretty drab. We were all into the mid-point of ride where the enthusiasm of the morning dips a little, you're starting to feel the ride in your legs and you're faced with 12km of headwind on a moderately trafficked boring road (boring compared to the bomb down through the national park anyway). We just ground out the kays silently and eventually hit Whittlesea-Yea Road where we had a nice sit-down and fed our faces.

About a hundred kays in at this point and we were at the base of Junction Hill - the second climb of the day. Spirits were a little low but I tried to perk everyone up by reminding them (and myself) that we were just about to get to the fun bit! Yea Spur is what we came to see and spurs means climbs. So, off we went up the hill.

Up to the spur

Honestly it was a lot easier than I remembered. I'd only ever ridden around these parts on ~70" fixed so hitting the same hills with ~54" and a freewheel was luxury! Which is not to say it was easy - we were all sweating when we finally crested Junction Hill and found our little turn-off onto Yea Spur Road. Which was the beginning of the aforementioned fun bit.

Awesome views from up there - we rode right out along the spur and the further we went, the further out into the distance we could see. Down towards Yea - the line of hills on the horizon near Ghin Ghin where my father-in-law goes fishing, back over the other way to Mt Disappointment and around the other way again to the alps way in the distance past Eildon.

I thought the spur road was going to be pretty flat but it turns out it was a real rollercoaster of short sharp dips. There was lots of grunting, swearing and a little walking at this point but we soldiered on towards a trig point up on the hill in the distance. I love trig points - they're irresistible.

Busted!

We rolled through an open gate and on up the hill but we barely got 50 metres before something came bolting out from behind a tree and rushed HMC. A sheep! What the hell?! We all stopped and it happily ran around to each of us and sniffed our bikes and asked for pats. We figured the little rascal must have been a pet - it looked clean, shorn not so long ago and hadn't had its tail docked. The owners must have left the tail on so it could pretend it was a dog. It followed us up the hill a ways and we hiked up the last part to the trig point.

Awesome views from up there. Trig points are designed to be seen for miles around so they always command great views. We chilled for a bit and then started heading down. Bit of trail confusion around here because the roads were unnamed but google got us through. We switchbacked our way down from the spur and soon we were down in the valley looking back up at where we just were. I wonder if the sheepy was looking down at us?

Down in the valley

The cockies in the valley were all screeching out at each other "Bikes! Bikes! Hey there's frickin' bikes!" and the cows along the fenceline ran away and scared their friends as we rolled by. Easy riding now and we were back on well signed roads. Nik and HMC were getting low on water though and we started considering bailout options that would take us to somewhere we could fill up. We worked out an alternative route - all on well-marked roads - and off we went up the road next to Ti Tree Creek.

And then we were in the middle of someone's farm.

Fubar

The road disappeared and we arsed around for ages checking google maps and then backtracking and trying to reconcile google's reality - the relatively major looking Ti Tree Creek Road - with what we saw all around us, which was paddocks full of angry cows crisscrossed by barely discernible ute tracks that all led to fences, gates, wide irrigation channels and mud, lots of green mud.

We finally got through to where we had to be but it was a debacle getting there. Jeremy and I shared around water from our camelbaks but now we were both out too. We were covered in mud and crap, Jeremy's chain snapped, the herd of cows whose home paddock we were riding through were making a hell of a racket that was echoing through the whole valley and I was just waiting for a ute to come flying around the corner with an angry farmer wondering what the hell was happening to his stock.

Knee deep

I was pinning all my hopes on moving forward - we had to find Margett's Road. The alternative was to backtrack all the way back to Whittlesea-Yea Road and then climb up the other side of Junction Hill which unlike the side we'd climbed earlier, was about 7-8% and, speaking for myself, would have done me serious mental harm - turning back would have felt like a failure and finding Margett's Road would have felt like a victory after all that cow-bound chaos and god knows our morale needed a boost. I was feeling bad that I'd got us into such a pastoral situation - I mean, something always goes wrong on these rides but just not usually so spectacularly. To their credit, the guys all soldiered on and, if they were feeling low, they did a good job of hiding it and just getting on with the task at hand. Especially HMC. We were all hiking it up a steep rocky track out of the cow paddocks and he was bringing up the rear and calling out gradient readings from his new garmin "21%! ... 24%!!!" and then the next thing I know he's got back on the bike and is overtaking me, bent over double and cranking it up the hill. Dude, wtf?!

Often on these rides there are "No through road" signs but they usually mean, like, no family cars because it turns into 4wd terrain or it goes into a national park walking track or something. Either way, it's still fine for bikes. But not this time. I can now categorically say that, despite what both google maps and street-directory.com.au say (i always double-check questionable sections before the ride) - that Ti Tree Creek Road is very much a 100%, for realsies, No Through Road.

Break on through

So, eventually we hiked and climbed and jumped and cranked our way up to Margett's Road and pretty soon we hooked up with Whittlesea-Yea Road right on top of Junction Hill. Which we proceeded to bomb all the way down to Flowerdale. We were all parched by now so we raided the primary school and drank our fill from the bubblers. At last! HMC had said earlier that he felt like he had the legs to keep going on the original route but his water wouldn't last - it was a wise move to back off and seek an alternative route. It doesn't matter how good your legs are feeling, if you run out of water it's only a matter of time before you crash hard. On this day, I'd say we got to those primary school bubblers just in time - no harsh words were said and we all perked up as we filled our bidons and shared around our remaining food.

We rolled on to Hazeldene (past the Flowerdale Hotel where I could quite happily have stopped in for a pint or three) and luckily the shop was still open. We stumbled around and grabbed chips, lollies, Big Ms and whatnot and pulled up some chairs outside to refuel for real and plan our next move.

The end

Light was running out and, though we were energised by the food and drink (and general confidence of having an actual road to follow) we were all pretty beat and after doing the maths Jeremy and I called in for evac. Plan was to finish our food and then start riding up to Kinglake West and get picked up along the way wherever our paths crossed. We started rolling out of Hazeldene and made pretty good time actually - a belly full of mixed lollies can do wonders. We reached the 70km/h sign which signals the start of the climb up to Kinglake West and still no sign of either of our lifts. On we went, grinding up the hill, fully at the business end of the ride, just getting it done - a top effort all round. We paused at the top of the climb just before Kinglake West and HMC said that his garmin machine reckoned we'd done 2500m of climbing for the day.

It felt like it.

No sooner had we started rolling again when my ride turned up and I made hasty goodbyes before chucking my bike on the roof and heading back home just in time to give Max a feed and put him to bed.

Thanks Nik, HMC and Jeremy for making it an awesome ride. This one could have turned a lot darker than it did so thanks for being cool even when we were knee deep in cow dung with no water and no road to follow. To paraphrase Val Kilmer, "You can be my wingmen any time!"

>> Click here for more photos <<

Swollen Dinner Bag

2010-08-23T13:03:00.004+10:00

Visiting : Mt Dandenong, Mt Donna Buang, Toolangi, Kinglake
Distance : ~210km
When : Sunday 12th September, 7am @ Fed Square
Where : Click here for route map

This is a big ride - I want to cram as much as possible into one day. We'll see Basin-Olinda Rd climb, Silvan Road descent to the dam, Don Rd and then Donna Buang climb (weather permitting), Long Gully up to Toolangi, on up to Kinglake and then Bald Spur, Hildebrand, Mine Rd before cutting down to Hurstbridge and then 'burbs all the way back into the city.

A lot of distance and a lot of climbing - we'll be racing against nightfall from the very start and it's highly likely we won't finish it all in time. It'll be kinda like a naughty dog trying to scoff a whole birthday cake from the kitchen counter when you go out of the room for two minutes.

Except the dog has wheels, the cake is made of dirt and two minutes is more like twelve hours.

The full story
Just me at Fed Square - I rolled out about ten past seven, picked up Tom around Canterbury and we got the boring suburban part out of the way quick. Quick dunny break at the Basin roundabout (why are the dunnies locked there now? geez!) and then up Basin-Olinda Road for the first dirt of the day.

Up to Olinda

The road surface was awesome - it looked like all the gravel had been washed away by the rain and there was only slick, hard-packed grey mud in its place. It sucked at the tires a little in places but overall it was smoother and faster than the nearby 1:20 and a lot less crowded. Having said that though, we did pass a couple of small groups on mountain bikes spinning their way up and chatting. Tom was loving the climb and when we regrouped at the top we both agreed that 2:1 is the money gear for these sort of rides. A beautiful climb to start the day and a great warmup before the real climb to come.

Olinda was still waking up when we rolled through and pretty soon we were at Woolrich Lookout, erm, looking out over the hills to Mt Donna Buang. Beautiful clear day - could see for miles - I love that place. From there it was down Silvan Road through the arboretum and state forest to the dam - all dirt, all downhill, all rad. Road was in good nick apart from a few badly corrugated corners. No big deal though, just hang on, stay loose, let your arms and legs absorb the bumps and bunny hop anything that looks too gnarly.

A top ride

I've gotta say, the combination of Basin-Olinda Road up and then Silvan Road down the other side is a dead set winner of a ride. The old-growth bush is just awesome - the roads are dirt but in great condition for going fast - you'll only ever see a handful of cars and rarely any other cyclists - it's just a beautiful, beautiful part of the world. Do yourself a favour and check it out - it's easy to link to train stations (boronia, lilydale) if you don't fancy a long one too.

Right, enough preaching.

War Burton Trail

We hit rolling roads up to the Warby trail next. Nice riding but watch out for Inspector Rex on the corner of McKillop and Hunter in Wandin. I think he must have smelled the bagels in Tom's jersey pocket - he came bolting after us, teeth gnashing, and almost took Tom's leg off. Lucky we were heading down the hill away from him and not up it towards him.

Warby trail was uneventful and peopled by the usual punters out exercising on their bikecycles, including one oldster who came straight at us on the wrong side of the track and didn't flinch until Tom stopped dead right in front of him. That part of the trail is dead straight and dead flat - apparently the old codger had engaged the cruise control on his velocimocycle and thought that it would automatically give way to oncoming traffic for him. Nice.

Quick stop at Woori Yallock bakery for a feed and then it was onto Don Road for about 26km of nonstop climbing. Woo!

Dong Road

Ok, it wasn't totally nonstop climbing but that was the gist of it. Don Road goes pretty steadily up for about 11km before you reach the turnoff to Mt Donna Buang Road which is the start of the real climb. Tom was off the front for most of Don Road - except for when he dropped back to keep on asking "How far to the turnoff?" I didn't know how far but I did know that the low point in the treeline way up ahead was Panton Gap which is where the turnoff is. So, we just kept cranking and putting more and more metres below us until we were in the gap. Once again, 2:1 is the money melon - I was doing it mostly seated, just standing up on the pedals every now and then to stretch the legs. It was a lot easier than the last time I did that climb on about 70 inches.

The good stuff

We stopped at the gate for a breather before starting the real climb - Mt Donna Buang Road. The road's closed over the snow season so no cars have been up there for months. The first part of it is wide and paved - it had leaves and twigs and whatnot all over it but I thought it didn't look as bad as last year. Pretty soon the paved section ended and it was dirt from then on and, yeah, it probably was as bad as last year. There were some freaking huge trees down over the road. In one place a couple of trees had all come down together and we had to climb and scramble and manhandle our bikes through about 15 metres of slippery trunks and branches and leaves. Fortunately that was the worst of it - mostly it was just single trunks over the road - good excuse for a breather while you lift the bike over and then resume the climb.

I found it a lot easier going than last year (2:1, money melon etc.) and got a good rhythm going despite the branches and puddles and random wheel-sucking soft sections. Tom was probably doing it harder on his slicks - at least I had knobbies to help keep the power going where it should. We leapfrogged each other all the way up to Ben Cairn which is where the climb levels off somewhat. Each going at our own pace - having little breaks to climb over tree trunks and stretch out the back - sitting, standing, sitting, standing - looking down on Mount Dandenong, across Don Valley, across the suburbs and all the way to the city. Fark, there's no way my camera could capture it but the view from up there back to the city is just awesome. And the sounds - wind, waterfalls, scurrying things in the bushes, so many birds, strange birds that I had no idea of what they looked like - in both sight and sound it truly feels like a place that has yet to feel the slap of the human hand. We cuffed its ear, to be sure, but gently, gently.

On top of the world

And then the flowery prose ended as we hit the main road again and did the last brutal kilometre up to the summit. Ugh. It's all paved, a huge highway of a road but bloody steep. And that was that - summit summited. Very cold and windy up there - clouds were rolling in so the view from the top of the tower was very limited. No real snow to be seen - just a few chunks of icy sludge on the side of the road. The rain and warm temperatures must have made short work of it. There was still a steady stream of tourists coming and going though, including a big family who were having a barbecue up there. Dudes! It's freezing, take the kids to Warby or something instead!

We hung around for a bit at the top - ate some food - stretched our legs - got ready for the descent. Going down was more fun than I thought it would be. We went down the same way we came up and it's surprising how the gnarly, puddly, tree-ridden obstacle course of a road seems so much clearer when you're fanging down it at 40km/h with your eyes like saucers watching for sticks and holes and your shoulders screaming from the bumps and the death-grip you've got on the brakes which you're feathering the whole way down. Dangerous fun.

Bomber

No dramas on the way down to Panton Gap and then it was Don Road down to Healesville. Now that was fun - it was normal paved road so it felt great to let go of the brakes after that sketchy dirt road descent and just let it go as fast as it wanted to. Yeah!

We stopped in at Healesville for a feed. Apparently the brewery doesn't do food any more so Tom went to the bakery next door and I settled for liquid food - White Rabbit dark ale - nice. And here's where we did the maths and decided to bail out on the rest of the ride. Bummer. We were way behind schedule if we wanted to to do the whole ride before dark and, to be honest, my legs were feeling it and it would have been slow going if we continued up to Kinglake. I guess I based my calculations on flat kilometres, not heinously hilly ones - the two climbs brought our average speed waaaay down. So anyway, we hit Maroondah Highway and rolled it into Lilydale just in time to jump on a waiting train.

And that was that.

Was it a good ride? Yeah, it was alright.

Bullshit, it was a bloody ripper!

>> Click here for more photos <<

Disappointment Hills

2010-07-16T09:25:00.004+10:00

Visiting : Humevale, Hazeldene, Mt Disappointment State Forest
Distance : ~175km
When : Sunday 8th August, 7am @ Fed Square
Where : Click here for route map

Heading north again this time. Humevale Rd to start the day and then it's down the other side to Hazeldene before cutting across Mt Disappointment State Forest to Wallan. Some good climbs in this section - might even check out Strath Creek Falls if the legs are up to it. After Wallan, Old Sydney Rd will take us homeways in the best way - on rollers made of dirt.

I'll be running a freewheel for this one - time to enjoy some descents!

So we followed the route as planned, all of us finished it and we didn't have to walk any sections. Was that really a TWBD ride?!

Lucky star

It was dark when I left home and the sky was full of stars - very clear, crisp morning - I saw a shooting star - good omen? Tom and HMC were waiting for me at Fed Square.

Plenty Road was boring as usual but when we reached Ridge Road we got a taste of the awesome views we'd see throughout the day. The sky was crystal clear - while enjoying a quick natural break I could see out east from Ridge Road to Mt Dandenong, Mt Donna Buang, Mt St Leonards - all with the lush green hills of Arthurs Creek in the foreground. Wunderbar.

Ridge Road was awesome - it follows the perimeter of the Yan Yean reservoir - a well-made dirt road with rolling hills. Can't remember seeing a single car through there. Did see some roos though. Just a shame that Melbourne Water has fenced up so much of the land round there - bastardos!

Humevale

Humevale Road climb was good fun - we chatted and spun all the way up - Tom was beginning to have a good day and was really stoked on his choice of 2:1 gear ratio. Coincidentally, I was running 2:1 as well and I gotta say it worked a treat. Low enough to climb well but not granny gear low. And freewheel for the downhills of course. I think it's a winning setup - you could cover a lot of varied terrain with that gearing.

As we topped the Humevale climb I started feeling soft in the rear and by the time we got to Kinglake West I was flat. I then commenced the slowest tube change in history while Tom and HMC chatted with an older roadie bloke on an expensive looking Colnago. While I was fumbling around with tubes and tires, the roadie bloke was checking out our one-speed bikes and telling stories about some crazy guy who used to ride a track bike on the Hell Ride (No points for guessing who he was talking about!)

I made sure to buy a few things at the store at Kinglake West - it's still operating out of a little portable shack thing since the original got burned in the fires.

Down to the climb

So, flat fixed, we headed down, down to Hazeldene. Nice descent but there was a stiff northerly blowing in our faces which slowed us down a bit. We overshot our turnoff and had to backtrack a bit - turns out it's called Flowerdale Road on all the maps but it's called Forest Road in real life. Thanks internet machine!

Anyways, it wasn't much of a diversion and pretty soon we were back on track and climbing up from the valley at about 12%. It was a well-made dirt road, beautiful green regrowth everywhere - something seemed to happen inside Tom around here and he just took off up the hill like an animal. I sat in at my own pace - getting out the saddle every now and then to stay loose. HMC was running gears so he cranked it right down and found a comfortable rhythm. We wound up and up and eventually got to the top - awesome view of the valley below - we could see way down to the main road we'd just turned off. Fantastic.

God's country

And then we had about 40km of beautiful riding. Nice wide smooth dirt road through rolling hills with tall trees on all sides, all burned and covered in lush green regrowth. It was magic. The uphills were never long enough to cause too much pain and the downhills were as fast and safe as you could want for a dirt road. We each found our own pace and cranked along just enjoying the solitude and tranquility of the bush. Just an awesome place to ride.

Tom was having a blinder and was way off the front for most of this section - I've never seen him ride so strong. HMC and I kept it ticking over and we regrouped every now and then at the top of climbs or at questionable intersections. At one point we came across a junction of five trails with only half of them signed. We all had a guess at which was the right way and we were all wrong! Lucky there was mobile reception and Mister Google saved us from a costly mistake.

The further west we travelled, the more activity we came across. First it was the occasional 4WD, then dirt bikers and the odd gunshot. Everyone I came across was nice and polite - returned my wave, slowed down when passing, one 4WD even stopped and waited around the corner when they saw me screaming down to the hairpin they were about to enter. Everyone must have been too stoked on the awesome bush to bother with being aggro.

The pot of gold

And then we got our reward - an awesome uninterrupted view of the city. It was an unbelievably clear day - we could see boats in the bay, we could even clearly see the line of Red Hill/Arthurs Seat way down on the Mornington Peninsula. Tracking west from the city we saw the You Yangs and further west, Mt Macedon, clear as crystal. I took some photos but, yeah, you really had to be there. Ironically, Mt Disappointment was so named by Hume and Hovell when they climbed it and looked back down hoping to see Westernport Bay and were disappointed with the crappy view they got. We sure as hell weren't disappointed, that's all I know.

Down to the valley

We soaked up the view for a while and then hit the descent down to Wallan. The last part of Lords Road is stupidly steep and the road is rutted and gnarly as hell. I didn't enjoy it at all and really need to make my brakes work better - fortunately any road that steep can't be too long - we were only coming down from ~600m or so after all. So we came off the mountain, got chased by a happy dog, bossed around by girls on horses and then we hit the main roads over to Wallan for a much needed feed.

At this point it looked like we might run out daylight so we finished our food and got onto Old Sydney Road with that stiff northerly at our backs. I love that road. On the left you've got wide green plains and the Hume Fwy far in the distance - on the right you've got Mt Macedon on the horizon, with the sun setting behind it.

All good things

It always feels special to me up on that road - looking down at the freeway and all the cars moving along silently into the city. It's so quiet up there and you feel so removed from the noise and pularver of civilization but you know the road takes you directly back into the machine and that, soon enough, you'll be bouncing along on the busted shoulder with angry busses flying by your elbows.

Ah, I've just placed it - it's the same feeling you get when it's the last day of a two week snow trip and you're sitting up somewhere high on the mountain just trying to soak it all up and thinking, "Faaark that was awesome." And then you crank your bindings one last time and push off into the fading light for the very last run of the season.

And then some bogan in a ute flies by at 120km/h and you realise you're not that far away from it after all. Oh well. Tom had previously made some grumblings about catching the train at Craigieburn but, despite the rolling terrain, he came to his senses and we all stuck it out all the way to Fed Square.

What a ride.

And, somehow, we all felt like we could have just kept going - in fact we all rode home so it was over 200km for the three of us that day.

Thanks Tom and HMC!

>> Click here for more photos <<

Kinglake via alt route

2010-06-14T16:32:00.005+10:00

Visiting : Darebin Ck Trails, Blue Lake, back roads to Kinglake
Distance : ~140km
When : Sunday 11th July, 7am @ Fed Square
Where : Click here for route map

Some nice challenging terrain on this one. A bit of Yarra Trails to start the day and then up Darebin Creek to Latrobe Uni, finding as much sneaky singletrack as possible. From there it's a short hop through suburbia to Blue Lake for some gnarly technical hills - hope you're not afraid of heights! A quick spin up Greensy Hwy and then we hit the country roads all the way up to Kinglake West. Lots of hills, lots of dirt roads, beautiful farmland as far as the eye can see and plenty of animals to spy on the way - the scenery around this area is awesome - just don't forget to look up every now and then on the short sharp climbs and sketchy loose descents.

Cadel grew up around these parts in his MTB years and look what happened to him - riding these hills will make you a goddam world champion!

Suburban trails

It was a beautiful morning for it - didn't get rained on once and the only time the wind really came into play was when it pushed Tom and I home along Plenty Rd.

Dirty Deeds #2 is going to be a cracker - a lot of quality CX terrain in Darebin Parklands - just pray that they don't include the stairs! Trust me on this one!

Blue Lake

We made good time out to Plenty Gorge Park and I was bummed to see that the new housing estate at University Hill has encroached even more on the park. There's a big mob of roos that hangs out on the grassy plain there - the construction and fences and roads are getting closer and closer - soon there won't be any plains, just McMansions and Commodores.

We made our way over to Blue Lake - the creek was pretty high so I think we all got our feet wet when we crossed it. We took what I called the "hard way" over to the lake - precarious singletrack along the face of the gorge - skinny, loose, rocky, off-camber and a long way down if you fall. I remembered it being a lot harder last time - this time it was all fun and ridable (except for one big rock) and over too quickly

We skirted the lake and did a big loop that brought us back to the same creek crossing as before - I was last in line to cross and got impatient so I thought I'd execute an overtaking maneuver by splashing through the water next to the crossing. Pro tip: It's a _lot_ deeper than it looks!

The mountain bike fun was over soon enough and we popped out onto suburban roads again. I dunno where my head was but I bombed down a hill (brakeless) with a roundabout at the bottom thinking that I'd blast straight through the roundabout and keep going. Except it was a t-intersection and there was no "straight through". I shat myself and started frantically trying to backpedal and get rid of the speed I was carrying so I could make the 90 degree corner - I *almost* made it but there was just too much speed so I ended up (somehow) hopping the curb and riding it out on the nature strip. I think we all thought I was going down for sure. A big "WTF?" to me for that one.

Rolling hills

Quick break at the servo and then we hit the rolling hills out towards the big climb. A bit of walking through here for me. Oh, and lots of map checking - I need a better navigation system than stopping at each corner, taking the piece of paper out of my pocket and looking up the next turnoff. Sorry guys!

Lots of beautiful countryside through here - suicidal kangaroos, an alleged echidna sighting, and all under clear blue skies.

We hit the fire-damaged area soon enough and that changed the tone a bit. Rolled up to Strathewen which is still being rebuilt. Understandably, back-road signage is probably not high on the list of priorities right now - or maybe my it was my dodgy navigation, anyway, we ended up on the wrong side of the power lines and found ourselves climbing up Bowden Spur Rd instead of Beale Ave. No matter, they both end up at the top. We stretched out up the hill - Scooter way in the lead, Reuben and Nik in the middle and Tom and I bringing up the rear.

Awesome views from this road. Could see all the way back to the city, where we started. That kinda put the distance into perspective - the city looked so far away - no wonder we could feel it in our legs.

Reached the top

Finally crested the hill, regrouped and rolled on to Pheasant Creek Bakery for a well-earned rest. Scooter kept saying how he wanted to do the descent down Bowden Spur Rd and then head across to Eltham where it was "all flat". When this dubious claim was challenged, he mentioned something about MC Escher and laughed. I was knackered and brakeless so I was definitely sticking to the plan of Humevale Rd then Plenty Rd tailwind all the way home - Tom agreed. Nik and Reuben fell under Scooter's spell and so the group split at Pheasant Creek and we pushed on.

Recovery

Tom and I got halfway down Humevale Rd when we met Brendan's "recovery ride" coming up the other way. Ha! Small world. We had a quick chat in the middle of the road, went our seperate ways and then hooked up again at the servo in Whittlesea. Good chats ensued and Tom and I tagged along Plenty Rd with the group until they turned off for more rollers.

Plenty Rd was plenty fast - the wind was behind us and we span it in - pretty soon we were getting buzzed by Commodores and cursing the suburbs. We got to Latrobe Uni which is right near my place so I decided to pull the pin and get back to wife and son while Tom jumped back on the Darebin Creek trail.

And that was that.

Thanks all who expressed interest and all who turned up. Right, I'm off to find a good deal on a freewheel...

>> Click here for more photos <<

Dandenong Rangers

2010-04-05T08:40:00.004+10:00

Visiting : Mt Dandenong, Silvan Dam, Sherbrooke, Lysterfield
Distance : ~120km
When : Sunday 11th April, 7am @ Fed Square
Where : Click here for route map

Again, lots of climbing and lots of dirt on this one. We'll head up the front face of Mt Dandenong and then link a bunch of good spots on the other side including Silvan Dam, Sherbrooke Forest, Micawber Tavern and then straight across to Lysterfield Lake Park and on through Churchill National Park before hitting the Princes home.

Beautiful old forests, plenty of dirt (i'll be running knobbies for this one) and stunning views. Why do yet another boring 1:20 repeat with the roadies when you could come scurrying through the bush like a little wombat with me instead?

Wet start

It started pissing down just after I left for Fed Square at 6:00. If that rain - and the wind - kept up I was thinking it was going to be a long day. Honestly didn't expect anyone to be waiting for me at Fed Square but when I got there I found Tom eager to get going.

We got the boring bit out of the way quick - Canterbury Road to Eastlink then Dandenong Creek Trail all the way to the end. We passed a rail underpass that was flooded out and it had a big whirlpool in the middle of it. Must have been draining out into a stormwater drain like a bath emptying out a plug hole. Wouldn't want to let your dog swim in there!

Up the mountain

Got to the end of the bike track and we were at the foot of Mt Dandenong. Fed some friendly horses and then started traversing the base of the mountain looking for the start of our trail proper. The road started going straight up so we got off and walked - just ahead of us there was another cyclist walking his bike up the hill - except he had full downhill kit on - pads and armour and full-face helmet - and the DH machine he was pushing was basically a motorbike without an engine. Yeah, that should have been a hint as to what sort of bike was appropriate for the terrain we were about to encounter.

We found our trail and started heading up through Doongalla Forest. Most of it was unridable - lots of walking - both uphill and downhill - punctuated by small flat and not-so-deadly downhill sections. We were bouncing down one steep and gnarly section and I was putting on pretty heavy back-pressure and doing little skips to try and keep it in check when PANG! the chain let go and I started accelerating down the hill. Fortunately I was way over to the uphill side of the trail so I just steered into the embankment and drove it into the ground - which was nice and soft with leaf litter and mud so I came out of it with only a few scratches. Lucky me.

Fortunately no damage to bike and the chain was fine too - it felt like it snapped but evidently it just dropped. Chain back on and we continued our walk uphill/bomb downhill/walk uphill/bomb downhill routine until we popped out onto the tourist road at Kalorama.

Down to Silvan

It was pretty cold and it had started raining again. Felt a bit grim actually. So we hit the tourist road for a few hundred metres and then found the turnoff that was going to take us to Silvan Dam. A reasonable sized section was downhill and ridable - and heaps of fun after so much walking - but pretty soon the trail just went straight down beneath us and we were walking again, trying not to fall over our own feet.

Hit the bottom pretty quick and then we were following Olinda Creek up to the dam. (We had a quick look for "The Evil" but I couldn't find the exact spot - it's been 20 years now, maybe it's all overgrown? Maybe it's better that way...) Nice and ridable up to the dam wall where we filled our bidons and sat down for a bit.

Sweet arboretum

The next section was actually good riding - gravel road from Silvan Dam all the way up to the lookout in RJ Hamer Arboretum. It was a nice long steady climb on a well-maintained gravel road through some awesome scenery - "arboretum" must be latin for "forest full of cool old trees". This took us to the highest point on our ride - Woolrich Lookout. Fantastic view of Mt Donna Buang to the east, Mt St Leonards to the north and a whole bunch of beautiful country in between. Apparently the Morris Car Club was enjoying the scenery too - the carpark was full of vintage Morries.

After a quick rest we pushed on up to the main road... and couldn't find our trail. Oh well, we found a small detour on my google maps printouts and headed for that. Hacketts Road. The mentalist road I've seen.

Hacketts Road

So it starts off as a gnarly, rutted gravel road. At the top there's signs saying "4wd only", "No turning beyond this point" and a 30% downhill gradient sign. Yes, 30%. A bit further down there's a big sign nailed to a tree - half of it was ripped off but it didn't take much effort to fill in the blanks :

"STOP! READ THIS! This section of the road is no longer maintained by the council. It is extremely slippery and dangerous when wet. If you choose to ignore this sign, do not ask the neighbours for help. You've been warned!"

And then, just a bit further down from that, just to drive the point home, there were bits of blue and white police tape and bright yellow tape with "DANGER" written on it tied to the trees on either side of the road - obviously the tape was strung across the road not so long ago.

And, the best part, there were driveways and houses all the way down this road. Madness!

Needless to say, we stumbled down it on foot and almost fell over our own feet and bikes. I thought Breakneck Road was a killer - Hacketts Road is a frickin' madman.

Through to Lysty

Just down the road we stopped at Kallista for lunch. We were going to stop at the Kallista Tea Rooms but there was a King Charles Spaniel out the front and I swear he glared at me.

Quick stop at Grants Picnic Ground to see the cockies and then on down the road... the wrong way. We went straight down to Belgrave instead of doing a big loop around Sherbrooke Forest. We looked at the map, looked at the time and decided we'd rather spend more time at Lysterfield anyway and so we bombed a couple hills through Belgrave and cut through to a trail that led us to Dargon Track and into Lysterfield proper.

It's amazing how one minute you're in big old growth forest in Sherbrooke and the next minute you're in scrubby, grassy Lysterfield. Maybe the stark difference in flora is why they always seemed so far away from each other - it was kinda cool to link them together in one ride and see that they're actually almost side-by-side.

Fast singletrack at last

Lysterfield was awesome - it was good to get on a decent stretch of fast, ridable terrain at last. There were plenty of miles already in the legs but we were stoked to be on some nice singletrack and that kept us going. A few mud puddles about but it was all in pretty good nick despite the recent rain. I had fun bashing my pedals over the logs - and then bottling out and planting a foot over the taller ones - I keep thinking I should just spend a day doing nothing but log repeats until I grow some balls - gotta work out how to set the pedals just right on the approach so I don't slam a crank and launch myself.

Feeling the day's efforts when we rolled into Trailmix for coffee and a sit-down. So stoked to have made it that far. We decided to head out to Hallam North exit, get on the road for a bit and then dive into the Police Paddocks across from Churchill Park main gate. From there we hooked up with Dandenong Creek Trail again and it was easy rolling. Back on the flat at last.

Bike track rolling

Neither of us could be arsed going all the way back to Fed Square so we kept rolling on the bike track. Came across a few flooded underpasses which we rolled right through - pffft, it's only water! Except the last one we hit was well over a foot deep - hehe, the soles of my feet looked like wrinkly gristle when I got home.

Tom took off at Boronia Road and I kept going on Eastlink Trail and reached Bulleen Road just as the sun went down.

And that was that

All in all, it was a great day. A little too much walking but we saw some cool stuff and spent an awesome day riding in the bush with only the animals watching. Sunrise to sunset, and nothing left in the tank at the end.

Perfect.

>> Click here for more photos <<

Mt Macedon Madness

2009-12-31T08:51:00.005+11:00

Visiting : Wildwood Road, Mt Macedon, Woodend
Distance : ~182km
When : Sunday 21st February, 6am @ Fed Square
Where : Click here for route map

Lots of dirt, lots of climbing, lots of fun. Mt Macedon is big on size and big on scenery. This ride sums up what "There Will Be Dirt" is all about.

This is the first "unfinished business" ride. The first campaign on Mt Macedon was a corker but I ran out of daylight while still on the mountain and had to call for the sag wagon. For this second attempt I've trimmed some of the fat and added a more interesting final descent. Result: All killer, no filler.

The full story

Unfinished business, finished.

Just me on this one. Lots of drunks still staggering around at 6am at Fed Square, including one genius who came running at my bike and made to grab the handlebars as I sat on the steps beside it. I jumped up and started swearing and he took off, "Only joking mate!" His girlfriend then stopped and apologised and said they were from Ballarat so he wouldn't really have grabbed my bike but she could understand that I would think he might because we were in Melbourne, not Ballarat and she was really sorry.

Okaaay.

Back paddock action

Uneventful ride up to the airport. Had a bit of a goof around "the back paddock" area (adjacent to Gellibrand Hill Park) which I thought might be a good venue for some CX action. Looks like it's frequented by motorbikes and 4wds. Some nice steep little hills - there's a big quarry/landfill and a dam. It's all wide open red clay tracks torn up by erosion and dirt bikes. If you want to scramble up some boggy runups, slide out of control down some slippery slopes and get your bike and yourself very very muddy, go here in winter.

Said hi to the roos on the way through Gellibrand Hill Park and then onto Wildwood Rd. The promised northerly hadn't kicked in yet so it was easy riding. Wildwood is one of the popular roadie routes of the west and there were plenty of little bunches getting some miles in.

Over the bars

After Wildwood there's Websters Rd past the airfield. It's gravel - reasonable surface. It dipped down a little and I was fanging it before I saw the fresh dump of deep stuff on top. Gah! Started sliding around, shat myself and went over the bars. Hehehe, tucked and rolled so no skin lost. In hindsight I'm sure I could have ridden it out if I'd just hung on and not panicked. Maybe next time.

Got some food at Riddells Creek and then started the first climb up Sandy Creek Road.

Hiking is rad!

Ugh. I'd forgotten how much of that climb is unridable (for me). I hiked up until it levelled out a bit. The road surface has suffered since I was last there - the nice smooth sandy-ness had washed away and exposed the rocky, corrugated-ness beneath. It was a real boneshaker for a while - no way to absorb the bumps except with arms and legs and trying to find a good line. It was getting beautiful though. Last time I was there I was in thick cloud - visibility about 50-100 metres. Now I could catch glimpses of far off paddocks and even into the valleys below.

A short and fast descent down the other side got the heart rate going and then it was back onto blacktop all the way to Woodend.

Rocked up to the Holgate pub looking to have a commemorative ale in memory of the ill-fated Brewery Ride 2.0 but the bastard wasn't open yet. Gah! Oh well, got fed and had a sit down under a tree for a while to prepare for the big climb.

Up up

Straws Lane goes from Hanging Rock straight up Mt Macedon. Allegedly if you go to a certain spot on it and put your car in neutral YOUR CAR WILL ROLL UPHILL! What a magical and mysterious place! What a load of shite! It's just an optical illusion but there were car-loads of tourists stationary in the middle of the road, taking photos of each other, hanging out the windows, reversing down the hill, laughing and screaming at each other and having a grand old time. Meanwhile I'm mashing up the 10% gradient on either side of the stupid mysterious false flat and gasping for breath while trying to avoid running into their photo-taking arses.

Once you get to Mt Macedon Road it's all ridable to the top. There's a "10% gradient" sign on Straws Lane and one on Mt Macedon Road - I'm convinced one of them is wrong. Straws Lane is not ridable (by me) but Mt Macedon Road is a-ok. So I mashed it up to the War Memorial turnoff and then on, on. They've just resurfaced the road up there - the machines are still parked on the side of the road - so the surface is beautifully smooth. Nice.

Last time I was riding up that section it was blowing a gale, the mountain was completely shrouded in cloud and the light was fading. This time it was blue skies and the sun still high in the sky. What a difference a shorter route makes! (i knocked 40km off the original ride).

Walked the bike out to the Memorial Cross (respect - my grandfather died in ww2) and took in the fantastic view. And the cross is actually bright yellow! The light was so bad last time I remembered it as grey.

I sat under a tree for a while, bought some fuel from the tea-house and felt pretty pleased with myself that the rest of the ride was all downhill.

Down down

Down, down to Mt Macedon Road and then straight off onto Barringo Road - a dirt track with a "no through road" sign on it. I knew that meant only cars - it turned into a walking track and was going to take me straight to New Gisborne. Or so I thought.

I followed it down, down and was very careful to stay on track and then I came to a fork - one way went back uphill - one way had a big gate saying "Water catchment - Management vehicles only". In my experience, water catchments and reservoirs tend to be guarded like prisons - big serious fences with wire on top - they don't want dickheads like me riding their bikes through them. So I thought, "Well this can't be Barringo Road - I guess Barringo Road is the other way - it probably only goes uphill a little before heading down again."

Wrong.

Hiking is wicked!

The water catchment way was Barringo Road - the stupid uphill way I, for some reason, chose to take was actually "Hell's Hole Track".

It was unridable so I pushed up that. Then I was lost, of course, so I just found the first track which went down again and took that. Turns out that was the uninspiringly named "Link Track 2". Yay. Too steep to ride down - think Breakneck Road but more gnarly and about five times as long.

I should have brought hiking boots not tap-dancing shoes.

Upside is I saw some beautiful things. This is prime bush-walking territory - no vehicles been down there in ages - awesome views down into the valley - wildlife scurrying into the undergrowth and flying through the trees everywhere. Got some very nice photos. Just not a great place to go riding push-bikes is all.

Having said that, Barringo Road was all ridable and I'd be willing to get back up there to see if that "water catchment" sign really does end in impassable fences or if it continues all the way down to civilisation like it seems to on the map.

Anyways, I reached blacktop again and sniffed my way over to Mt Macedon Road, the southern side this time, and then fanged it roadways until I hit the Calder Fwy.

The northerly had picked up and I was feeling like a knob for getting lost in the bush so I thought "Screw it, let's ride", and I jumped on the Calder and span out with the wind all the way to Calder Park.

Calder Freeway

Refuelled at the servo just opposite Calder Park and heard the godawful racket of drag racing and saw the clouds of burnt rubber smoke come billowing over the road. Place is like something out of Mad Max. Red dirt, boiling sun, burning rubber and too much anger.

Actually, that's a bit too harsh - I'd been riding around all day and, recently, down a major freeway into the western suburbs and I hadn't been called a “fag” once. Bogans gotta lift their game.

So, not much more to report - got a flat just before the Calder ran out, courtesy of a staple. First time I've used my Topeak Micro Rocket and it worked like a charm. Don't believe the whinging reviews about how long it takes to get up to pressure. It's tiny - it fits in my saddle bag - it weighs nothing - it works a treat.

I got off the Calder at Keilor and sniffed my way back to Mt Alexander Road. Oh, and I hit a little girl's puppy on the bike track but only a little tap on the bum at about 5km/h. Little scamp ran right in front of me then stopped dead. And then it chased me as I rode off!

Job done

Rolled back in to Fed Square about 6:30. Worked out the actual distance when I got home and it was spot on 180km. Not far off the original estimate. So, I'm calling this one done. I'd go up and see the rest of Barringo Road but I'd choose a more ridable way up there.

>> Click here for more photos <<

Merrimu Loop

2009-12-02T13:54:00.009+11:00

Visiting : Woodlands, Merrimu, Bullengarook, Pyrete Range
Distance : ~170km
When : Monday 28th December, 6am @ Fed Square
Where : Click here for route map

Actually, I can't wait til next year. This one's a nice loop out of Merrimu with a decent climb and a fair bit of dirt through the Pyrete Range. Inspired by a ride posted on fyxomatosis a while back.

The full story

Well that was a hard day at the office but we all made it back in one piece and saw some beautiful country on the way.

Good start?

My preparation for this ride was bad - hadn't been riding for a couple weeks and was feeling pretty drained - I've been fighting some sort of bug and it was currently causing havoc with my guts. For the first (and hopefully last) time, I actually packed a spare pair of knicks - just in case!

nikcee and x-campbell were waiting at the start when I rolled up and then we took off. A short break while Campbell dealt with the first flat of the day and then it was off up Sydney Road.

Pretty uneventful run up to Gellibrand Hill Park for the first dirt of the day. Roos in the trees, planes taking off and landing just over at the airport, overcast but kinda muggy weather. We filled up on water and hit Sunbury road. It's generally flat as a tack round here except for when you hit a valley caused by a creek - then you bomb down it, cross the creek, and crank it up the other side. If my lungs weren't awake before, they were now.

Licensed to sell ammunition

The miles flew by - there was lots of chatting, straight flat roads - a few navigational issues in Diggers Rest - and pretty soon we were in Toolern Vale where we stopped for some food. Not much to the place really - just a general store and a some other weird shop with a funny-sounding dog behind the gate. The old guy in the general store looked pretty wary of us. Across the top of the door there was a sign "Licensed to sell ammunition". Ha!

On we pushed - next stop Merrimu Reservoir. Beautiful blue skies now so slapped some sunscreen on and we hit the big climb up Gisborne Road. Was a lot mellower than I thought it would be. I was feeling pretty average so I just cranked along at my own pace while Nick and Campbell took off ahead. Beautiful views on either side of the road but the view off to the left into Lerderderg State Park was spectacular. It was all thick bush and gnarly steep hills. You could hear dirt bikes fanging around the trails and there were plenty of cockies flying around laughing at us all.

The bad place

I actually had our route going down through all those gnarly trails but I was feeling pretty average at that point and knew that I really didn't have enough in the tank to take it on. I mentioned this to the guys when I caught up to them (waiting under a tree for me) and we decided to save this section for another day. A quick mental adjustment of the route and we pointed ourselves down the hill towards Gisborne where we stopped and found a bakery.

I was in a pretty dark place at this point - feeling very very drained. I really wanted to pull out here and tell the others to go on without me so I could curl up under a tree and sleep for a while. Gah!

But, I didn't say anything because I knew the feeling would pass. In my experience, if there's one thing that's certain on a long ride it's that no matter how you're feeling right now, eventually it'll change. Feeling great right now? Enjoy it while it lasts, because it'll change. Feeling crap right now? Stick it out, do the right things and it'll change. There's a quote by Winston Churchill that sums it up perfectly :

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

So, I set about doing the right things in Gisborne that would help me over this bad patch that I was in. Pretty simple really, I took on food (ham/cheese/tomato sandwich), took on water and soaked up every minute of rest off the bike as we sat in the bakery. That'd hopefully get me right physically. Then I took stock of the situation mentally. We were over halfway, that means we're on the way home already - good. I remembered from my maps that it's generally all downhill or flat on the way home - good. My two riding buddies looked as fresh as daisies and, class acts that they are, would probably continue to let me sit in behind them and get towed along - good. (Well, good, but not ideal, I felt like a moocher but I knew I didn't have it in me that day to pull turns.)

Never as bad as it seems

When I thought of all those things it started to seem manageable again. So we packed up our stuff and prepared to roll out of Gisborne. A quick poke around google maps (thanks again Nick!) and we'd planned out a nice alternative route that would take us across the front of Mt Macedon to Riddell's Creek and then via backroads across to Lancefield Road which shoots straight down to Sunbury. I remembered this area from a previous ride so I knew what was in store for us - nice views of Mt Macedon, quiet back roads and a nice dirt road section next to the railway tracks. Things were looking up.

We made good time towards Lancefield Road and we were so close we could hear the cars on it when Campbell's rear tire exploded. I was following right behind and copped a faceful of dust and fine gravel from the road while Nick copped it sideways on his legs. The sidewall was blown and there was a big tear in it. Brand new Gatorskin, 120psi on a rocky dirt road - should have been fine, right? Oh well, it was patched up soon enough. Nick had some pre-glued super patches and Campbell used one to patch the inside of the tire to hold the tear together. A new tube in, co2 to get it up to pressure and we were rolling again, fortunately on road from then on.

Cranking into the wind

The run down to Sunbury and then on to Bulla was where Campbell and Nick really shone. They pulled turns all the way and we were maintaining 30km/hr into a headwind. Honestly, I was just hanging on at this point - I knew that if I lost touch with the guys then they'd just disappear up the road without me. They would have waited for me of course, but I didn't want to be waited around for any more than was necessary so I hung on for dear life as we fanged it down Lancefield Road. Campbell was a machine along this section - and the booted tire was holding together perfectly.

We hit Bulla and went down into one of those creek valleys again - there was no way I was going to ride up the other side of it so I got off and walked. The guys were waiting up the top and we hit the servo for some cold drinks. I took Nick's lead and went the watered down coke option. Half a can of coke in each bidon and fill them both up with water - that juice kept me going all the way back to Fed Square.

On from Bulla we hit the airport and, a couple of navigational issues later, we were ticking off the suburbs as the city drew closer and closer. Feeling good now, cruising down Mt Alexander Road, plenty of traffic lights to stop at and and angry drivers to wave to. We rolled into the CBD soon enough and it was packed - public holiday crowd I guess. Felt very strange to be in such a throng of people and cars after coming in from the long empty roads of the country.

Job done

High fives all round when we reached Fed Square. Despite the change of route, we still did the advertised distance of about 172km. Thanks to Nick and Campbell for towing me all day and pretending that I didn't whinge. Top ride, top weather, top crew and there's still something out there for another day - that gnarly Lerderderg State Park section must be ridden. It's on the list...

>> Click here for more photos <<

All done for this year

2009-12-02T13:47:00.001+11:00

All done for this year. Next year's calendar is already chockers with more fun rides. For now, thanks go out to :

Andy - http://www.fyxomatosis.com - for inspiration
Dan - http://www.shifterbikes.com - inspiration and bike work
Dom - http://www.firstplaceosteopathy.com.au - bike fit/form
fixed.org.au forums - inspiration, education and moral support

Cheers,

Andrew